Cyclist makes it around the world in record 175 days - World - NZ Herald News: "LONDON - A British man has become the fastest person ever to cycle around the world, pedalling past the finish line in London's Hyde Park less than six months after he set off.
Sporting a shaggy red beard and a suntan, an exhausted James Bowthorpe was greeted by cheers from friends and family yesterday after an epic, 18,000-mile circumnavigation that has taken him through 20 countries in 175 days.
'I'm a bit tired,' said Mr Bowthorpe, 31, whose journey was sponsored by The Independent. 'It's been a long six months and I'm just finally relieved to be here - and glad that the world isn't any bigger because I couldn't have done it.'
Facing an attempted kidnapping in Iran, a bruising encounter with a wombat in Australia and a severe case of 'Delhi belly' in India that saw him lose a fifth of his body weight, Bowthorpe has clocked up an average of more than 100 miles a day, sometimes cycling twice that distance in his effort to bag the biggest prize in endurance cycling.
The cabinet maker from Balham in south London has taken 19 days off the record set last year by the Scottish cyclist Mark Beaumont. Speaking from Mexico, where he is taking on a new challenge, Beaumont called Mr Bowthorpe's achievement"
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