Congratulations to Amy Hudson and Kyle Hudson for setting the record for a 2x team for Circumnavigation of the Earth in these categories: 2x mixed team, 18-49 age-group, standard upright bikes.
This is also a new non-age group Guinness Record
On the 1st May 2026 we set off on the biggest adventure of our lives, returning home 123 days later after cycling 18,0018 miles, with fully loaded bikes, covering 20 countries, facing fears we never knew existed and becoming stronger together.
The first leg of the ride was through Europe; England, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkey. The first leg of our trip saw us set off from Sudbury stables in Staffordshire at 9.30am on the 1st May and make our way down to Portsmouth, where we’d catch the ferry over to Caen. We split the ride down to Portsmouth over 2 days to make the mileage more manageable with the later set off on the first day. When we docked in France feeling weary from the lack of sleep on the ferry, it felt like the ride had really started, we were now in a different country, we were doing it. The plan was to then average roughly around 160 miles a day as we headed through Belgium, Netherlands, Germany into the Czech Republic. All these countries made sure we had to work hard with what seemed like a never ending headwind. Eastern Germany brought some happiness as we had some rolling hills which actually gave us a bit of respite on our legs after the flat terrain we’d ridden so far. We did a long day cycling from Germany to Prague with idea of then making it easier to get out of the city the next morning. It felt tough with a lot of climbing and 4 punctures we finished at around 9pm and wandered around the streets of Prague after having showers, looking for somewhere to eat, not the recipe for a happy marriage at that point in time! The next day started off with sunshine and rolling hills but after lunch we could see the black clouds looming behind us, it soon turned out to be a huge thunderstorm which we rode in until we finished with lightening hitting the ground near us and over the hills. That was one of the wettest days we had. From there we entered into Hungary, where the rolling hills and pretty landscape took us by surprise, we enjoyed the scenery, sun on our faces and played music, it felt like we were on a holiday, but the ache in our legs reminded us of the enormity of the ride ahead. We knew the next day we’d head into Serbia and had been warned that farm and stray dogs commonly chased cyclists there, both of us felt nervous about what was to come. The border control took a little while but when we through we saw someone had written messages on the pavement and had even drawn Amy’s logo. Further down the road was a woman who now lived in the UK but was originally from Serbia who’d flown to see family but wanted to cheer us on. We managed around 60 miles before our first dog chase as we entered the first town. This then became a theme of Serbia which wouldn’t allow us to switch off. Southern Serbia was very scenic and on one night we stayed at cabin that had just been built and the owner was having a party which he encouraged us to join, but we were too tired for a late night! We then headed for Bulgaria in which the border crossing once again took and while and afterwards we had to climb a long, steep gravel road which was very tough, almost to the point of having to walk. We saw poverty first hand in one of the towns with children living in very poor conditions, they were happy and playing, they knew of nothing else but the life they had. It made us feel very grateful for what we have and put a solemn mood on the rest of the ride that day. Once again towards the end of the day the rain decided to make an appearance and we finished the ride completely drenched to the bone. Bulgaria had some great scenery but once again not being able to switch off due to dogs was getting tiring, we were chased multiple times a day. From there we entered Turkey and thought we’d escaped the dogs until immediately getting chased after the border. Turkey had some punchy climbs and a fair bit of unpaved road which was tough on the legs but next day we made it to the airport. Everyone in Turkey was so friendly, beeping happily from their cars as they passed and waving enthusiastically, offering us Turkish tea and wanting to know all about our adventure.
The next leg was Bangkok, Thailand, to Singapore. We stepped off the plane to 95% humidity and 40 degrees celsius heat, we put the bikes together outside the bustling airport covered in sweat and wondering how on earth we would be able to cycle 150 miles a day in these conditions. But we did, we had no choice and told ourselves to make the most of it. We saw monkeys, water buffalo, fresh fruit stalls that we longly rode past, vans packed so high they looked like they would topple over, one unfortunately did, we cycled past the bails of hay that covered the road, grateful that it hadn’t toppled on us. To keep hydrated and prevent heat stroke, we had to stop way more than we wanted to, a few moments in the air-con of 7elevens which became our go-to snack stop were heavenly. The traffic was crazy, with mopeds coming up the wrong side of the road towards us, we felt on high alert a lot of the time. Amy had a small bout of sickness, behind a supermarket at the end of the day, but we put that down to the stress and heat of cycling through Kuala Lumpur! Luckily it was only a one off. Everyone was very friendly, waves and even cheers embraced us, a group of excited children ran after us as we approached our accommodation in a small village, asking us to play football with them and thrilled when we gave them some stickers we had with us to give out to people along the way. One night we slept amongst unwelcome Gecko’s as we realised that our room for the night was also a room for them! We embraced the heavy rain showers which only lasted about ten minutes a time but gave us some relief from the heat. We both came off our bikes en route into Singapore on a busy road in Malaysia as we tried to stay as close to the edge of the road as possible and Kyle’s wheel dipped off into the gravel shoulder, luckily the panniers acted as great air-bags so no damage to the bikes and only a few scuffs to ourselves! On arrival at Singapore airport after cycling through the wealthy streets, we were amazed at the cycling infrastructure there, fit with a full bike maintenance area which gave us the perfect place to put the bikes into cardboard boxes ready for the flight, we felt very sorry for the people sharing a lift with us up to a hotel at the airport, after a sweaty day in the saddle we didn’t smell nice at al!
Then we moved onto Australia and New Zealand.
We landed in Australia just in time for a storm to hit, lots of people told us it was the worst they had had in years. The plan was to get the bikes serviced and have a rest day, which was good because we’d both caught a cold, Amy’s was worst. We finally got underway though and it was a later start due to some bike servicing issues, we set off and both Amy’s gears and brakes didn’t work, so back to the bike shop we went! Our plan of a 160 mile day to start reduced to 60 miles. We spent the next two to three days dodging falling bits of trees and branches but we saw our first kangaroo, which filled Amy with excitement (Amy absolutely loves animals). The days were much shorter here. Sunset was around 5:15pm so we spent a lot of time riding in the dark in this leg. We had a few hilly days as we followed the coastline, with a lot of headwind which we’d now become used to and started to wonder whether we had chosen the wrong way around the world! We went from Perth and around the coastline, over to Albany and then to Esperance and up to Norseman, which marked the start of the Nullabor (the desert in Australia but it was their winter so no heat for us). We got Amy a kangaroo toy which she hung off the back of her bike, named Rui – unfortunately Rui got left at a hotel in Canada and never got posted back to us! Up until this point we’d had no luck with the wind but the first day on the Nullabor that changed. We had quite a strong cross-tailwind and then for the remainder we had a tailwind, which felt like heaven. The Nullabor was such a surreal experience, one long seemingly endless road with up to 130 miles of nothing, no villages or shops. It was one of our happiest places to ride because there was nothing to stop us, no traffic lights, towns or people, just the two of us, singing loudly without a second thought. The mornings were bitterly cold and you’d be waiting for the sun to rise, but the day time temperature had highs of around 20degrees Celsius which was just right. We did a long day of
177 miles on the Nullabor with a strong tailwind all the way meaning we had an earlier finish than normal so we decided the next day we would do our longest day yet of 204 miles. Eventually we made our way over to Port Augusta which not long after we hit 6000 miles. This was also marked
by seeing the longest train we’d ever seen! The weather seemed to turn from here with many days of rain and headwind. Someone did warn us as we headed towards Adelaide that the weather didn’t look great. Kyle’s gear cable snapped so we stopped off at a nice cafe and Kyle fixed it, a good excuse for extra hot chocolates! This fix lasted all the way until Auckland in New Zealand. The day after we had another 204 mile day and the famous Willunga hill, not long after reaching the summit, Kyle came off his bike causing a swollen hip and some bad road rash, we carried on though. We got to a cafe and can recall at 3pm still having 90 miles to ride, it felt like an eternity, we finished the day with torrential rain and a subway for dinner but we stayed in good spirits. We woke up to the sound of torrential rain the next day, which lasted all day and was accompanied by 3 punctures to really get the spirits up. We also knew we had a time zone change where we went forward an hour, so it was another later finish as we climbed in the pitch black, with loads of pine trees and mist around us, it felt very eery. A couple of days later would turn out to be the hardest headwind we’d ever faced and torrential rain all day. Gusts of 40mph made it feel like we were going nowhere. We stopped at a cafe briefly for a warm drink and lunch but we soon back to being drenched and cold. The headwind seemed to stay for a few more days, we decided to do one shorter day of around 136 miles to recover a bit. From then we had sunshine and hills as we headed for Brisbane. The route went via a place called Narrabri and over to Goondiwindi, from there to Warwick and then over to Brisbane.
The next part of this leg was then flying to New Zealand which was broken into two flights, meaning we only got 2 hours of sleep. The first stop was Christchurch and then we had to get a smaller flight to Dunedin, Kyle was a bit scared of the small plane with propellors on as he’d not a fan of flying, a fear he had to face on this adventure! As soon as we stepped of the plane we realised how cold it was going to be. The sun glistened in the blue sky but didn’t seem to give us any warmth. We put the bikes together after only around 2 hours sleep and decided to ride a what now seemed, short 82 miles, albeit very hilly with 6000 feet of elevation. The next morning we were both very grateful for heated gloves which we put on after having to wait a little for the ice to melt. Once we got going the scenery was incredible, although the drivers made us feel slightly on edge with the majority of them passing us very closely. When we reached Christchurch, we hit 8000 miles which felt like another milestone. We opted for a more coastal route as this would be less hilly but was still very demanding. As we were climbing up we could see a mountain called Mount Hutt in front of us, which it was incredible, snow lined its top and we took a moment to take in the beauty around us. We stayed at a b and b in which the elderly couple who owned it told us the used to own a lot of land and a lake nearby. They also said they’d driven and travelled in Alaska and told us stories about that, making us excited for when we got there. We caught the Picton ferry to the north island and stayed in a hotel in Wellington. This was our first antipodal point. After a late night and another very cold start we decided on another shorter day of around 128 miles heading to Whanganui. The next day was very hilly as we climbed continually with volcanos ahead of us eventually reaching the high point, in which Amy bought Kyle a kiwi cap and a bookmark with pictures of the volcanoes on from the petrol station which had a gift shop. This was a hard day but one of our favourites because the scenery was so beautiful and the roads a lot quieter, at one point we were passed by two builders in a van who shouted “are you Amy and Kyle?!” “Keep going!!”The next day we set the alarm early but then had to wait 1.5 hours for the ice to thaw, we sat twiddling our thumbs and feeling annoyed that this would mean a later finish. Luckily we only had 117 miles to ride, which then left us with 30 miles to the airport. Amy’s gear cable snapped around 15 miles from the airport but we had arranged to get the bikes services in Auckland before the flight as we knew the next leg would be the biggest, so she rode the last 15 miles in one gear, making sure to get lots of momentum up before any small hills in Auckland!
After a long flight where we went back in time 22 hours we landed in Alaska, where we cycled across Canada, into the USA down to Arkansas and back up to Halifax.
The flight from Auckland was again broken into two flights, the first stopped at san Francisco and then we caught a connecting flight to Alaska. We arrived in Alaska and got the bikes put together and at around 9:40pm headed to the hotel, with little sleep. By the time we’d rearranged our bags and had our dinner it was late. The first morning we woke up and as Kyle was getting ready Amy
had dosed back off to sleep, the jet lag and lack of sleep always seemed to affect her more as she didn’t sleep as well. We set off on minimal breakfast, as it was too early, armed with bear spray, which we’d been warned we’d need. We were tempted to make it a shorter day as we looked for somewhere to eat around 50 miles in, but Amy started to feel better and we carried on to do 129 miles. The route was beautiful passing by huge mountains and a massive glacier. Thankfully no bears or moose on day one, but we saw bald eagles which we were amazed by, they soon became a common sight. We stayed at a motel overlooking the mountains. We met a woman with two dogs and she told us about moose, saying that we should be fine as long as we didn’t scare them. Soon the headwind returned and then next day we once again had 40mph gusts! We were amazed at the wildlife we saw as we went into Canada, lots of black bears with their cubs in the verges on the side of the road, one night we saw a porcupine walking across the grass, much to Amy’s amusement. We encountered countless roadworks and one of the women on the traffic control told us about a grizzly that was nearby which put us on high alert. We listened to music to keep the spirts high and so that we did not startle any bears we might come across. Our first full day in BC brought with a grizzly bear, it was within 8 feet of us and a car had parked up to take pictures, we both rode past very fast with our hearts in our mouths! We also encountered Bison, which were very scary, the locals warned us not to cycle past them if they had young, which they did! They could outrun any speed we would get up to and were know for being aggressive, so when we came across a massive heard of them, we had to wait until they returned to the bushed before we carefully pedalled past. After riding through the Canadian Rockies, past clear blue lakes, endless pine trees, and more flies than we could ever count, we headed into the flatlands of Alberta and into the canola fields. Then it was into the USA, where we covered 16 states. A heatwave hit as we crossed into north Dakota, meaning we faced 45 degree Celsius for four days in a row, which caused Amy to have severe heat rash all over her legs and meant we had to stop a lot to get ice cubes which Amy put in her bib-short pockets, Jersey pockets and through the gaps in her helmet to try and stay cool. The trucks were noisy and the cars not too kind to cyclists. We cycled through endless cornfields with the sun beating down onto our backs, before heading into more populated Kansas, Iowa and New York where life seemed fast paced around us. Our favourite place in the USA was a little village called Essex which lay next to a massive lake in the state of New York, it was so quiet there and the buildings were historic which was a contrast to much of the USA we had experienced. We crossed the Hudson River so of course had to get a photo there, before we headed back into Canada through Montreal, Quebec and Nova Scotia. Unfortunately our excitement at heading back into Canada was shattered on the outskirts of Montreal. We had passed through the bustling city, taking the most quiet route possible over a big bridge and then around the outskirts. As we were riding along on a cycle path, a car decided to cut us up, turning straight in front of us, giving Amy no choice but to slap her brakes on and Kyle to go into the back of her and hit the floor hard. In that moment we thought the record was over, Kyle had badly injured his shoulder and collarbone, which since being home and x-rayed we can now confirm is a broken collarbone. But having cycled 15,500 miles with 2500 miles left to ride, Kyle was determined not to give up, so with a lot of pain and off the bike help from Amy he managed to continue the ride. We tried to make the most of the rest of the ride
and had our sights set on 123 days, knowing that we would need to do around 165 miles a day from this point on to achieve that. We were glad to get through Montreal, the last big city before our next flight and into Nova Scotia, which was a lot quieter and reminded us of the coastline of
the highlands in Scotland. We didn’t see any bears or moose on our second visit to Canada which we were kind of relieved about! We finally made it to Halifax airport for the final flight of the trip to Portugal, as we approached the airport we both rode in silence, in disbelief that we had made it this far. Both of us felt very relieved and Amy having to pack the bikes while Kyle rested his collarbone and shoulder, we ate a pizza in bed before a good night of sleep ready to fly in the morning.
The final leg of the journey was Portugal, Spain, France and back into England.
We landed in Lisbon in the middle of the night and put the bikes together outside the airport. Both filled with excitement and tiredness, it was time for the final leg back in Europe where we felt comfortable having ridden here before. Portugal went by in a flash, we rode out of Lisbon along a well laid out cycle path along the sea, before heading onto back lanes where lorries full of fresh tomatoes passed us. Then into Spain, onto roads we’d never ridden, but which felt familiar. We rode past two wildfires, the smoke engulfing the air and the sound of sirens filling the sky, we were very lucky that both did not become severe until the day after we had passed them. We absolutely loved the Castile-Leon area of Spain, the roads were quiet, there were “caution cyclists” signs everywhere and the views were amazing. We had one big climb to do during this leg, which went up to around 1300 meters, the views from the top were breathtaking and the descent was a great reward for out climbing efforts. As we headed into France Amy became a little overwhelmed with how busy the towns and villages were, full of holiday goers enjoying the beach and not taking much care to where they were walking or cycling. We had to have our whits about us and with Kyle’s collarbone, it added an extra level of stress. Our first full day in France was bliss, we spent the majority of the day on a bike path so cars were not a fear and we found the best Almond croissant that we’ve ever eaten. As we approached the ferry port in Caen, a journey we have taken three times before, we both felt a bit emotional, we finally felt a sense of “we are going to do this”. We had a meal to celebrate before getting the 11pm ferry, where there were no beds left so we found ourselves a sofa which Amy let Kyle have with his injury and Amy took the floor. The final two days covered Portugal back to the Sudbury Stables cafe, we did a 165 mile day and then left ourselves 60 miles for the final day, we know we needed to finish before 9.30am to get the 123 days so we set the alarm for 3am and set off riding at 4am. On the second to last day we went to Pedal Heaven bike shop in Fleet where a bunch of people were there cheering for us, it was a good job we went as my bike had been creaking since Canada and it turned out my bottom bracket had basically disintegrated and was moments away from my whole crank falling off completely! We vowed to enjoy the final two days and it went by in a flash, we took our time and stopped so much so that we didn’t finish the second to last day until around 11pm so we didn’t get much sleep but we didn’t care. As we rode those final miles into Sudbury, with a local club riding behind us, we were filled with a sense of disbelief, it didn’t feel real. My Dad was waiting for us two miles from the end and we all immediately burst into tears, we had missed our family and friends so much! We rode with my Dad behind us, the man who we first started cycling with and who got us going up hills in the Peak District, he chatted away to us, clearly excited by our return and it felt like we had never been away. We had done it, 123 days and now we were back where we started with so many stories to tell.