On Sunday 5th August at 8am, Mark Beaumont (above) who left HSD in 2001, will set off from the Champs Elysees in Paris to commence an attempt to claim the Guinness record for a solo cycle around the world. He aims to cycle 18,000 miles through 20 countries in about 210 days before returning to Paris in late February or early March of next year. It will be an amazing feat of endurance which, if accomplished in the planned time scale, will see 60 days knocked off the current world record set back in 2004. Click here to read all about Mark's record attempt.You may have already seen coverage of the story either in the press or on TV but you are certainly going to hear much more about this great adventure in the weeks and months to come.
BBC have already launched an on-line documentary where regular up-dates about Mark's progress will be posted.
Mark will be carrying a small lap-top, GPS, digital camera, audio recording and video equipment and mobile phone and will be 'sending' regular up-dates to the website. When he returns, BBC will be screening an hour long TV documentary. Filming for that has already started and some HSD pupils and staff may already have parts in it! Yesterday, Ms Hamilton, the school P.R. officer, Mr Foulds our new Geography teacher and I, along with seven pupils attended Mark's publicity launch in Glasgow where BBC cameras were very much in evidence.
He is keen to keep in touch with the school via email and blog throughout his trip and the Geography department would provide an obvious focus for that contact. By the time term starts, there will be a large wall display in the department which we can add to and chart Mark's progress. I would also hope to have regular meetings at lunchtime when pupils would be able to email Mark or add comments to his blog.P.S. I cycled 7 miles this afternoon and it seemed quite a long way. It is quite a sobering thought that Mark will do that distance 2,571 times in the next 7 months!
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