If good things come in threes, perhaps tough things do as well, as father-son round-the-world duo George and Josh Kohler found out in Uzbekistan just a few days ago.
They had successfully avoided climbing in the worst of the heat by setting out in the darkness of early morning. Nevertheless they still had to take on a triumvirate of bikepacking foes: major climb, unplanned major distance, and a closed hotel.
“We weren’t meant to go so far,” explains Josh. “But we set off at three in the morning to ride our biggest single climb of the trip… then it was all downhill for about 50 kilometres, and then we turned with the tailwind, and there wasn’t really anywhere to stop. It’s too hot during the day to camp, so we just kept cycling until we found the hotel. And yeah, it was 203 kilometres. “We were tired, though not completely shattered after it…”
“Although a bit emotional when we found the hotel was shut,” adds George.
The pair set out from their front door in Norfolk back in March, and so far have pedalled around 7,500 kilometres through Europe. Italy, Slovenia, Greece and Turkey have all seen their wheelmarks, and at the time of writing they were taking a few days off in Kyrgyzstan, catching up on their impressive Instagram output and getting paperwork sorted for the upcoming foray through China.
Just a few years ago neither father nor son called themselves bike riders until they conjured up the idea to ride across the US. This they successfully did – “with a warm-up as Land’s End to John o’ Groats the year before”, says George.
They put adventure cycling out of their minds for a couple of years before, at Josh’s behest, they cooked up a new idea – this time to circumnavigate the globe on a record-breaking mission.
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“We initially came up with the idea of flying to Singapore and cycling home from there,” George says. “Then we mulled it over and thought, actually, if we’re going that far around, why don’t we just go the whole hog.
“It turns out that no father and son has ever done it before,” he adds. “Now Guinness World Records have officially endorsed it as a formal bid for two world records as the first father and son ever to have circumnavigated the world on bicycles, and also the longest distance travelled by father and son on bikes.”
Things seem to be going to plan so far. In fact, they think they’ve already beaten the latter.
“The only record we could see was something like 6,800km, set by an Indian father and son. That was shown in the international world records, but there’s nothing on Guinness.”
The records aside, the pair say the 30,000km ride has three main aims: to challenge themselves personally, to inspire others to take on similar adventures, and to raise money for UNICEF and raising men’s mental health awareness. They’re currently £5,600 into their £10,000 fundraising target.
Despite having been on the road for months already, they are still just a quarter of the way through their 30,000km journey – something they say they do their best not to think about too much.
“I try not to think about it,” says George. “It’s very much focusing on the small chunks, breaking it down, everything from the next big stop we’ve got in a week’s time, to right, tomorrow we’re going to cycle 100 Ks. And then on the bike. For me it’s down to the 10, the 20, the 30, the 40km marks, with the little breaks in-between. Before you know it, the days. Over before you then the week’s over, or you’re at your next big milestone.”
Three months and more on the road is always going to yield ups and downs, and George and Josh have had their fair share.
Hard parts – aside from finding their hotel closed after their longest day on the bike – include a cracked bike frame and a disintegrated bottom bracket (sorted by Trek and a local mechanic respectively) and a four-day desert stint on flat, die-straight roads.
But with the rough comes the smooth, and the highlights so far include the scenery (they pinpoint Turkey’s iconic Cappadocia region) and the kindness of strangers who have shown “friendliness, open arms, unconditional hospitality”.
The next fortnight or so will see them traversing Kyrgyzstan, followed by a brief stint in Kazakhstan and then on to the big, two-month, push through China.
They expect to finish, back at their front door again, sometime in April or May 2026.
