George Kohler and his son Josh have broken three world records after completing an 18,000-mile bicycle journey around the world, with Guinness World Records confirming the Kohler father and son world records as official on their return to Norwich, Norfolk. The pair set off on 29 March 2025 and arrived home on 2 May 2026, completing the circumnavigation in 399 days, 5 hours and 52 minutes.
The journey took them through Europe, Asia, Oceania and South America before they pedalled back into their street in Norfolk. As Josh described it, they had departed to the left of their front door and arrived home to the right of it. Waiting for them were friends and family, some of whom George had not seen in years.
‘The final day was extremely emotional seeing friends and family,’ George said. ‘People that I haven’t seen for years and years were there to welcome us.’
Three Records for the Kohler Father and Son
The certificates presented on their return covered three categories: the fastest bicycle circumnavigation, the longest bicycle journey, and the most countries visited in a continuous bicycle journey, all by a father and son. The BBC reported that they returned home on Saturday as record breakers. The precision of the Guinness time, down to the hour and minute, reflects how seriously the attempt was documented throughout.
George is a chimney sweep by trade. Josh was 23 when the journey began. The pair had been building toward something of this scale for several years: they cycled the length of the UK in 2021 and rode coast-to-coast across the US in 2022. Those trips were deliberate preparation. ‘We had to learn to get our bodies used to doing long cycles,’ Josh said. Two years on from the US crossing, Josh proposed the circumnavigation to his father. George’s response was straightforward: ‘Perfect, why not?’
Highlights, Hardships and One Unwritten Rule
Over 400 days on the road, the Kohlers encountered both the hospitality and the difficulty that long-distance cycling tends to produce in equal measure. Josh spoke with Southwest News Service about one moment that stayed with him. Cycling through a remote part of Turkey, they heard a shout from a hillside. A shepherd beckoned them over and offered to share his breakfast.
‘He had a pot on the campfire. We had eggs, bread and cheese, and we sat there,’ Josh said. ‘We wouldn’t speak Turkish, and he couldn’t speak English, but we had this incredible interaction with him.’ Similar moments came in Serbia, where they shared lunch with a local, and in Asia, where monks offered them food and drink along the route.
The physical demands were expected. The emotional ones were not. ‘Our bodies were tested day in day out,’ Josh said. ‘We were expecting the mental side of things to be tough as we anticipated long sprints. One thing we weren’t prepared for was the emotional challenges, when you are with someone for so long, disagreements do happen frequently.’
The solution was practical. ‘We had one unwritten rule that we would never go to sleep on an argument,’ Josh said. Over the course of nearly 14 months together, that rule appears to have held.
‘There were thousands of highlights on this trip,’ Josh said. ‘One standout moment is when we were cycling through a remote part of Turkey.’ The shepherd encounter, he suggested, captured something the statistics cannot: that the journey was as much about the people they met as the miles they covered.
The official Guinness World Records entry lists the time as 399 days, 5 hours and 52 minutes, starting and finishing in Norwich, Norfolk, making the Kohlers the fastest father and son to complete a bicycle circumnavigation of the globe.
