George Kohler and his son Josh have broken three Guinness World Records for the Kohler father and son world records attempt: a year-long, 18,000-mile bicycle circumnavigation that took them through Asia, Australia, South America, and Europe. The pair set off from their home near Norwich on 29 March 2025 and returned on Saturday to a welcome from friends and family who had not seen them, in some cases, for years.
The three records they collected on their return were for the fastest bicycle circumnavigation by a father and son, the longest bicycle journey by a father and son, and the most countries visited in a continuous bicycle journey by a father and son. The official Guinness time for their circumnavigation stands at 399 days 5 hours 52 minutes. Their journey lasted 400 days in total.
How the Kohler Father and Son World Records Came About
The Kohlers had been building towards a challenge of this scale for several years. They cycled the length of the UK in 2021 and completed a coast-to-coast crossing of the US in 2022. Those earlier trips were deliberate preparation. ‘We had to learn to get our bodies used to doing long cycles,’ Josh said.
Two years after that US crossing, Josh put the idea of a full circumnavigation to his father George, who is a chimney sweep. George’s response was immediate: ‘Perfect, why not?’ From that conversation, the route took shape. The pair headed from their home to South America, then to Australia, across Asia, and finally through Europe before arriving back where they had started.
Josh was 23 years old during the journey. George was 57. Their route, as BBC News reported, ended as it began, with the pair returning to their own front door.
The Highs, the Arguments, and a Shepherd’s Breakfast
The physical demands were expected. The emotional ones were harder to predict. ‘Our bodies were tested day in day out,’ Josh told Southwest News Service. ‘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. We had one unwritten rule that we would never go to sleep on an argument.’
Against those pressures, the pair collected encounters that neither is likely to forget. One came in Turkey. ‘We heard a shout on the hillside, and a shepherd was standing, beckoning us over,’ Josh said. ‘We walked up to him, and he offered to share his breakfast with us. He had a pot on the campfire. We had eggs, bread and cheese, and we sat there. We wouldn’t speak Turkish, and he couldn’t speak English, but we had this incredible interaction with him.’
There were other moments of unexpected hospitality: lunch with a local in Serbia, monks who offered them food and drink as they passed. ‘There were thousands of highlights on this trip,’ Josh said. The texture of those encounters, ordinary by the standards of the places they happened, accumulated into something the pair describe as the emotional core of the journey.
The final day brought a different kind of emotion. ‘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.’ After 400 days on the road, crossing continents and covering 18,000 miles, the Kohler father and son world records were confirmed with certificates presented on their return.
The Guinness World Records page for the fastest bicycle circumnavigation by a father and son now carries their names and their time: 399 days 5 hours 52 minutes. For a chimney sweep from Norfolk and his 23-year-old son, it is a number that took years of shorter journeys, one simple conversation, and 400 days of pedalling to earn.
