From Guinness World Records to the ABR Festival

It’s a spring morning in 2014 and Rhys Lawrey is standing outside the Ace Café in London, about to head east on a Triumph Tiger 800XC.

At 22 years old, most bikers are still figuring out their first proper bike trip. Rhys, on the other hand, is about to attempt something rather more ambitious. He’s heading out on a ride around the world.

What followed was a 441-day journey covering 58,000 miles through 71 countries, earning him two Guinness World Records: Youngest Person to Circumnavigate the World by Motorcycle and Most Consecutive Capital Cities Visited by Motorcycle.

This summer, Rhys will be sharing the story behind that journey when he joins us at the ABR Festival. But his adventure didn’t start on that morning in London. It began years earlier, and somewhat closer to home.

Travelling young

Rhys grew up around motorcycles. His father Kevin, a double Guinness World Record holder himself, co-founded GlobeBusters, the adventure motorcycle expedition company, back in 2002.

“I started riding when I was a kid, doing dirt track days at the age of 8,” Rhys says. “So bikes were always part of my life growing up.”

But the moment that really sparked Rhys’ appetite for adventure came later.

“When I was 16, I went pillion with my dad around South America. That was the first time I experienced overlanding by motorcycle, crossing borders, travelling through countries, seeing how people live. That was when the bug for motorcycle travel really started.”

A simple idea that grew and grew

The round-the-world journey started, as many big ideas do, with a fairly casual conversation.

“I was living in New Zealand at the time and I had a Skype call with my dad,” Rhys says. “We were talking about doing a father-and-son ride across Asia.” Once the call ended, the idea began to evolve.

“I started thinking, ‘Well…what if I just keep going by myself and ride around the world?’”

There was another motivation too. Rhys’ dad already held two Guinness World Records, and the idea of matching that record tally certainly appealed.

“I’d also read an article about someone becoming the youngest person to sail around the world,” he says. “So I thought, if you can do it by boat, surely you can do it by motorcycle.”

Before long, Rhys was speaking to Guinness World Records about developing a new record for being the youngest person to circumnavigate the world by motorcycle.

Then he added a second challenge, explaining: “If I was going to do one record, I thought I may as well try for two.”

The global challenge begins

Rhys set off from London on 3 May 2014, beginning a route that would take him across Europe and into Central Asia before joining a GlobeBusters group ride through China and Southeast Asia.

From there, he would ride solo through Australia and New Zealand, continuing through North, Central, and South America, before his bike was shipped to Cape Town. His epic journey would then conclude when he returned to London.

And the rules of setting the Guinness World Records stipulate that the entire journey had to be undertaken on the same motorcycle, making elements like logistics extra challenging.

Rhys highlights freight as an example: “Once you ship your bike, there’s a lot of it that’s out of your control.”

There were also the challenges of timing seasons across hemispheres and navigating the complex rules behind the two world record attempts. “The capital city record actually turned out to be the tougher one,” he says. “I only started that about three quarters of the way through the trip, so fatigue had already set in.”

Planning the route was one thing. Living the journey day after day was something else entirely.

Life on the road

For a 22-year-old attempting to ride around the world, the road is guaranteed to build character. And Rhys had plenty of those moments along the way.

One particularly testing stretch came while riding along the 5,000km+ Ruta 40 in Patagonia.

First his bike developed a leaking valve, the next day his phone broke, and then he ran out of fuel 14 miles from his destination. With the Patagonian wind howling across the empty road, Rhys pushed the bike for four miles before a passing truck driver finally stopped to help. After refuelling, he was forced to take five days off the bike thanks to pulled neck muscles picked up during the push.

Moments like that were balanced by encounters you could never plan.

While riding through El Calafate, Rhys spotted something he hadn’t seen for thousands of miles, a UK licence plate. It turned out to belong to legendary adventure rider Nick Sanders, one of the most experienced motorcycle travellers on the planet. “Out of all the people you could bump into down there, it had to be Nick,” Rhys laughs.

Travelling solo for that long inevitably has its tougher mental moments too. While riding through Central America, Rhys met another traveller called Stephen Kirk who just happened to be riding the exact same bike. The pair rode together for a while, sharing the road through several countries before eventually reaching Lima, Peru, where Stephen’s journey came to an end.

“When he left, that’s when it really hit me,” Rhys says. “Suddenly there was no one to share the day with anymore.”

It was one of the lonelier moments of the trip, and left Rhys feeling alone almost to the point of being afraid.

But the road also delivered moments that made everything worthwhile.

One memory that Rhys often returns to happened while exploring Mount Cook on New Zealand’s South Island, a place he had never actually been despite growing up a Kiwi.

When he first rode into the valley the weather was terrible, with torrential rain reducing visibility to almost zero. “I remember thinking, ‘This is rubbish, you can’t see a thing,’” he says.

The next morning was a different story. “The skies cleared and suddenly it was just mountains everywhere,” Rhys recalls. “Snow-covered peaks in every direction. Not just the tops, every mountain was entirely white.”

Standing there looking out across the landscape, he realised something that stuck with him. “I’d grown up in New Zealand and somehow I’d never seen this place before. It was basically in my backyard. It was unbelievable.”

Record breaker

As required by the rules of the record attempt, Rhys finished where he began. On 17 July 2015 he rolled back into London and was met by friends and family outside the Houses of Parliament, bringing to an end a journey that had started more than 14 months earlier with a departure from the Ace Café. At 24 years and 12 days old, he had officially become the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe by motorcycle.

That record has since been surpassed, but the second challenge Rhys took on during the journey still stands. By riding through 51 consecutive capital cities, smashing the previous record of five, he set a total that remains unbeaten today.

Highlights from the road

For Rhys, the question of the standout destination from the entire journey is easy. “China completely blew me away,” he says. “It’s such a fascinating place and very different from what we’re used to in the West. I think people massively underestimate it.”

But as with most long-distance motorcycle travel, the real highlights weren’t the destinations, they were the people. “The best part of any trip like that is the people you meet along the way.”

Write it down

When we asked Rhys what his one piece of advice was for other riders planning their first big journey, the answer was simple. Write down what you see and experience, the highs and the lows.

“I wish I had kept more of a journal,” he says. “You forget so many of the little moments over time. Even just writing one line a day would have helped trigger those memories later.”

The ABR Festival connection

There is one moment from the more recent past that Rhys didn’t need to write down, and that’s the evening he met his fiancée Annie at the ABR Festival back in 2022.

“We met briefly on the Friday night and then again on the Saturday in the beer tent,” he says. “She works in the bike industry too, so we had loads of mutual friends. We kept bumping into each other, started chatting, shared a few beers, and the rest is history.”

The couple returned to the festival last year as a newly engaged pair, and they’ll be married this August.

Not everyone can find someone to spend the rest of their life with at the ABR, but for someone planning a big motorcycle journey, Rhys says the festival is a perfect place to start.

“If I was planning another big trip, I’d definitely use the ABR to help prepare,” he explains. “You’ve got riders who’ve travelled all over the world, you can test bikes, try gear, and gather loads of knowledge all in one place.”

But it’s the evenings that stand out most for Rhys. “There’s just a great buzz around the place,” he says. “Good music, good food, and you get to catch up with loads of people you haven’t seen for a while.”

What’s next?

For now, Rhys says there are no new world record attempts planned. Instead, he’s focusing on helping other riders experience the same sense of adventure through GlobeBusters expeditions around the world.

And if time and money were no object? “It would be six months riding around Southeast Asia and China with a small group of mates,” he says. “Then come home, recharge, maybe attend the ABR…and head off somewhere new again.”

If Rhys’ story proves anything, it’s that the next adventure can begin in the most unexpected places, even a beer tent at the ABR Festival.

Grab your Weekend Ticket for this June’s ABR Festival at Ragley Hall and hear the full story of Rhys’ record-breaking ride around the world in person. Tickets are selling fast, so snap one up now before it’s too late.