Here’s a Guinness World Record category you probably didn’t know existed: Youngest Pair to Circumnavigate the Globe by Motorcycle (Riding Pillion). But it’s very much a category, and a pair of Euro travelers say they’ve set the record—and along the way they visited Canada, and they got married!
Uh, married to each other. It’s probably important to note that.
The pair in question is Lavi Scholl (she’s German) and Ollie Gamblin (he’s a Brit). They’re very experienced travelers, scooting madly off in all directions in a camper van, hiking or biking on various adventures over the years. In 2022, they decided to get on a Suzuki V-Strom 1050 and ride around the world, and set a record while they were doing so.
Their ride around the globe took 20 months, although some of that was spent just waiting for their bike to catch up with them—when they shipped it from Africa to South America, their Suzook was lost for eight weeks.
In total, Lavi and Ollie visited 39 countries on five continents, including Canada! They actually came to Canada on a journey through the Americas that started all the way at the bottom, in Ushuaia, Argentina.
The Guinness record book people required Lavi and Ollie to check off certain boxes in order to have a legit rtw ride, but in between the requirements they could visit wherever they wanted. That meant a lot of side adventures, including a stopover in Las Vegas where they could get married in the classic wedding chapel, just like something from the movies.
Their journey actually started in England, and they rode across Europe then down through western Africa before heading to the Americas. Once they were done here, they and their bike flew to Asia, where they started in South Korea, shipping their bike to Vladivostok, where they then embarked on an east-to-west run through Central Asia. From there, it was back through Europe, where Belgium was the last new country they visited before returning to Old Blighty.
What a ride! And their bike held up well, with the only mechanical woes being some bad bearings (which are a wear item) and needing a new rear shock, which is no surprise after riding 75,000 kilometres.
If you’re curious about their adventure, you can see more at their YouTube channel here. And if you’re young enough, their record sounds *very* beatable, as their combined age at time of finishing averaged out to 33 years, 247 days old. Surely some kids in their 20s are keen to go set their own record?
