As Mark Beaumont comes to the end of his extraordinary round the world cycle, one day ahead of schedule today, I’m caught in two minds. On the one hand you can only feel admiration for such an epic feat of endurance cycling. He’s covered 18,000 miles, riding 16 hours a day since the beginning of July. He met his target of covering 240 miles a day and has endured physical and mental exhaustion to get there.

On the other hand one’s left with a feeling of, well…what’s the point?