Lancashire dad's daring dream of becoming first man in 20 years to cycle across all seven continents

A dad from Lancashire is one step closer to achieving his dream - one that most of us would never do in a lifetime.

Endurance athlete and climber Oli France has become the first man in 20 years and first Brit to cycle across America and summit one of the most dangerous mountains in the world, Mount Denali in Alaska. Formerly known as Mount McKinley, the geographic feature consistently ranks in the top 10 most dangerous mountains in the world due to its high elevation.

It's also known as one of the world's coldest mountains, with a subarctic location at 63 degrees north latitude and a summit regularly reaching -40 degrees. Although this sounds difficult already, 33-year-old Oli summited Mount Denali from the very bottom, traversing a mountain range, fording freezing rivers and several dangerous glacial and crevasse fields.

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This was on the dangerous West Buttress route to reach the summit, where all other climbers are flown into basecamp at 1,300 feet below the summit. Not everyone can attempt this though as every year, only 1,000 people are giving permission to climb the dangerous mountain - and only less than a third actually make it.

Strikingly, the day before Oli reached the summit of 20,000 ft, a solo climber died whilst trying to reach the top and another climber was taken off the mountain with a broken leg. Travelling as a group of four, dad-of-two Oli faced crevasse fields which are 1,000 metres deep and covered by a thin blanket of snow.

During the expedition, one of Oli's team fell through and into the crevasse, but only because the men were roped together that they could pull him out. The team also skied across a snowy tundra with heavy 60kg sleds which has pulled them down the mountains very fast.

Not to have a day without trouble, the team were also chased by wild bears and found a mousse carcass that had been savaged by the animals close to their camp one morning. Having returned to Britain and settled into home life with his wife and two small children, Oli has achieved something most people could never dream of, but he's not stopping there.

Starting on March 24, Oli has attempted to become the first person to travel from the lowest geographical point to the highest on all seven continents, entirely by human power. In September 2023, the adventurer completed the Africa leg of the challenge and cycled 1,600 miles from Djibouti to Tanzania before summiting the highest mountain in Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro at 5,895m.

Then, in March 2024 he embarked on the North America section of the trip and cycled 3,500 miles from Death Valley in Southern California to Alaska, before embarking on the Mount Denali challenge - a trip that took around two months to complete. Although he makes it look easy, this trip was the equivalent of cycling from London to Dubai or Land's End to John O'Groats a mere six times.