British YouTuber cycles 50km across Luxembourg... on a Barbie bike

While YouTuber Max Fosh's chosen steed — a Barbie bike suitable for a seven year old — won't be making our list of the best kids' bikes, it did make for fantastic entertainment...

The social media personality with 1.5 million subscribers, who ran for London mayor in 2021 in an unsuccessful bid to try to get more votes than Laurence Fox, set his sights on the new challenge in a video which has been watched more than 670,000 times since its release on Thursday.

Describing his 50km cycle as "unimaginable torture", Fosh had clear motivation in the form of a naysaying mate and picked the nation of Charly Gaul, the Schleck brothers and Bob Jungels due to its fairly forgiving width (you wouldn't want to traverse Australia on a kid's bike)...

"The reason why I wanted to put myself through unimaginable torture was two-fold," Fosh explained. "One, no-one has ever done it before, and two, my friend Zac said that I wouldn't be able to do it.

"The plan was simple. I was going to cycle from the small town of Martelange in Belgium to the village of Bollendorf in Germany, thus crossing the entirety of Luxembourg."

Riding on the coldest day of the year, with temperatures expected to drop as low as -10°C, the intrepid pedaller "immediately encountered my first problem of the trip — hills, or literally any incline of any kind."

"Because the bike was so light there was no way that I could push power through the front wheel without the bike just tipping over which meant that any hill I encountered I would have to walk up," he continued.

Many metres of walking later, and a few profanities, Fosh learned he'd covered a whopping 900m of the 50km.

"Google Maps says a normal bike rider would take two-and-a-half hours to make this journey," he told his viewers. "In reality I was crawling along having only travelled seven kilometres in a couple of hours.

"I've been going three-and-a-half kilometres an hour which would mean it would take me 14 hours to complete the challenge. Hills out the way and I began to hit my stride but the elements were starting to get to me.

"As darkness set in I was only a third of the way into my ride and I was feeling the strain. It just hurts certain muscle groups so much because you're constantly in this little cramped position. Everything's on fire."

"I ploughed on through the night, reassessing every decision I had made. I was broken and just after the 34km mark my body had had enough. It wasn't me giving up, it was me giving up for now..."

Taking a few hours sleep, Fosh restarted his venture at the same point at 6.48am and passed confused commuters for the final kilometres, hoping to be done in time for his flight back to London that afternoon.

Making good progress along the flat road and cycle paths, the YouTuber was left to ask one confused local for directions to Germany before triumphantly crossing the bridge out of Luxembourg.