AKIPRESS.COM - British citizen Ed Pratt has become the first person ever to travel around the world on a unicycle.

Ed, 22, has peddled 18,000 miles across four continents on only one wheel.

He set off on his global adventure over three years ago and has unicycled across Europe, east Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the USA.

During one trip on a perilous rocky desert roads in Kazakhstan he had push his unicycle 50 miles on foot along the unforgiving Mukur Road.

And in November 2015, just eight months into his three-year journey, Ed was almost crushed by a skidding car that left spinning on the ice roads in Aktobe, Kazakhstan.

The 22-year-old, from Curry Rivel, Somerset, then spent six months away from the saddle, seeking sanctuary in nearby Kyrgyzstan.

In 2016, in Kyrgyzstan, Ed became close friends with a young woman called Aishola Aisaeva, with whom he went on a 140-mile tandem bike ride to her home town.

Ed said at the time: "I couldn't have asked for a better co-adventurer than Aishola.

"Always positive, pedalling hard, chatting (and singing) away, riding with her made the ride feel like there was a constant tailwind behind us."