Charitable initiative

Jack Talbot, Air Ambulance

Jack Talbot’s fundraising journey started when he was hit by a drunk driver. His rescue by Air Ambulance inspired him to organise a coast-to-coast ride and raise over £7,000 to thank those who saved him.

Jack, a paramedic himself, was back on his bike just one month after the crash and “spent the whole winter training,” he admits. Jack organised the one-day coast-to-coast ride for himself and 25 other local riders.

Jack has big goals for future fundraising: “I’d really love for the annual ride to be as big as the Fred Whitton Challenge. I’m going to work to make that possible. We made £7,300 at the final count, beating our goal by a long way.”

Alex Staniforth, Young Minds

Alex created his ‘Climb the UK Challenge’ in July of last year, in which he climbed to the highest point of all of the UK’S 100 counties in 72 days. He walked and ran up the climbs and cycled 5,000 miles in-between. It was an entirely human-powered endeavour (excluding a few ferries) — he even kayaked to the Isle of Wight.

His endeavours raised over £25,000 for Young Minds, a charity he chose after having worked through his own mental health issues.

“Training and being outside helps to give you a focus and if you don’t focus you’re not going to achieve your goals,” Alex says. “Challenges like this give you a mental resilience that you can’t get anywhere else.”

James Sullivan, Trusts United James has organised two epic rides across the UK for the charity he helped to create, Trusts United, raising over £20,000. The charity raises funds for NHS staff suffering illness, injury or other lifechanging events. James was spurred into action after an NHS colleague was diagnosed with liver cancer in 2016.

The bridges rides that James organised first went from London’s Tower Bridge to Middlesbrough’s Transporter Bridge. This year’s route went from the Transporter Bridge in Newport, South Wales, to Middlesbrough’s Transporter Bridge.

“We mostly have people who work in the NHS ride with us,” James says. “It’s a whole range of abilities and different types of people that keep us going.”

Dawn Logan and Claire Glover, Pencils of Promise

Dawn Logan and Claire Glover pedalled 10,000 miles around the world last year, crossing 25 countries in three continents with no fixed route. They made it home after 13 months on the road having raised £30,000 for Pencils of Promise. Enough to build a school and change the future for a community in Ghana.

Claire, a teacher, and Dawn, an engineer, say they both owe a lot to education: “Having visited developing countries we wanted to raise money for an international charity supporting education,” they said. “We were fit but there isn’t any way you can predict what conditions will be like on a ride like this. It was the mental struggle of riding day in, day out which took a toll on us.”