Their story, in their words…
Firstly everyone gathered at Sidcup at 10 am, making sure that we had all our gear ready such as our tire repair kits and bike pumps in case of any unforeseen emergencies. With the map guiding us, we pedalled away with high spirits. We made a quick pit stop at LIDL, where we replenished our energy with cool water and energy bars. Then we continued on to cycle for 3 hours till we got to Westerham.
Since it was past 12, we decided to eat lunch and rest for a while. One of our members’ asthma began to act up so they decided to step down from our tedious journey to Brighton. Our cycle to Brighton became a lot quicker as we were able to cycle for more prolonged hours due to the smaller amounts of breaks and longer cycles we were having. Although there were many hills, through encouragement and support for one another, we were able to overcome the challenges we faced in our journey, such as a rather formidable wind which was blowing in the exact opposite direction we were cycling, completely killing our momentum at times and proving quite the adversary when going up inclines.
We ran into a very unprecedented road bump towards the end (not literally although we all wish it was a road), not too far away from Brighton. The cycle path instructed us to go with a rather odd-looking path on the side of a road, we were all initially perplexed but still went with it as it didn’t seem like it would be a particularly rough route to follow, however, it was anything but, we found ourselves walking our bikes through a very narrow uphill path with a barbed wire fence right next to us, after that we had to make our way up a very rocky hill until we reached an open field. It was getting dark and we were in what seemed like the middle of nowhere with no civilisation to be seen, however, we still proceeded, following the path until eventually, we found a city.
Unfortunately by the time this happened, it was completely dark out and we decided it would be unsafe for us to proceed so we cycled to the nearest train station and got a train to Brighton station, which was only one stop so we were very close by just bike. We reached Brighton station, physically and mentally exhausted, but still very proud of what we’d achieved that day. In the end, we were able to mentally and physically grow stronger and strengthen the bonds we have together.
