Their story, in their words….
We started off the ride leaving Ellie’s house at 9:45am and headed for Coulsdon through Streatham vale and Beddington way, our route out of London. Once we arrived at Coulsdon we headed for Redhill. During our route to Redhill, we climbed multiple steep hills to Chipstead. Chipstead was busy country lanes compared to after Redhill so it was more difficult, also sudden hills were very common!We reached Redhill for a short break and cycled through the busy centre, heading for Crawley which was our lunch break. Upon route to Crawley we passed through country lanes and paths which were quiet. Before we reached Crawley we had to navigate around Gatwick airport which was confusing as the paths were difficult to find, but we managed it safely.
After lunch in Crawley, we were on route straight to Brighton alongside mainly the A23 and London road. We took the foot and bike paths along the motorway till we were led off a couple times through little towns on the way, like Sayers Common. During the last hour of the ride, it started to rain quite heavily which motivated us to get to Brighton as quickly as possible so we stayed on the main road and passed the Brighton ‘pylons’.
We completed the ride safely and successfully, it was around 80km and we arrived at our overnight stay at 18:45pm.
By the end of the journey we were tired, wet and slightly sore, but were overjoyed that we had completed our goal and had done it together as a team. We felt we had accomplished something momentous and were proud to have shown resilience, endurance and perseverance while undertaking the cycle and were glad that all of the planning and training had paid off. Thank you to all at Mark Evison for making this possible, enabling us to gain valuable skills for the future and bringing us closer together as friends.
