Avid Plympton cyclist Mark Chanter has raised over £2,000 for St Luke’s Hospice and Tamar Valley Repeater Group.
Ideally Mark would have liked to have had a go at riding from Lands End to John O’Groats but this just wasn’t possible for him at the moment.
Undeterred however by the general principle of such a long ride he came up with an alternative way of covering the same distance and attracted sponsors for doing so.
Mark said:
“I would love to do a really long ride, but understanding that a real life ride would not be possible at the moment, I opted to do this mileage and elevation from Lands End to John O‘Groats virtually.”
The ride was done in stages over a period of weeks and Mark managed to do a significant amount of his ride on local roads and cycle paths with similar terrain to that he would have encountered in going from Land’s End to John O’Groats.
The rest was done virtually on a static training machine.
Explaining his chosen fundraising causes Mark said:
“The reason why I have chosen St Luke’s is that they do a wonderful job and have looked after my late father and us during his time of need. The repeater group is an amateur repeater group that provides radio communication to the Tamar Valley and a large percentage of Devon and Cornwall.
“The reason I am so keen on keeping this communication is to have it available in case of an emergency.”
Mark attracted a good level of support by way of sponsorship for his ride and has now been able to start distributing the money raised to his chosen causes.
Mark added that he hopes his health might at some future stage enable him to cycle for real from Land’s End to John O’Groats.
(Story courtesy of the Plympton Podcast)
