David Ogilo

70 miles, 12 hours, a 7 am start, 1 injury and a slight detour but we made it to London in the end…

The day started in Brighton, after a quick photo opportunity by the pier the group of 7 headed along the coast and then up towards Guildford. The first half of the ride was tough, lots of stinging nettles, narrow paths and worst of all hills! After 25 miles of hard riding, I overdid it on a hill and pulled my thigh muscle, the rest of the group were still going strong so I tried to carry on but had to admit defeat in Horsham and take the train to Guildford where we planned to stop for lunch. I wouldn’t have made it that far without the support of the group especially Mark who rode (slowly) with me when I couldn’t keep up.

Brighton Pier

I didn’t want to give up there and decided to do the second leg of the ride from Guildford to London (c. 45 miles), I knew the route and my girlfriend Sam rode with me. Sam’s mum was amazing and made us all lunch (complete with picnic rugs, energy drinks, and my favourite prawn pasta) which gave us the energy to carry one. We met with the rest of the group, ate, then set off for the long slog into London. Having agreed that the rest of the group should go at their own speed and myself and Sam would go as fast as my injury would permit, they sped off and we followed behind. Our first designated rest stop was at Hampton Court and we rode non stop until then, initially, we thought the rest of the group would be at least 45 mins ahead of us at that point but we were surprised to find them at Hampton Court about to leave for the last stretch. After re-fuelling (courtesy of Andy’s wife and kids) we set off again, the last part was the toughest as we were really tired but we pushed on past fishermen, dog walkers, family outings and a riverboat full of pirates.

En route to Guildford

The pain set in around Richmond and the heavens opened, complete with thunder, as we drew closer to the finish line. We reached Putney at about 6.30 pm and set ourselves the goal of getting to Regent’s park within the hour. Once we reached Chelsea we were glad of the concrete roads but then we had the traffic to contend with, we made our way through the cars and buses up to Hyde Park, along Oxford Street, Baker Street and into Regent’s park. With the finish line in sight, we rode across the fields to the cheers of the people who were still there, we made it an hour after the rest of the group which was a real¬†achievement¬†given my injury. Sam and I were exhausted and packed our bikes into a cab as we couldn’t face the ride home.

The day after I am aching but really happy and proud that we did (most of) the ride and have raised some money for Keen which is a great charity.