On a cold and rainy Sunday morning, at an hour earlier then you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy, Our 4 heroic cyclists (Chris Zahner, David Lea. David Bowers and Elliot Lewis) met at the O2 car park by North Greenwich to begin the challenge of the Prudential Ride 100 raising money for the TW charity of the year, Certitude.
On a cold and rainy Sunday morning, at an hour earlier then you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy, our 4 heroic cyclists (Chris Zahner, David Lea. David Bowers and Elliot Lewis) met at the O2 car park by North Greenwich to begin the challenge of the Prudential Ride 100 raising money for the TW charity of the year, Certitude. From the O2 via the cable car it was a 5 mile ride to the start line at the Olympic park in Stratford.
Team TW started the race close to 7.30am with the motivating sounds of Ant and Dec’s ‘Let’s get ready to rumble’ and singer Lemar (who also happened to be taking part) playing in the background!
From the start they whizzed along the route down the A13 into London, through Central London and out via Kingston into the Surrey countryside. It was fantastic cycling on traffic free roads and whilst there were 24,000 cyclists taking part it never seemed too congested on the route. The first stop of the day was out at Pyrford Village 38 miles in where they topped up on the water and had some energy bars before tackling the most challenging part of the ride, the Surrey Hills.
The first hill was Newlands Corner followed by the toughest climb of the route Leith Hill. The hill was hard work but they all made their way up and over meeting at the A25 road at the bottom. We then headed towards the famous Box Hill climb. The views from the top were absolutely stunning.
They then made their way back through Leatherhead, Esher, into Wimbledon and the last climb of the day Wimbledon Hill which came in at about the 92 mile stage. The crowds on the road were wonderful especially as it looked like it was going to rain and was a bit chilly.
The finish line was just past the Houses of Parliament through Trafalgar Square and down the Mall, the team managed to line up 4 a breast all the way down the Mall in front of cheering crowds to the line just in front of Buckingham Palace.
In all with the cycle back to the O2 car park in Greenwich they covered just over 115 miles and 4400 feet (the same height as cycling up Ben Nevis), which was an amazing effort by everyone. Team TW covered the race distance of 100 miles in 6hours 20mins. Well done guys!
If you would like to make a donation to the team and Certitude please click on the below link: