Riding into the sunrise and set...
By Steve Brewer
I’ve been supporting Whizz-kidz ever since my university days back in the 90’s where I undertook my 'year in industry' at Sunrise Medical where I then went on to design the worlds first ‘cool’ beach wheelchair during my final year.
When I can I like to offer my time over giving money to the charity, and have been involved in helping out with 'wheelchair skill days' with Whizz-Kidz, which has been a hugely rewarding use of my time. We all know that even giving one's 'time' in this modern world, has almost become more precious than actually money itself, especially since I have became a dad myself!
So, when the opportunity came up when my wife said she was going to Poole to see a friend, with our son in tow. I put my ‘Carp Diem’ cycle helmet on and put into action something that had been on my personal bucket list for a while now. Which was to be able to be out, all day, on my bike. To see the sunrise and the sunset. With no ambitions to set a world record or even ride a certain distance.
Friends and family, find it hard to sponsor me to ride 100 miles or so, considering I do this distance most weekends for fun! So it had to be something a little extreme to capture everyone’s imagination. So setting off at 5:15am on the Sunday 8th August 2014, I headed east to a spot where I know from my regular rides, to where I knew would be a great starting point to see the sunrise. Not far from Lacock in Wiltshire I then climbed up Bowden Hill for another breakfast stop (aka banana) to watch the sky fill with the first light of the day.
I somewhat cheated as I then had already planned to meet up with Bath Cycle Club at 8:30am (come on, it was 3 hours later) in Bath and join them on the first leg of that days club ride out towards Wedmore in Somerset. Post coffee stop, as the club headed back East I continued West and onto my parents on the edge of the Quantocks for my lunch stop and a natter... After the obligatory cake & more cake I then rolled back East over the levels and onto the Mendips, up Cheddar Gorge and back into Wiltshire. Another bowl of pasta and some 150 miles in my legs, I mounted my steed once more for the final couple of hours riding looking at where might be best to watch the sunset. At around 20:45 I saw the sun over a freshly harvested field with the hay bails ready to roll, I stopped and was able to reflect on the day, what I had seen, the other random fellow cyclists I had chatted to and most of all, just to be grateful for all the things that allowed me to do this ‘silly’ thing and hopefully raise some pennies along the way...
I set a target of raising £50 for Whizz-Kidz and was incredibly touched to in fact raise £160 which just shows the power of social media and what you can raise literally on the day!
Maybe an annual event, maybe other silly people might like to do themselves, or maybe an organised event for Bath CC next year. Who knows.
I also had the pleasure of riding RideLondon. All be it in polar opposites regarding the weather, the continued support along the route despite the weather just goes to show that if you want to do something, you are really never alone in doing so.
Sunrise
Sunset