One of our brave cyclists who completed the Abingdon to Cambridge (and back) cycle ride for Adoption UK tells the brief story of the event.

"We set off first thing on Saturday morning, and it’s fair to say we didn’t have the best of starts! Within the first couple of hours we had six punctures, and a major crash saw one of our team sent home with a fellow cyclist accompanying him (thankfully he is ok). After the first morning we were two hours behind schedule, but our lunch stop gave us the chance to regroup and refuel.

After lunch, the punctures stopped, and we pushed on to make up the lost time, pushing hard to get to Cambridge in decent time. Finally, eleven hours after setting off, we made it to Cambridge stopping at the sign on the way in. If you look hard enough you might even see the odd smile in the picture!

As most people by this point had cycled about ninety-five miles, we decided to cycle round the outskirts of Cambridge until we reached the magic total of one hundred miles in a day – looking back I have no idea why that was a good idea!

Finally we made it to the hotel, and after a pizza, beer and a nightcap, we went early to bed.

Fuelled by a Travelodge breakfast and in warm sunshine we set off back. Thankfully no punctures meant we made great progress. We pushed so well that we took a late lunch with only twenty-five miles to go. By this point most of us were close to running out of energy, so after some food and a quick rest we got back on the bikes for the final push home.

The final push was hard, and always seemed to have ‘one more hill’ to climb…!

But we made it! We finally arrived back home at around 7pm with a welcome banner and bunting! Getting back to Abingdon was an amazing experience and it was incredible to think what we had achieved.

We’ve comfortably beaten our £2,000 fundraising target for Adoption UK, which makes all the effort and energy worth it!"

You can still add to the total raised and support the work of Adoption UK by donating at https://www.justgiving.com/PMC-O2C/