Demri and Jocelyn Mitchell decided to cycle from John O’ Groats to Land’s End on a whim, raising funds for several Jersey charities in the process.
The pair are both students in the UK. While Jocelyn was back in the Island during lockdown, she received a call from Demri, who was in London, and he asked if she wanted to take on the challenge. They set off on Friday 24 July with the goal of covering all 950 miles in ten days. Helping them on the journey were their parents, Glyn and Maria – along with their dog, Mini.
They completed the ride earlier this week, hitting their ten-day target, with 76 hours spent in the saddle to cover a distance of 1,647km.
According to Demri, the pair had an interesting journey and even managed a quick swim in the North Sea before setting off.
‘We decided to start at John O’Groats and work our way down. Once we were up there, we were all a lot more relaxed – the dog was walked, we took a dip in the North Sea and ordered a big Indian takeaway as our last supper; probably not the best pre-adventure meal, but it worked for us,’ Demri said.
The pair said that despite some ‘minor setbacks, injuries and poor navigation skills’ things went as scheduled.
‘I suppose this all started since the lockdown,’ said Demri, when asked why they had decided to take on the challenge. ‘We are both very fidgety people and when we suddenly found ourselves with all this extra time, like many others we hit the great outdoors, exercising to distract ourselves from this difficult situation.
‘Since dabbling in triathlon in a past life I’ve always liked having a challenge to show the fruits of my training efforts and I’ve always been interested in doing long-distance adventure stuff,’ he added.
‘Jocelyn was bored and thought it might be fun since she was getting dizzy doing laps of our lovely little island while back from uni during lockdown.’
The JustGiving page set up by the siblings had received over £500 in donations at the time of writing, with an overall target of £750. The money they raise will go to the JSPCA Animals’ Shelter, LittleFeet Environmental, Jersey Hedgehog Preservation Group and Earth Project Jersey.
Demri added: ‘We were both raised in the Island and despite not being born there we like to think of ourselves as fully fledged beans.’
Anyone wishing to donate should visit justgiving.com/crowdfunding/jocelyn-mitchell.
