A dedicated cyclist has ridden the equivalent of 100km per day for an entire year - despite suffering a serious crash just a month into his challenge.
Joel McAllister, 28, decided that over the course of 2021 he would cycle 36,500km to raise funds for mental health charity Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) - having experienced tough times of his own while studying at university in London.
He began his gargantuan challenge on January 23, 2021, which would see him cycle an average of 100km a day, giving him 12 months to cover the mammoth distance.
His plan was to spread the cycling across his days, sometimes indoors, sometimes as specific trips and often through his daily commute to work - the 21km from his home in Wymondham to Tivetshall St Margaret.
But on one of these commutes in February, the chain on his bike snapped, causing him to crash and suffer a concussion - which he feared would end his challenge before it had barely even started.
He said: "I spoke to my doctor about whether I could carry on cycling and thankfully I was able to, but I did have to take it easy for a little while.
"I wasn't always able to do the full 100km every day, but I knew it was still early and that i had the summer to try and make up for lost time.
"Some days I would cycle for longer than others, but I would say on average that I was doing about three-and-a-half hours per day."
Aided in his quest by a challenge in August that saw him cycle from Land's End to John O'Groats, this weekend he finally reached his finish line - having raised more than £9,000 on the way.
He said: "I know from my own experiences that when you are fighting mental health issues, you don't have a day off from them, so I didn't want to take a day off from this challenge either.
"I've had an overwhelming amount of support along the way, which has meant a lot, and I would love it if I could break the £10,000 mark."
To donate visit https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/joel-mcallister
What 36,500 kilometres looks like
Mr McAllister's challenge saw him cover 36,500km in 365 days. This is the equivalent of:
- Norwich to London and back - 115 times
- Four times the length of the Great Wall of China
- 300 times the length of Hadrian's Wall
- Norwich to Adelaide in South Australia and back
- 11,370 laps of the Snetterton Race Circuit
- 37,170 goes on the rollercoaster at the Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach
- The length of 18,250,000 jelly beans lined up in a row
- 6,500km more than circumnavigating the planet on a bicycle
- Just shy of a tenth of the distance from the Earth to the Moon
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