Meet the Cyclists cycling from London to Africa
Emily Conrad-Pickles
From a young age I’ve always loved to try adventurous things and challenge myself, preferably if I can do it for a good cause.
Fundamentally, I believe that we should enjoy our lives; after all, we only get one shot at living. So often we dream about doing things with our lives and I believe that if we challenge ourselves, we can achieve and see more then we ever thought possible.
In 2014 I set out to complete a set of challenges for charity, it was a year for firsts – a few of these included completing a triathlon, cycle over 100 miles, an open water swim, trail run, run (not walk) a marathon. I raised £4,000 for charity along the way…
12 months (and a lot of hard work!) later I was on the start line of my first ironman swiftly followed by the Olympic distance triathlon world championships in Canada and the middle distance European championships in Spain. Three things I had never heard of two years earlier, nor thought possible.
I hope that by completing challenges like these that in some small way I may inspire others to do something similar. The hardest part of all these projects is getting to the start line. We’re meticulously working through a range of things people may perceive as barriers to travel and firmly believe that the bigger issue here lies in not being able to look back on our lives and say, YES, we did it, we cycled 20,000km to Cape Town (sounds better than, I thought about it for a while doesn’t it!).
I cannot wait to get started on this adventure to Cape Town with the best teammate I could ever ask for.
James Davis
“I am under no illusion as to how tough this expedition will be but I can’t wait to get started. Travelling from London to Cape Town by bicycle is a lifetime adventure for me. But for those in rural Africa, simply having a bike can be life changing.
World Bicycle Relief is an incredibly worthy cause and we hope we can both raise awareness of the power of bicycles both closer to home and across rural Africa and also some valuable funds along the way”.