Tonne up for South Downs seven

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Seven friends cycled all the way from Winchester to Eastbourne in a bid to raise £1,000 for the Sussex Air Ambulance.

They completed the 100-mile South Downs Way from Hampshire to East Sussex during the last May bank holiday weekend.

During the mammoth three-day ride they were hit by a number of problems including half a dozen punctures and three broken chains but still managed to cross the finish line.

The South Downs Seven were Ben Kilshaw, Matt McGowan, Stuart Egerton, Gareth Williams, Graham Bousell, James Harding and Jamie Cheshire.

Stuart said: “On the first day the weather was pretty poor and we only managed to complete about 25 miles so we were a bit behind in trying to finish the route in three days.

“Despite very little sleep that night, everyone really pushed on the next day and by the end of it we’d somehow done 50 miles. We could see Brighton so it felt like home but the third day was still pretty hard.”

At night, the group slept in hammocks and tents in Buriton in Hampshire and then at Devil’s Dyke near Brighton after stopping off at country pubs.

They wore high-visibility Air Ambulance jerseys along the way to help raise awareness and increase the profile of the Sussex Air Ambulance charity which needs £1.7m-a-year to keep the helicopter flying.

In the last year the helicopter has flown 687 missions including 314 road traffic accidents, 113 medical incidents such as cardiac arrest, 90 sport and leisure accidents, 81 falls from height and 14 industrial accidents.