Archie's Super Cycling Challenge.

Whilst many of us may have been sitting at home, adjusting to this new way of learning, one of our Year 6 pupil's decided to get on his bike and set himself the ultimate challenge in aid of the Julia's House Charity.
Rather than hearing it from me, take a look at the photographs below and read Archie's diary to find out why he wanted to do this challenge.

I was inspired by two of my football teammates who had chosen to do challenges for charity. So I decided to set myself a charity challenge. I wanted to do something that I don’t normally do. So between me and my mum, I came up with a cycling challenge. 140 miles in 14 days. Considering neither of us had a bike, it was going to be a tough challenge. Luckily, my Nan had an old bike that I could borrow that used to belong to one of her other grandchildren, and my Mum borrowed one from a friend and we also ordered helmets online. 

I decided to raise money for Julia's House. This is a local charity that gives care to children with life limiting or life threatening conditions. The charity shops that support Julia’s House are closed due to Covid-19 and their major fundraising events have been cancelled. Even during lockdown the nurses from Julia’s House are still visiting families to keep up with the care at home preventing them from going to hospital. If these children were to catch this horrible virus it would be fatal for them. 

Day 1: 
We cycled into the forest and then we went to moors valley. In total I cycled 11.42 miles. Three things I learnt that day was 10 miles is longer than I thought, the forest is very hilly and my mum who cycled with me is very unfit.

Day 2: 
Today we cycled through a few tiny villages:Woodlands, Chalbury Common, Holt Wood and Three Legged Cross. This was a tough ride with lots of hills and it didn't help that my mum wanted to keep stopping to take photos of the lambs. Altogether we covered 14.59 miles.

Day 3:
On day three we both had tired legs from the day before so we did a little bit in the forest and then we cycled around ebblake industrial estate totalling 10.48 miles.

Day 4:
We cycled around moors valley. We got a total of 11.07 miles.

Day 5:
We went to moors valley again and we did 10.50 miles.

Day 6: 
We covered 12.35 miles by cycling around moors valley and Ebblake industrial Estate.

Day 7:
We are now half way and we so far have done 70.41 miles.
​Today we cycled to Cranborne from Verwood ,we went through Edmondsham . We cycled to the school  it felt strange seeing the school and made me realise how much I really miss coming to school and seeing all my friends ,teachers .

Day 8 :
My mum was struggling today so I kept going in front of her and just checking on her now and again. We cycled to Moors Valley again covering 10.38 miles.

Day 9:
We went back to the forest for today's ride ,we got a bit lost thanks to my mum and we had to cycle up some really big hills but the best bit about that was coming down them . My mum was too scared to cycle down one of them and pushed her bike down instead but I cycled down them all it was so much fun . Todays total of miles was 10.86.My mum had also ordered ice creams to be delivered from Jims Super Whips ice cream van so i knew i had that to look forward to when i got home .

Day 10:
After yesterday's ride with lots of hills we decided to do a flat ride ,so we chose to cycle to Ashley Heath and back covering 11.02 miles . This was also our fastest ride .

Day 11:
 was starting to lose a bit of motivation today ,so my mum showed me how much money i had already raised and the positive comments that had been written on facebook that helped a lot. We just cycled around Verwood . Total of 10.19 miles .

Day 12:
We just cycled around Moors Valley again today , covering a total of 13 miles.

Day 13 :
A very slow and gentle ride around Moors Valley again today . 10.57 miles.

Day 14:
Our last day and it was our longest ride around Moors Valley totalling 15.3 miles. 
I found this challenge hard and there were days I didn't feel like doing it, especially the couple of days it rained and we got so cold I couldn't feel my fingers or toes but I'm glad I did . It was good exercise for me and I raised £370 altogether. In total I cycled 163.2 miles in 14 days and spent 21hours 3 mins doing it. 

Archie 6JG