A mechanic for a professional cycling team has completed a 6,600-kilometre ride around the coastline of Great Britain – and visited all 181 of the lighthouses that are located on the mainland.
Sam Hayes, who works for the UCI Continental outfit Madison Genesis, undertook the trip to raise money for the male suicide awareness charity, the Campaign Against Living Miserably.
To date, he has raised almost £2,000 through the website Just Giving, against an initial target of £1,200 – enough to enable CALM, which receives around 200 calls daily, to run its helpline for 24 hours.
Hayes’ Twitter feed is well worth a look – who knew that selfiestaking by a bloke in a cycle helmet in front of lighthouses could be such a compelling genre of photography?
Lighthouse #153 Point Lynas, and it’s currently for sale!!
Now where can I get £1,375,000 … #thelighthousetour pic.twitter.com/Arm2pCdXZ9— Sam Hayes (@sqhayes) October 8, 2017
Lighthouse #174 Foreland Point. Had to go 2km down a 20% gradient to get here, and then ride straight back up it! #thelighthousetour pic.twitter.com/2h1xMnYCah
— Sam Hayes (@sqhayes) October 17, 2017
That’s it! #thelighthousetour in aid of @theCALMzone is FINISHED!
72 days – 6,616km – and 181 lighthouses later I’m back at Land’s End. pic.twitter.com/fB04pb29q2— Sam Hayes (@sqhayes) October 20, 2017

7 thoughts on “Pro team mechanic rides 6,600km around British coastline and visits all the lighthouses”
Hope you enjoyed Mumbles
Hope you enjoyed Mumbles lighthouse.
i’ll be quite surprised if he
i’ll be quite surprised if he included cape wrath lighthouse, on that bike.
the infamous grouse wrote:
He had intended to but was defeated by the weather:
It looks like quite a tough ride, clocking up a good number of 100+ km days on terrain that was often far from easy.
Fantastic achievement that.
Fantastic achievement that.
Can’t believe Genesis didn’t give him a bike to do it on though…
I bet he didn’t do Lundy.
I bet he didn’t do Lundy. Highest lighthouse in the UK, though they had to stop using it when they realised it couldn’t be seen when there was heavy fog.
hawkinspeter wrote:
It does say the mainland so doubt he did Lundy, plus not sure you’d even get a mountain bike up there, hiking it is difficult enough!
df280 wrote:
I don’t think bikes are allowed on there anyway. It’s not that difficult a walk to the Old Lighthouse, just a lot of sheep shit (I’ve stayed in the Old Lighthouse properties a few times).