Britain gets on its bike to help Children In Need raise £20 million

Cyclists around Britain – young and old, novices and professional alike – showed their caring side at the weekend as they helped the BBC’s annual Children In Need appeal raise more than £20 million to aid disadvantaged young people across the UK.

Here, we highlight just a handful of the many people who took to their bikes to help contribute towards that total.

Ten-year-old Joseph Wilson from Nottingham spent four months in a wheelchair following an operation, but when he saw an advert on TV for Children In Need, he decided to raise money for kids less fortunate than him.

Jonathan, born with twisted thigh bones, which led to an operation two years ago in which the bones were broken then put back in place, rode ten laps of Bridgford Park and raised £1,000 for Children In Need from family and neighbours.

In South Wales, pupils and staff at Abertillery Primary School helped the charity to the tune of more than £1,000 through a 24-hour bike-a-thon that began at 9am with kids from the reception and nursery classes lapping the playground on tricycles.

As the day progressed, older children negotiated an obstacle course on their bikes, before pupils from years five and six, and their mums and dads, pedalled on exercise bikes. Then, from 9pm through to 9am, staff at the school took over to complete the round-the-clock effort.

Radio presenter Phil Upton, from BBC WM, spent the day cycling around Birmingham and the Black Country with colleagues, visiting initiatives in the area that have benefitted from funding by Children In Need in the past.

And in Ipswich, a police motorcycle instructor who normally uses a two-wheeled push-bike to commute to his job switched to a unicycle for the day, less than a year after enduring surgery on his knee.

Meanwhile, trials rider Danny MacAskill is supporting Children In Need by auctioning the very bike he used in a YouTube film of him showcasing his talents on the streets of Edinburgh that shot him to fame earlier this year.

Since April this year, the film has garnered 12.5 million views on the video-sharing channels. The successful bidder should bear in mind though that there's no price on the Scottish rider's talents - that comes through practice and hard work.