Pedal 4 Parks, a team of city-living eco-conscious friends, are setting out on the first of its kind endurance cycle challenge through many of the UK's National Parks, green spaces and marine environments this June.
LEJOG with a twist: A cycling challenge to regenerate and protect UK green spaces and wellbeing
Their adventure is a quest to search for answers to the question of how can the UK regenerate environmentally protected areas at scale. The team will be documenting innovative regeneration projects, as well as the degenerating impact of human tourism and urbanisation, and exploring the outcomes for our physical and mental health.
Isaac Kenyon, Sal Montgomery, Alex Egan Alexandre Pierrot and Lukas Haitzmann will cycle the length of the UK with a twist: they will not only be cycling on land but also using water bikes to cycle across the sea, allowing them to include the Orkney Islands and Isles of Scilly in their journey. This will be the first of its kind extended version of the John o' Groats to Land's End cycle. It will take them two weeks to complete, cycling up to 100 miles a day and ascending twice the height of Everest.
The expedition will be filmed and shared as a documentary (watch trailer below) in support of the National Park UK Foundation conservation projects, where the team will ask the question: how can the UK's National Parks, already interfered with by humans, be regenerated at scale, can UK citizens reverse the impact?
Alongside the documentary, Pedal 4 Parks have created a podcast, "Mind the Green Space", which touches on the importance of being open about mental health and how green spaces help people mentally.
'This is going to be a unique journey, one involving a huge magnitude of human endurance to cycle from the Orkney Islands to the Isles of Scilly. However, it is nowhere near the scale of the challenge that we are facing in regard to regenerating all of our national parks, green spaces and marine conservation areas, which we have been interfering with for hundreds of years.'
Since experiencing multiple lockdowns, time outdoors in green spaces has become precious to many of us for the benefits it has for our physical and mental health. There has never been a time when we have appreciated nature as much as we do now. There may be a vaccine for COVID-19, but there is not one for climate change. At our current pace of urbanisation and human interference, the damage we are inflicting on our environment is becoming irreversible in some parts of the world. This is why making the effort now in supporting regenerative initiatives in the most protected areas of the UK like our national parks, can make a huge difference to the future of the world around us.
Support Pedal 4 Parks by watching and sharing their trailer, and sponsoring them at pedal4parks.co.uk
Pedal 4 Parks Team: Isaac Kenyon, Sal Montgomery, Alex Egan Alexandre Pierrot and Lukas Haitzmann
For more information about the project, you can contact Pedal 4 Parks representative Isaac Kenyon via email: media@pedal4parks.co.uk
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