Support worker Richard Young is cycling 1,400 miles during lockdown, to raise money for The Salvation Army’s Gloucester House addictions treatment centre.

The 55-year-old from Highworth, has set up a training bike on his patio and is cycling the distance from John o’ Groats to Land’s End as well as the Orkneys, the Isle of Wight and Isle of Man.

Richard, who works nights at centre but has been furloughed throughout the coronavirus pandemic, is live streaming the 42 plus legs of his challenge so friends and family can chart his progress.

“I just thought I’m at home and I can’t do the job that I normally do, so to me doing this just felt like a bit of giving back," he said.

“I like to do things as well as I can and once I was looking at the map and looking at the Shetlands and Orkney, I thought I’d like to go from the furthest north to the furthest south that I can.

“It’s an opportunity to say I’ve done it all, because obviously if you were doing it for real the logistics and the costs of going to each island would probably be prohibitive really. But I had to learn to say no after a while otherwise it would have just gone on and on.”

Richard started the challenge on April 19 and has been averaging 30 miles a day. So far he has raised £750 but is hoping to match the number of miles cycled with the number pounds raised.

“The hardest thing is you’ve got no motivation because there’s no scenery going by, or you can’t say to yourself I’ll just get to the end of the road,” he said.

“If I wasn’t live streaming it, with people coming on and giving encouragement, you just get to that point when you’re like 'I’m literally going now where', which obviously is true.

“There’s the point where you’ve got ten miles left and are thinking 'there’s no way I’m going to do this'. But having those people online saying come on you’re going to do this, that’s what’s kept me going,” he added.

Richard, will be finishing his ride with a marathon 55-mile leg on Sunday in front of a few friends who will join him on his front lawn to cheer him on.

“I’ve got mixed feelings. It’s going to be such a challenge because I’m doing way over what I have ever done on the trainer before and that scares me a little bit," he said. “I know it’s going to be hard not doing it afterwards, having spent so long doing it. I have floated the idea of just carrying on doing one stream a week or something like that."

To donate go here.

You can also watch a live stream of Richard’s cycling challenge and videos he has posted of his ride here.