Challenge 160 clocks up 333 miles in 6 hours!
Eve from St David's Centre and Alex from Studio Tarw holding the final total board that shows 333 miles completed.
St David’s Centre, Studio Tarw, For Cardiff and Sight Life smashed and doubled their 160-mile Spin bike Challenge!
A little while ago, a trip to Barnard Castle became legendary.
Allegedly this had something to do with eyesight, or perhaps even an eye test, but that’s another story about Cummings and goings.
However, Barnard Castle is somewhat relevant to the most recent Challenge 160 event that took place in Cardiff St David’s Centre on 15th April 2025 in support of Sight Life.
Please indulge us as we clarify the relevance of this destination:
Firstly, what is Challenge 160? The idea is simple: create a challenge that incorporates something involving the concept of ‘160’ to help Sight Life, a fabulous local sight loss charity, celebrate their 160th anniversary and raise some money along the way.
Richard Stephens-Knott, Deputy Centre Director of the St David’s Centre was one of the early adopters of Challenge 160 concept. Richard commented that:
“When we heard about Sight Life’s ‘Challenge 160’, we knew that we wanted to get involved.
Planning started in December, and we knew that wanted it to be something big that we could do in the middle of the St David’s Centre to raise as much awareness as possible about Sight Life’s amazing work.
The idea of a 160-mile spin bike challenge was quickly born and we reached out to our friends at the amazing Studio Tarw to help us make it possible.”
Roll forward to 15th April 2025. The three bikes arrived in St David’s Centre and the challenge began.
Riders from St David’s Centre, Studio Tarw, For Cardiff and Sight Life all participated, taking shifts on the bikes to reach the target of 160 miles in 6 hours.
By our calculations this would be a virtual trip from Cardiff to, approximately, Manchester.
However, thanks to some amazing rides from the group of pedal-ready power packers, we collectively managed to clock up a staggering 333 miles in 6 hours. This was more than double our original target and, on our virtual trip, took us past Manchester and on to Barnard Castle!
The more geographically astute will argue that being on stationary spin bikes that we technically remained in Cardiff and this virtual ride to Barnard Castle is only a trip of 282 miles. However, we did have a few diversions and managed to get lost on the way around spaghetti junction and hence clocked up a total of 333 miles.
Regardless of where we ended up, the centre was buzzing with an electric atmosphere that the event created. The final total of 333 miles was amazing and it was great to be part of a team collected from so many organisations all working towards a great goal.
Sight Life wants to send a massive thank you to the teams from St David’s Centre, Landsec, Studio Tarw, For Cardiff and, as ever, our brilliant volunteers.
A special thanks to:
- Richard Stephens-Knott for coming up with the idea.
- Alex from Studio Tarw for supplying the bikes and the buzz.
- Daniel Jeanes from Leonard Curtis, our chief bucket collector.
- Fuel Juice Bars, for the excellent refreshments.
- Krispy Kreme UK for the doughnuts!
- All who have donated in support of Sight Life so far. And
- The brilliant Eve Williams who pulled everything together to coordinate and deliver such a brilliant event.
- Sight Life would also like to thank Robertsons Solicitors for supplying our team hoodies!
It’s not too late to donate to this event and show your support. Please visit: https://www.justgiving.com/page/st-davids-3
For more information about Sight Life and our Challenge 160 Program please visit: https://sightlife.wales/get-involved/challenge-160/
Thank You!
