As many of you will know by now, two of our members, Mike and Paula Smith, were involved in a serious road accident just before Christmas last year. All over the festive season when the family should have been celebrating a fantastic year, with Aled getting to the Ironman World Championships in Kona, they were in reality facing probably the toughest battle that they had ever been through.

The club wanted to show its support and how much they felt about the Smith family in a way that could help people in the future. First and foremost it was great to see the improvements that Mike and Paula made and eventually they were able to come back home and look towards the future.

The club decided then that they would set the Wales Air Ambulance as their charity of the year, and although it has been a few years since the club last had a large charity event, there were still some of the club’s original members cycling, and they were a driving force behind this event.

Gareth, the club’s president, had long thought of a North to South cycle ride. There is an organised route which takes in the three air ambulance bases, but this is held over a three-day period. However, Gareth thought that it would be great if we could do the ride in one day, hence only taking in two of the air bases, but still covering over 200 miles and over 14,000 ft of climbing.

Twenty-four riders put themselves forward to complete the full ride, these being: Gareth Rees, Carlton Coates, Paul Slack, Huw Bridges, Oliver Brace, Billy Connor, Julie Andrasko, Adam Brown, Dave Poole, Steve Amos, Ben Blake, Joe Bowles, Colin Barrett, Matt Broadhurst, Adam John, Richard Day, Tom Smith, David Lewis, Nigel Merrony, Daryl Cavill, Joel Hender, Tim Brace, Kath Devonald Brace and Aled Smith.

They all set off to Caernarfon on the Friday, along with the support vehicles and support crew, without whose help the whole ride could not have taken place. These were John Badham, Elaine Brace, Deirdre Bridges, Vicky Brace and Nicola Coates, who would act as support and then join us cycling later in the ride. Also thanks to Gary Slack for driving up the minibus with the riders in and Paul Russell for taking up all the bikes in a van. A huge thank you to Manorbier Community Minibus for donating the minibus, and to Kevin, of West Wales Motorcycles, of Carew, for donating the van, and to Kevin and Paul for donating the petrol for the van also. Thanks also to Simon and Shauna Rowell, of Cross Roads Garage, Begelly, for donating the petrol for the minibus.

On the way up we were going to need a stop for food at some point and Shirley, of the Maengwyn Cafe, Machynlleth, very kindly re-opened in the evening to feed us all, and I must say the stop and the service we had was first class.

And so we arrived at a campsite very close to the airport at approximately 11.30 pm, knowing that we only had about two hours sleep, before having to get up and get food in us ready for the long trip ahead.

One of Nicola’s funniest moments that morning was of our own Bear Grylls (Richard Day), who was sitting in the entrance of his tent with his little gas stove brewing up a cuppa. And so we started at approx 3.45 am, all using lights to guide us for the first part of our journey through Snowdonia National Park, with our first scheduled stop at Machynlleth.

The ride quickly split into two groups to make it safer on the road (oh and the first group were made up of the faster and wiser riders), or so they thought. It was clear to see that the roads we had travelled down on the bus the night before, we were now having to cycle back up them.

The first stop in Machynlleth came about quite soon and we were all very glad to tuck into the wide selection of foods in the support vehicles, and huge thanks to Huw Scale, of Tenby’s Four Seasons, for donating a box of bananas to try to keep us all going. So with 60 miles under the belt, we set off on the next leg, but plans were changing already, as our next stop should have been another 40 miles at Tregaron, but a coffee and a promise of a bacon and egg McMuffin at McDonalds in Aberystwyth was something that we didn’t pass up on.

On then to the 100 miles stop point at Tregaron, and to meet up with some additional riders who had travelled up to join the ride for the final 100 miles. These were Andrew Burgess, Ryan Semper, Jamie Silvester, Steph Waring, Murphy Morris, Harry Goforth and David Gosling.

So our enlarged group now set off on the 50 miles to Llanelli and the second Air Ambulance base. Now this is where the going started to get tougher, with the group splitting up into three groups, and the going certainly seemed to get tougher, even to the degree that directions or sense of direction seemed to go out of the window, with a small splinter group (the wiser group that I mentioned earlier) totally losing their sense of direction and ending up at the Liberty Stadium in Swansea?

Although the group that I was in, including Gareth, who plotted the route, got ourselves a little confused in Ammanford and had to ask the help of a lovely lady constable. She said if we followed her she would get us back on the correct route. Although after she waved us on our way, we figured out why she was smiling so much, with a hill which by that stage looked like Everest.

This next stage of the journey was starting to tell and I myself was really starting to flag, especially when I got separated from my group and ended up cycling into Carmarthen on my own to meet up with more who were joining. However, the crowd got to the air ambulance station in Llanelli and the next group joined on, namely Andy Adamson, Huw Benbow, Tracey Thomas, Pippa Dodd, Ceire Merrison, Sophie Thomas, Donna Bradley, Mandy Cavill and Anto O’Hara, who had cycled up from Tenby to meet up with the group. Also in Llanelli were Julie and Niamh Slack, and representatives from the Smith family with Aled’s sister Lorna, along with Aled’s partner Josie and her father.

The route from Llanelli seemed familiar to a lot of the group, with it being part of the Carten route, and you could be forgiven for thinking that we were nearly home, but as we got into Carmarthen, there were more members waiting to welcome us, with Tara and Jack Rees, Steve and Kay Davis along with their daughter, and if I have missed anyone, please accept my apologies.

And so the final trek to home on familiar routes, a highlight being along Stepaside by-pass where Mike and Paula Smith were beeping their horn going the other way.

The crowd regrouped in New Hedges, where the riders who had joined us along the way went into town leading the way, only for Ann Rowell to be there to organise everyone into a welcome parade for the 200-mile club of riders.

The elation of the riders getting into the Square was plain to see on everyone’s faces as Mike and Paula were there waiting to welcome us home. It only remained for the bikes to be stowed away and to head to the pub for a well-earned drink.

The totals are still coming in, but the club hope to raise around £15,000 for the charity. However, when you consider this is only enough for 10 flights it is a cause to certainly keep supporting.