Student cycles length of Norway during charity ride in memory of friend

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Louise Thomas

Editor

Fierce winds almost unseated him and the sea nearly swept his tent away but nothing could stop a university student from cycling the entire length of Norway for charity.

Ed Watson, a medical student at the University of Bristol, cycled around 100km every day for 32 days to complete the challenge in memory of Tom Love.

He was joined by his brother and a friend in cycling from Lindesnes in the south to Nordkapp in the north.

Mr Love grew up in their home town of Amersham, Buckinghamshire, and showed his adventurous spirit by travelling by motorbike around Africa.

In December 2022, he died while working in the Democratic Republic of Congo, aged just 21.

The team’s 3,000km journey has already raised £6,000 for The Tom Love Trust, which supports children and young people in deprived areas of the UK and Africa.

But the fundraising journey was far from plain sailing.

Rain was a daily companion as they rode through Norway’s hilly terrain on their route to the Arctic Circle, where the nights lasted for just a few hours.

“One night we wild camped near a fjord,” Mr Watson recalled.

“We were woken up at 4am because the tide had come in and we were soaking wet.

“That’s when I knew we were going to work well together as a team because the first thing we did was laugh.”

Mr Watson added: “This trip is the type of thing Tom really enjoyed – being in the middle of nowhere, supporting yourself. He would have loved it.”

On their donation page, Mr Love is described as “utterly kind and caring, funny and beautifully sociable – someone truly interested in and excited about everyone he met”.

Although Mr Watson, his brother James and friend Tommy Davies faced challenges, they loved the adventure too.

They often pitched their tents amid sensational views, sometimes with the Northern Lights dancing above them.

Mr Watson said: “Before starting the cycle, I thought the best moment would be getting to the end.

“But for me the best moments were being out in the middle of nowhere, looking over a beautiful fjord, not seeing anyone else and just chatting away with my mates.”

He is now back at the University of Bristol, where he is taking a year out of his medicine degree to study global health.

Last year, he was the university’s men’s hockey club captain, a year in which the first team won the National Conference West.

Back at training now, he says the sessions are harder than the hours he spent each day in the saddle.

“Out there, all you’ve got to do is get up, eat food and cycle in a straight line. So getting back to Bristol and suddenly seeing so many people in one place was a shock,” he said.

“As weird as it sounds, although I absolutely loved the cycle, I actually missed doing uni work.

“There were definitely days when it had been raining all day when I thought ‘I’d rather be sat in a library with my mates.’”

To donate to the friends, visit their donation page.