PERRANPORTH chefs Pegleg Bennett and John Hudson visited Launceston Rugby Club last Wednesday (November 21) as part of their cycle ride from John O’Groats to Land’s End to raise money for Handstand — The Appeal for Marshall Janson and The Wave Project.

Pegleg — his real name after having it changed by deed poll in 2016 after facing years of people’s political correctness and discomfort at calling him the name that his mates had affectionately used for years — is a proud ambassador for people with disabilities, preferring to refer to himself as ‘differently-abled’ and achieving more than most of us do with all our limbs.

Pegleg, 49, walks, runs, swims, cycles and surfs using one of his specially adapted prosthetic leg(s) — he’s a member of the England Adaptive Surf Team and competes across the world in the stand-up class for athletes with missing or amputated limbs.

Pegleg and John, 50, have been friends for over 30 years and decided in the summer over one too many pints to buy a four-wheeled Surrey bike, which has no gears and fits both men next to each other, and cycle well over 1,100 miles from the Scottish Highlands to the most westerly point of the United Kingdom.

They started pedalling on October 4, but have had a number of hiccups along the way.

John said: “We thought it’d take about three weeks at about 40/50 miles a day but we can’t do that an average about 8mph.

“We’ve managed to get up to 45mph downhill which was pretty scary but uphill can take 20 minutes per mile and we have to push it.

“We’ve now been going seven weeks. I spent a week in Inverness Hospital as well. The first week was horrible weather wise and I had a stomach ache which was agony. They thought I might have diverticulitis with a possible perforation of the large intestine. I was on antibiotics and morphine for a week.

“I asked whether I should carry on and they didn’t really give me a proper answer so I did and the next day we did a 40-mile day, which was the most we’ve done.”

Last Wednesday saw John and Pegleg leave Lifton Farm Shop just before 10am and arrived at Polson Bridge about ten minutes later where they spent over an hour before heading down the A30 towards Bodmin and Victoria near Roche.

They ended their journey on Saturday when they left Jubilee Pool in Penzance at 1pm before cycling the final nine miles to Land’s End.

Both men admit that their love of ridiculous challenges made them do it.

John said: “The reason, apart from helping kids, is that we like to do iconic things. We’ve both done (Mount) Kilimanjaro, the Three Peak Challenge plus Brown Willy while Pegleg has done a couple of London Marathons and some (Mount) Everest base camps. We were in the pub and thought about what we should do next. We wanted to do John O’Groats to Land’s End, but because it’s us it was never going be on a normal bike. As they say, no good thing starts over a cup of tea.

“We’ve mostly stopped in pub car parks and basically it’s been a pub crawl of Great Britain.”

John added: “Everyone has been brilliant and over generous and the cars have been so supportive! As of now we’re on about £2,486 and we have at least £2,000 in cash and that should still go up a lot. We just wanted to raise what we could and we’ve been nominated for Fundraiser of the Year by The Wave Project.”

The ‘Handstand The Appeal for Marshall Janson’ is a charity set up for ten-year-old Marshall who lost his arms and legs from meningitis as a baby while The Wave Project is a national charity using the ocean as therapy for disabled children.

To donate to their efforts, visit www.justgiving.com/fundraising/jog-le-on