4186 kilometres, one man, one bike. Raising a whopping £4,500 for charity, Charlie Ingham Clark cycled all the way across America all by himself. “It was one of the hardest but most rewarding things I’ve ever had to do” says Clark. Starting in Charlestown and finishing in San Diego California, in just 54 days he managed to complete his bike ride, accumulating over 115 sponsors via his Just Giving page.
Starting with hardly any experience in cycling, in 2019, Clark committed to making his vision come to life. “It seemed impossible at the start”, he said. “I had to split everything into chunks and take it one day at a time.”
With the intention of starting in 2020, his plans soon seemed impossible to achieve with the impending pandemic. Despite being disappointed, he used this time to gather his equipment and train. “Instead of quitting, I decided to be productive,” he said. On the 19 August 2022, Clark began his expedition. From muddy rivers to high altitudes, he knew it wouldn’t be all plain sailing. “I remember being in Texas,” he said. "With what felt like 100-degree weather, I was struggling to keep going.”
Things went from bad to worse when suddenly his bike cable snapped. Without being able to change gears, water-short and a 9-mile hill to climb, he was ready to give up. “My only hope was to stop at a wind farm nearby where luckily I found some water.”
But his trip wasn’t all ‘downhill’, and despite being ‘tired’, the scenery on his journey made it an experience he’ll never forget. “In Arizona there was a 20-kilometre downhill road,” he said. "And the scenery was out of this world.”
Clark has a heart for young people and decided to donate the money to two charities close to his heart. The first was Ukraine Charity which focuses on helping orphans, underprivileged children and young adults in Ukraine. He also wanted to donate to Number 22 which is a registered charity providing free and confidential counselling to adults and young people in Windsor, Maidenhead and Slough. Knowing all the people he must have helped through donating this money made it all worth it for Clark. “It was an incredible experience,” he said. “I'll never forget it.”
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