The Challenge

The Fred Whitton Challenge is a charity event taking place on Sunday 8th May 2022 in honour of the late Fred Whitton who was a great advocate for cycle sport in Cumbria and North Lancashire. It is with respect to Fred and his ideals that the event remains just that, a challenge.

The Fred Whitton Challenge consists of a 112 mile sportive around the Lake District, now a World Heritage Site. Starting at Grasmere and taking in climbs of Kirkstone, Honister, Newlands, Whinlatter, Hardknott, Wrynose and Blea Tarn passes.

The very top riders complete the route in just under six hours but eleven hours and over are not uncommon for the average Sportive rider. This is a very tough route and going on rider feedback the hardest one day ride in the UK, the event includes all the Lakeland passes, one with a 30% gradient and this comes at 98 miles.

Find out more and enter: https://www.fredwhittonchallenge.co.uk/

Fred Whitton

The Fred Whitton Challenge has been raising money for charity since it began in 1999, but who is Fred Whitton and why is it named after him? Until his untimely death in 1998 at the age of 50, Fred Whitton was an extremely popular member of the Lakes Road Club. Not only was Fred the main instigator behind all the clubs activities, but he was also always there on the club runs and training weekends. Living near to all the big Lake District steep climbs Fred would have known them all, so the year following his death his family and friends decided to cycle the route in his honour and use it as an opportunity to raise a bit of money for charity twenty years later that bit for charity is now reaching the £2000000 mark! We always think of Freds reaction to the event on the day and wonder what he would have made of it all.