🚴‍ 4000km. One bike. A bigger purpose.

This summer I’m taking on the North Cape 4000 — a self-supported 4,000km ride across Europe from Italy to the Arctic Circle.

It’s a huge challenge: long days, minimal sleep, and everything carried on the bike. But I wanted it to mean more than just miles.

I’m raising money for the St Vincent de Paul Society – Sheffield Furniture Project, a local charity that helps people in crisis turn empty accommodation into real homes.

Many of the people they support are starting from nothing — no bed, no table, no basic furniture. This project provides essential items so people can live with dignity and stability.

While I’ll be pushing through mountains, heat, cold, and long days in the saddle, it’s nothing compared to the challenges faced by the people this charity supports.

If you can spare anything, it would make a real difference:

💛 Even small donations help provide essential household items

🛏️ Larger donations help furnish key parts of a home

📍 Every contribution supports people locally in Sheffield

If donating isn’t possible, sharing this page would mean a lot.

Thank you for your support — it will genuinely help turn houses into homes.

A bit about the charity itself:

At St Vincent’s Furniture Project in Sheffield, we are dedicated to transforming empty houses into warm, welcoming homes for individuals and families facing challenging circumstances. From providing a comfortable bed to sleep in to a table where families can gather, our mission is simple but impactful: to furnish homes safely and comfortably for those in need, at no cost to them.

As part of the St Vincent de Paul Society England and Wales, we support people struggling with poverty, social isolation, health issues and other hardships. Our dedicated team of staff and volunteers work tirelessly to ensure that no one has to sleep on the floor or live without essential household furniture and other items.

In addition to providing furniture, we also operate a food pantry and distribute food parcels to individuals and families in need. With the rising cost of living, our food services have become invaluable for struggling families and individuals.

We’ve seen a significant rise in the number of referrals for unfurnished tenancies and the need for our services has never been greater. But we can’t do it alone. Your generous donation will help us cover our core costs, including furniture collection and delivery, volunteer support and our upcycling workshop, where we give new life to donated items and train young people affected by homelessness with practical skills.

By supporting this JustGiving campaign, you’ll be helping to provide essential furniture, home comforts and food support to those who need it most

And from me:

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

Update after the event:

A brief summary of my epic ride.

NorthCape4000: solo self-supported bike ride.

4,105.8 km. 96,873 ft of climbing. 19 days. Italy to the top of Norway. And I only went and bloody did it. I’ve been trying to work out how on earth to condense 19 days of the NC4000 into a single email and it was tough - there was just too much.

I crossed the Alps, rode through Italy, Austria, Germany, Czechia, Poland, Sweden, Finland and Norway. I slept in forests, fields, bus shelters and a multi-storey car park in Innsbruck. I rode through torrential rain, 35 C heat, freezing nights and, on the final day, gale-force winds that were literally blowing me off the bike.

There were some absolutely glorious days. Riding through the Alps with Sia’s ‘Unstoppable’ on repeat. Swedish forests and lakes that seemed to go on forever. Lake Vattern in the evening light. The utterly ridiculous pleasure of finding a good bus shelter. Passing 2,000 km - halfway – and singing ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ into my phone like an idiot. Reaching Santa’s Village at Rovaniemi.

There were also days when it was bloody hard. Days when lack of sleep reduced me to barely moving. Soaking-wet days. A night at about -1 C when I couldn’t get warm even inside my sleeping bag, bivvy, down jacket and gilet. Bike problems. Brake problems. Roads that were shit. Drivers that were shit. Mosquitoes the size of elephants. And a truly astonishing amount of time spent thinking about where I could next get coffee, food, a toilet or somewhere vaguely dry to sleep.

And somehow, every morning, I got back on the bike.

Day 17 was probably where I really overcooked it: 280 km, followed by about three and a half hours of freezing, rubbish sleep. Day 18 I paid for it. My legs were completely dead, but by then something else had changed: I knew I was going to finish. I knew my husband, Ciaran, was already on his way to meet me. And I became an absolute emotional wreck. Someone would toot encouragement from a car - I’d cry. I’d see another distance sign - cry. I’d think ‘I’ve nearly bloody done this’ - cry again.

By the last morning there were only 83 km left. Eighty-three kilometres after nearly four thousand felt like nothing.

North Cape disagreed.

There was the 7 km, 212m deep, tunnel under the sea, rain, climbing and then the wind. Proper, ridiculous, gale-force wind. I was being blown sideways, blown off the bike, struggling even to walk with it. Ride. Walk. Swear. Ride. Get blown sideways. Walk. Swear some more. Repeat. Eventually I could see the buildings at North Cape. I’d actually made it.

I rode into the visitor centre looking for Ciaran… and he wasn’t there. My tracker had frozen 17 km earlier. He rang me and said, “What have you stopped for?” “What do you mean? I’m here!” He’d planned this lovely emotional video of me riding up the final hill and instead I’d managed to arrive without him noticing. Thankfully, he came running out with a congratulations sign that he and the kids had made, and yes, there were a few more tears.

And then that was it. NorthCape4000 finished.

It’s difficult to explain what those 19 days felt like. It was exhausting, hilarious, beautiful, uncomfortable, occasionally completely fecking miserable and one of the most extraordinary things I’ve ever done. One thing I hadn’t expected was quite how emotional it would be. The song that ended up capturing that wasn’t actually ‘Unstoppable’. It was Paramore - The Only Exception. Early in the ride I played it on repeat about ten times and cried at the chorus every single time. I told Ciaran about it and then he started listening to it and did exactly the same. By the end I could finally listen without completely losing it. Mostly.

There are far too many people to thank properly - everyone who followed the dot, messaged me, encouraged me, sponsored me, commented on Strava, helped me with the bike, gave me food or coffee, cheered from the roadside or simply put up with my increasingly deranged WhatsApp updates. You genuinely made a difference. Thank you all.

And, of course, Ciaran - waiting for me at the top of Europe.

4,105.8 km. 96,873 ft. 19 days.

I only went and bloody did it