A pair of naked cyclists caused a stir as they rode through Southport town centre earlier this month.
Many people out in the Sefton town over the Platinum Jubilee bank holiday weekend spotted the two riders, who were captured on video by people in a passing car on June 4. Sitting in the passenger seat as they drove past, Sharon Rimmer told the ECHO : "We slowed down to ask them what they were doing and they said they were cycling from Land's End to John O'Groats for charity."
The Southport ride was a practice run for the real thing, which they will complete next week. LancsLive spoke with the naked cyclists, Colin Unsworth and Sadie Tann, who are taking on the task to raise money for nature and environment charity Rewilding Britain and mental health charity MIND.
READ MORE: Work on rotting Southport Pier will take 'several years'
Colin told LancsLive : “We've had three clothes free practices and about ten clothed ones, but for some reason the unclothed ones get noticed more... 50 miles a day in the big ride... cycle tourists says that's fairly moderate and achievable."
He added: “We did one in Southport, one in Chorley and last week we rode in Manchester’s World naked bike ride with about 350 riders. It was fun!"
The 52-year-old woodworker teaches wild food and mushroom foraging and runs his own business called Forest Horizons, and said he was accompanied in going commando atop the tandem bike in Southport by Sadie, 32, his fellow intrepid cyclist. Sadie is a student of Environmental Biology and a wild food forager uses naturism to combat social anxieties.
He said: “So we’re coming down on the East side, from John O’Groats, to Inverness, then down to Newcastle, Durham, Darlington then we’ll start to cut across and go Leigh and Manchester, down towards Birmingham and Bristol and so on and the plan is to go through cities and towns because we want to raise attention for the charitable ride. We’ve got people joining us from Inverness to Edinburgh and we’ve got quite a bit of interest, so I think by the time we get to Manchester, we’re going to have quite a bit of a cohort riding with us.
“My business name is Forest Horizons so I may have people joining us like Forrest Gump, saying hello Forest! But what we’re saying to people who want to join is, please come and join us, we will welcome your support, and it doesn’t matter whether you want you want to strip up if you don’t then just ride with us and have a big smile on your face.
“In Chorley we got a great reception; there was lots of laughter, lots of people smiling and laughing. The general thing is people laugh and go, oh what’s it for?
"When you say, it’s a charity ride, they give a big thumbs up and say good. You do get a few people who just look ahead and don’t give any attention, but most people are positive.
“When we went to Southport, we got dressed after the ride and we went for a chippy tea and in the chippy was a table of pensioners, I could overhear them talking and saying these naked people were riding around, and I stuck my head over and said, that was us! And they were like really?
"And they don’t do social media or the internet, but they put some money in our pockets and gave us a cash donation there and then for the charity. I thought if the pensioners of Southport are positive, then we must be doing a good thing.”
To find out more about their venture, click here or here.
READ MORE: Sefton news
Tranquil estate where 'out of control' kids on motorbikes rule the streets
Drinker told man to 'cheer up and get a haircut' then bit off his earlobe
Liverpool primary school warns of job losses after council energy scandal
DWP share reasons PIP and ESA award decisions are overturned for claimants
