A daring Sellafield graduate and his friend cycled the C2C route in less than 10 hours.

The journey usually takes cyclists around three or four days, but 26-year-old Jordan Alexander Wain and his friend Conor Cumming, both from Whitehaven, tackled it in nine hours and 56 minutes.

In total, the pair climbed almost 10,000ft, burned 8,000 calories and travelled 130 miles.

Jordan, who is not a keen cyclist, said he wanted to complete the journey in a short time frame to challenge himself. “It was a foolish error,” he said. “Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. We were supposed to stop every 30 miles for water and food, but at the first stop our support driver didn’t turn up, so we had to go for 60 miles without a break.

“Conor had an issue with his bike, we got lost a couple of times and when we were cycling through inner-city Newcastle we thought we weren’t going to make it in time.

“It was quite emotional at the end but I kept thinking ‘if I get a puncture now, that’s it, it’s over’.”

But the pair just managed to make it to the finish in time and they celebrated by spraying each other with champagne.

“Our support driver was there at the end with a bottle of champagne,” said Jordan. “To be honest, I think he just felt bad about earlier in the day.”

The pair raised just under £600 for The Whitehaven News ’s Lifeboat Appeal.

Jordan said: “We just thought it would be a really good, local cause to get behind because I think what they do is really admirable – they are saving lives.”

The physics graduate said he was proud to have completed the ride.

For his next challenge, Jordan said he would like to kayak from Whitehaven to the Isle of Man – more than 32 miles.