BBC Radio 1’s Mollie King says she is feeling a mixture of nerves and excitement as she prepares to cycle solo 500km across England to raise money for Red Nose Day in honour of her late father.
Mollie King’s Pedal Power for Red Nose Day on Radio 1 challenge will kick off on Monday during Greg James’s Breakfast show when the former The Saturdays singer, 36, will have just five days to cycle from London to the finish line in her dad’s hometown of Hull.
During that time she will also pedal through the streets of Towcester, Burton-upon-Trent, Manchester and Leeds, but there’s just one issue – she has never cycled before.
Speaking to the Standard, she said: “My dad passed away just over a year ago and I think especially having gone through that, it has made me keen to want to help people who themselves are going through difficult times.
“The question was what I could do, as these things often involve running or swimming which I can’t do. I think cycling was the only option left when they were like ‘we know you haven’t cycled on a road, but we think we can teach you this over the next six weeks’.”
Asked what she thinks her dad would make of the challenge, King said: “He would think I was bonkers. He knows I have never ridden a bike so he’d be like ‘what are you doing?’ But he is somebody who always encouraged me to take on new things and I know he will be with me every step of the way on this.”
Her fiancé, former England cricketer Stuart Broad, with whom she shares one-year-old daughter Annabella, thought she was winding him up.
After getting over the initial shock, she says he has been very supportive and even helped her with training.
She said: “He has actually got himself a bike because he’s worried about me being on the roads without him, so he has been out there cycling with me. He’s really trying to help me in terms of anything he can, you know like nutrition, just from being an athlete himself he knows how important all that stuff is. He really has got my back and knows how important it is to stay positive in the mind and to take things day by day and kind of just do small chunks.”
King is hoping that Broad’s support will extend to a well deserved foot massage after she completes the challenge.
