Charity cycling events: Scot’s unexpected 13-year journey behind the scenes
With Red Nose Day 2026 just a few weeks away, we thought it would be a good time to look back at how Scot got started working in charity cycling events. Because, yes, he is supporting Greg James (again!) on Radio 1’s Longest Ride for Red Nose Day challenge.
A leap into the unknown
Scot’s work in charity events started with a phone call to a friend of a friend who was looking for a driver. The brief was vague, and Scot didn’t quite know what he was agreeing to. He said yes anyway.
He turned up at Holyrood in Edinburgh one lunchtime to meet a team of people he’d never met before. Two minutes later, he was driving away as part of a charity event team. The previous driver got out of the support vehicle, Scot got in, and the job began.
Learning on the job
With no prior experience of such an event, Scot quickly learned the ropes, drawing on the skills and judgment he had developed as a guide.
The event was a multi-day charity run for the Leonard Cheshire Foundation. RAF pilots were running from the headquarters of the historic Dambusters, RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, to RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland. Scot’s role was to drive the event director, following runners at little more than walking pace for hours at a time. Long days and total focus.
When the event was over, he went home, got paid, and assumed that was that.
It wasn’t.
The wheels get set in motion for supporting charity cycling events
A week later, an email arrived from the same event director, asking if he’d like to cycle from the Giant’s Causeway to London. The details were hazy, but the answer was easy: yes. Scot and a friend took turns covering 60 miles a day on a route reconnaissance, riding and assessing every mile for risk. Only later did they realise that they’d been preparing the Rickshaw Challenge for BBC Children in Need.
The indispensable behind-the-scenes guy
Over subsequent years, Scot became involved in both preparatory work and live televised charity cycling events – initially for the Rickshaw Challenge and later for other events including Sport Relief and Comic Relief.
Sometimes he was on the bike every day. Sometimes he wasn’t. Sometimes his role was visible; often it wasn’t. But regardless of his changing responsibilities, Scot always knuckled down and got the job done.
As the years went by, he continued to be asked back to support different events. Being characteristically self-effacing, he was never quite sure why. However, Scot’s cool, composed demeanour while working is hard to miss. Even when things don’t go to plan, he remains unflustered and focuses on getting the job done.
And calm, it turns out, is contagious.
In addition to being unflappable, Scot is entirely dependable and has been trusted with a wide range of roles within various teams: from driver to route planner, chaperone to team-leader, and occasionally the late-night laundry elf.
None of them glamorous. All of them indispensable.
A mantra for life
Looking back to that first job, Scot says it felt like a leap into the unknown.
Thirteen years on, he feels he knows exactly what he’s doing. But, in typical Scot fashion, he’s quick to qualify that.
“One of my mantras for life is to always question what you are doing,” he once told me. “Because the moment you stop questioning what you’re doing is the moment you get it wrong.”
He has a point. And perhaps that’s why he continues to be asked back to support these events: not because he assumes he’s good at what he does, but because he never stops trying to do it better.
