Head boy Nick Gregory from Midhurst and Ollie Fawls cycled from Seaford College to Rome through blistering heat and over the Alps in a
month-long challenge which has raised more than £4,000 for Talli's Fund.

Providing vital back-up for the journey was their friend and classmate Harry Jeffries from Heyshott, who followed the friends every step of
the way, providing endless encouragement and support.

Talli Jones, who lived in Duncton, was Nick's step-sister and a close friend of all three boys throughout their school careers.

She died in 2006 when she was in collision with a 4x4 vehicle at Itchenor shortly after getting off a bus on Saturday evening, November 4.

Talli, who was 16, and studying for her A-levels, died at St Richard's Hospital in Chichester early next day.

She had planned to spend her gap year in Africa working for the charity Afrikids which cares for orphaned and outcast children in Northern Ghana.

The money raised by the bike ride will help finance college students wanting to undertake charitable work on gap years, as Talli had intended to do. The friends also plan to donate some money directly to Afrikids.

The team set off from college on July 9, just five days after
the end of term and cycled a total of 19 days, averaging between 50 and 90 miles of cycling each day.

They endured temperatures reaching a scorching 40 degrees as they ploughed their way through Italy.

They finally finished their mammoth bike ride on August 6 in the centre of Rome, where they were greeted by family and friends.

Ollie told the Observer: "We are pretty tired. We didn't know what to expect because we had never done anything like this before, but we learnt things every day and in the end we made it. We are very proud of ourselves, it's been a great achievement."

Nick added: "We were pretty nervous before the ride, because we weren't serious cyclists and we didn't have time for much training because we were sitting A-levels all last term. It's a real relief to have finished it.

"We prepared ourselves for the absolute worst and there certainly were challenging times, including when we got ankle injuries and became very, very tired."

He said they had never had a target figure to raise and money had kept coming in even after they started the ride: "We just hoped to raise as much as we possibly could in memory of a wonderul and caring young woman."

He paid tribute to Trango, the Selsey company specialising in safe travel and disaster management, which provided invaluable tracing devices for the trip to ensure their safety.

"We had brilliant support from Trango, we spoke to them every day and they tracked us all the way.

"There was one occasion when we were in 40 degrees of heat, two days from Rome, very tired and hadn't got a clue where we were and they got us on the right track, which was a major relief."




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