University of Bristol student cycles length of Norway in memory of friend

Fierce winds almost unseated him and the sea nearly swept his tent away but nothing could stop a Bristol university student from cycling the entire length of Norway for charity.

Ed Watson, a medical student at the University of Bristol, cycled around 100km every day for 32 days to complete the challenge in memory of his friend Tom Love, alongside his friend and brother.

Tom passed away in December 2022 at the age of 21, whilst living and working in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

He had ravelled through more than two dozen countries, all on his own and camping at the side of the road in nearly all of them.

To fund the next part of his trip, Tom got a job driving tractors on a farm in DRC that was aiming to relieve some of the dependence on imports that citizens there have.

It was there he contracted an infectious disease, which went undiagnosed until it was too late. He passed away on 2 December 2022.

The team’s 3,000km journey has already raised £6,000 for The Tom Love Trust, which supports children and young people in deprived areas of the UK and Africa.

Rain was a daily companion as Tom's friends rode through Norway’s hilly terrain on their route to the Arctic Circle, where the nights lasted for just a few hours.

“One night we wild camped near a fjord,” Ed recalled.

“We were woken up at 4am because the tide had come in and we were soaking wet.

“That’s when I knew we were going to work well together as a team because the first thing we did was laugh.”

Ed added: “This trip is the type of thing Tom really enjoyed, being in the middle of nowhere, supporting yourself. He would have loved it."

Although Ed, his brother James and friend Tommy Davies faced challenges, they loved the adventure too, often pitching their tents amid sensational views, sometimes underneath the northern lights.

“Before starting the cycle, I thought the best moment would be getting to the end, but for me the best moments were being out in the middle of nowhere, looking over a beautiful fjord, not seeing anyone else and just chatting away with my mates," he added.

Ed is now back at the University of Bristol, where he is taking a year out of his medicine degree to study global health.

Last year, he was the university’s men’s hockey club captain, a year in which the first team won the National Conference West.

Back at training now, he says the sessions are harder than the hours he spent each day in the saddle.

“Out there, all you’ve got to do is get up, eat food and cycle in a straight line. So getting back to Bristol and suddenly seeing so many people in one place was a shock,” he said.

“As weird as it sounds, although I absolutely loved the cycle, I actually missed doing uni work.

“There were definitely days when it had been raining all day when I thought ‘I’d rather be sat in a library with my mates.’”