Additional reporting by John Nurden
Nine hundred cyclists woke up at the crack of dawn to take part in the annual Chase the Sun coast-to-coast bicycle ride.
They left The Leas at Minster, on Sheppey, at around 4.30am yesterday and began their 205-mile cycle to the finish line in Western-Super-Mare - which they hoped to reach before sunset.
The dawn-to-dusk event was created by Olly Moore in 2008, it took him and three friends three attempts to succeed.
Yesterday record 900 cyclists attempted the southern course and raised money at the same time.
It took an hour to get all the riders underway.
They were dispatched in pods to not cause too much congestion on the roads.
The route took them through Rochester, south London, Crystal Palace, Chertsey, Bramley, across the Vale of Pewsey, over the Mendip hills, through Devizes and across Cheddar Gorge before finally arriving on the seafront at Weston-Super-Mare.
Last year 755 entered and 673 finished, 519 before sunset.
There were three other Chase The Sun rides taking place yesterday.
The others are in the north from Whitley Bay, in Northern Ireland from Belfast and in Italy.
On Sheppey, repair work on replacing cables on the Kingsferry lift bridge by Network Rail was put on hold to allow the cyclists to get off the Island.
All competitors had to register at the temporary event headquarters at the Abbey Hotel on The Broadway.
By dawn, its car park was awash with cyclists and their support vehicles.
