A cycling club in Chippenham has had a brush with fame after joining comedian John Bishop on a fundraising “week of hell”.

Andy Cook, chairman of the Chippenham Wheelers, was chosen to help devise a route that would launch the first leg, a 185-mile bike ride, of John Bishop’s epic week-long challenge for Sports Relief.

The star pledged to cycle from Paris to Calais, row across the Channel from Calais to Dover, and then run three marathons, all within five days raising £1.6 million for charity.

Mr Cook, 48, who lives in Lords Mead, got involved through his contacts with the BBC, which followed the challenge.

He said: “Our role was to identify a safe route in the first instance and then we had to risk assess it and I navigated in front of the convoy.

“It was quite an interesting challenge and it is phenomenal what he has achieved.

“Sometimes I think that these people do it for self publicity but he’s a very humble man.

“He admitted he had completely underestimated the challenge.

“He’s an interesting character and hats off to him for doing it.”

Within the convoy that Mr Cook had to safely lead was a crew of 70 people, a tour bus, a cameraman and a camera car, not to mention a celebrity on a bike completing an ardous challenge.

He and Bishop stopped about every 30 miles for refreshments and for the comedian to do interviews on Radio One.

The journey was not always so enjoyable with some difficult challenges as the ride progressed.

“The hardest part of the ride was in the Seven Valleys,” said Mr Cook, who has a daughter Lydia, 19, and son Tom, 15.

“These river valleys were probably John’s lowest ebb.

“He just was very, very stoic and I really appreciated what he was doing.”

Mr Cook left England at 3am on Sunday, February 26, to get to Paris to meet the BBC team and run through the event format.

On the Monday they set off on the bike ride from Paris to Calais, arriving at 4am on the Tuesday morning.

At 7am, Mr Bishop left Calais in a rowing boat for the second leg of his epic challenge.