A regional daily news editor has completed the UK’s longest bike ride by cycling from Land’s End to John O’Groats.

Karl Holbrook, of the Lancashire Evening Post, undertook the Ride Across Britain challenge, which attracts hundreds of people from around the world every year.

The course sees competitors travel fromand to the most extreme points of mainland Great Britain.

Karl, pictured below at the finish line, managed to complete the challenge in nine days.

In a piece for the LEP, he wrote: “So. 970 miles, 23 counties, three countries, two lost toenails, one strapped knee and a really sore backside later – but I made it across Britain on my bike. It is a challenge that has inspired people for generations and it has certainly inspired me over the course of the last nine days.

“I’ve questioned what I am capable of dozens of times over the course of this Deloitte Ride Across Britain challenge. There have been times I didn’t think I had the answers. But I did – we all do. We are capable of so much more than we realise and it is going through a great adventure like this that the point is really hammered home.

“The night before our final 104 mile ride to John o’ Groats, Julian Mack, owner of Threshold Sports, which organised this fantastic event, left us with a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson. ‘A mind,’ he said. ‘Once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.’

“I hope not. I’ve learned so much. About myself and about this wonderful country we call home. From the Cornish coast right through the spine of Britain to the Highlands, I’ve seen parts of the country I never knew existed. And it is amazing.”