TAS 100, West Yorkshire by Tim and Laura Moss

Fancy taking on your first 'century' ride? Round-the-world cyclists Tim and Laura Moss reveal what it's like to do the TAS 100.

When people hear that we have 'cycled around the world', they often assume that we are hard-core cyclists: super fit types who would think nothing of cycling 100 miles at the front of a peloton, or tackling some gnarly off-road mountain biking descent.

But touring for months on end is not really like that. We were fit, certainly, but only in the narrow sport of riding a heavy bike very slowly for days on end. We did not race anywhere, rarely went off-road and did not usually cover huge distances. It was tiring enough having to live outside all of the time and cook our own meals at the side of the road. Besides, we were never in a hurry.

In fact, although we would be cycling all day, every day, for weeks at a time, we rarely did more than 70 miles in a day and never once hit the magic 100. After returning home, we decided to change that.

Laura is a director of The Adventure Syndicate. It is an organisation that encourages women and girls to get into cycling. Their motto is: ‘You are capable of more than you think.’

With this in mind, she decided that she would try and get some other people to ride their first century with her. She and six other ‘syndicateers’ planned seven 100-mile rides in different areas of the country and invited other people to join them.

So, on the morning of 15 July 2017, I joined Laura and a dozen women (plus a couple of men) beneath the steps of Leeds Town Hall. Most of us had never met and only one person had ever ridden 100 miles in a day before.

Some wore Lycra and rode sleek-looking road bikes. Others were on hybrids and one woman was on a ladies' 15kg sit-up-and-beg bike. She was used to riding along the Leeds-Liverpool canal towpath, a few miles at a time and completely flat. I felt like a lot of the group did not know what they had signed up for and suspected that many would not go the distance.

The ride was a joy. No machismo or competition. Everyone was focused on the goal, aware that there were only so many hours of daylight in which to cover the miles, but the atmosphere was relaxed throughout and plenty of time was made for cafe stops and refuelling. Long before sunset, we made it back to Leeds having cycled a hundred miles. Every last one of us.

This is the route we followed that day: a big loop from Leeds via Harrogate, York and Selby. It aims to stick to quieter roads while avoiding big climbs.