We’ve been getting rather stuck into cricket this year.

As the England team’s Official Brew, we’ve attended Ashes matches, handed out thousands and thousands of samples at games and given a £10,000 kitchen to a village club.

But there are a few extra-curricular cricket activities we’ve found to get involved with too.

One of them is Chance to Ride – a fundraising bike ride between a bunch of cricket grounds, which took place from September 7-17 as England and Australia played a series of one-day matches around the country.

It was organised by Chance to Shine, a charity that funds that encourages kids into sport (specifically cricket) from an early age.

Some real sporting royalty took part, including Michael Vaughan, Tim Henman, Victoria Pendleton and Jamie Redknapp.

And so did four people from Yorkshire Tea Towers: our managing director Andy, Jess from marketing, John from engineering and Pete, who heads up our central procurement team (there he is in the picture above).

What’s a central procurement team when it’s at home? Well, it’s the bit of the business that buys stuff which isn’t directly related to packs of Yorkshire Tea.

So instead of tea and boxes, they help to sort out all the other stuff a business runs on – tables, cupboards, carpets, light bulbs, big noisy machines…you name it.

Pete joined the ride at Bristol, as the cyclists headed from SWALEC Stadium in Cardiff to the Ageas Bowl in Southampton.

“We started in Bristol on Sunday morning (Sep 15)” he says. “We left at about 11am, and then we had 93 miles to Southampton – which meant we arrived in the pitch dark.”

The riders got a bit of a rest, in preparation for a night time ride the next day.

“We saw some of the cricket at Southampton on the Monday. We saw the Aussie innings, when they ran up an enormous score, and set off a bit after 10pm.”

86 miles and 11 hours later, he arrived at The Oval in London.

“Riding at night was fantastic,” says Pete. “The Moon was out, the stars were out. You go an hour without seeing a car.

“It was a mixture of tiny country lanes in pitch dark and a bit on major roads with street lights – and a horrendous hill at 4.30 in the morning.

“Weirdly, I didn’t feel tired through lack of sleep. I mean, you kind of need to stay awake, otherwise you end up in a hedge.”

While Pete’s a pretty keen cyclist, this is by far the biggest endurance test he’s had on a bike.

“I have done 91 miles before in a day. But I’ve certainly never done the same again the next day.

“I’d definitely do it again. There’s a lot of camaraderie with people you are cycling with. A bit of banter, chatting as you’re cycling along.

“And the night ride was extraordinary.”