7 year-old champion fundraiser Rupert Brooke does lap of honour at Newark Town Cycle Race after raising over £34,000 for Children's Bereavement Centre

A seven-year-old boy who cycled 200 miles from London to Paris was invited to complete a lap of honour at the Newark Town Cycle Race.

Rupert Brooke took on the challenge for the Children’s Bereavement Centre in memory of his father, becoming the youngest known cyclist to achieve the feat.

The champion fundraiser, from Eaton, raised more than £34,000 for the Newark-based charity ­— easily surpassing his original £5,000 target.

For his mega-ride Rupert spent four days in the saddle, covering 200 miles on the road to Paris.

Rupert's mum Jess explained what the end felt like: "I was incredibly proud, We go to a point when we were just entering Paris and I got a bit tearful about everything."

Alongside the help they received from the Children's Bereavement Centre, Rupert started road cycling with his mum to help them deal with the death of his father. He developed quickly and began racing at the end of last year. "He's a really talented little cyclist" said Jess.

"We wanted to do something to say thank you to the Bereavement Centre and that's where the idea of this ride from London to Paris came from, which seemed a bit crazy at the time, but he breezed it."

"Never in our wildest dreams did we think it would get to where it is now. Our target was £5,000, then changed it to £8,500, then it just went up and up and up and we kept changing the target. By the time we'd finished it was at £34,670."

Rachel Wilson of the Children's Bereavement Centre spoke about Rupert's efforts: "We'd never seen anything like it before. It wasn't just the money, we had messages coming in from all over the world about how inspired they were and what an amazing story it was."

"I don't think there's a continent we didn't have a donation from other than the Antarctic."

"This funding is absolutely vital in ensuring that we can continue to be there to support other children, young people and families.

"We get just 4% of the funding we need from any kind of statutory funding, the other 96% comes through bids and applications and from the incredible fundraising that people like Rupert and his family do for us that means we can continue to be there."

The family came to be involved in the town cycle race after conversations between the charity and the council in which it was suggested that they might like to celebrate Rupert and get him involved as he's still too young to take part in the racing.

On his lap of honour Rupert was able to meet with British cycling royalty, as three time Olympic and six-time World team-pursuit champion Ed Clancy joined him on his ride.

Ed spoke enthusiastically about Rupert and offered a few words of advice:"It's great to hear about young Rupert. Thirty five grand is an awful lot of money for a youngster to raise and maybe I'm bias but I think riding bikes is the best way to do it."

"The thing is you never have time as an athlete it's always business; aerodynamics, coefficients of drag, heartrate monitors and it's only now that I've got a bit of head space that I can to be honest, ride bikes for fun. So I do hope that I can do a bit of a mad challenge at some point too."

"If he wants to be a cyclist. There's one piece of advice I'd always give, you've got to have a real clarity about what's the dream, but then set goals that have to be practical and attainable that he can slowly tick off. No matter the field, the real winners are the ones that identify a dream that inspires them but are smart enough to know that it's X, Y and Z that are going to get them there."

Rupert continues to race in the junior leagues as part of the Leicester Forest Rocket’s cycling club and has big plans for the future: "I did ask him after London to Paris what was next, and he said he'd like to cycle to South Africa. I have no doubt he could do it but I told him he can wait until he's a bit older because I don't think I could make it the whole way." said Jess.

To contibute to Rupert's fundraising, CLICK HERE

Ahead of the professional races, community laps were held, giving keen amateurs and families a chance to take to the circuit.

Alongside Rupert and Ed was Mayor of Newark, Laurence Goff who spoke about what the event meant for the town: "This is a big event for the town and I feel privileged to have been involved."

"I cycle everywhere myself if I can help it and I think it's important to get people out of cars and into the fresh air.

"We've also introduced Brompton Bikes in several locations around Newark, which are available for use all year around for people to hire and explore our wonderful town."