For the last couple of years I've ridden and reviewed Threshold Sport's two day London Revolution, a circumnavigation around London taking in some of the area's best riding, and enjoyed it immensely.

A big feature of their event series is the inclusion of experienced riders, known as Chaperones, who on the bigger events - such as the Ride Across Britain - perform various roles including acting as group leaders. On shorter events such as London Revolution the chaperones play a supporting role, assisting riders where needed and providing advice on riding in groups, etiquette  or just giving moral support to those struggling - an invaluable help to those who need it.

Inspired by the Chaperones I met previously, I decided I would offer my services and was thrilled to be accepted. I like to think on most rides I can be of help to someone, somewhere so I felt well suited to the role.

The weekend started on the Friday night, with a briefing for all of the crew at the rides' start and finish point, the Lee Valley Athletics Stadium. With all of us given a general overview of the weekend and the procedures, each division split into separate groups for a more thorough briefing on their specific roles.

The route management group I was part of was headed up by Andy Cook and his team who provided all road-related services, from the route planning through to signage deployment and take-down. It also included some of the support vehicles such as the broom wagons. As this was my first time I would be a roaming support rider, with the more experienced guys - equipped with GPS trackers - given more specific roles. Briefing over, we were issued with our recognisable kit and off to our hotels ahead of an early start on Saturday morning.

That 5am alarm never gets any easier, does it? But awaking to bright blue skies and sunshine helps a bit. With an easy drive in at that time of the morning, my twelve mile journey was short and the route through the athletics centre to the large grass car park was smooth too, with minimal queuing. I was due to set off at around 8am, and given it was now 6:45am I had plenty of time for coffee and another bite to eat. It was already busy with those keen to get going and there was quite a buzz in the air - I was pretty excited about what was to come.

I joined the queue and broke the ice with the guys I would be riding with as we headed out towards the city. With nobody keen to peak too early the pace was relaxed as we made our way into the busier city centre, even at this time of day, to pass some of the iconic sites and head over Tower Bridge.

Around 20 miles in there is a steady climb up and away into the countryside, and it marked my first real call to action. Riding alone at this point, I spotted a guy sat in a driveway not looking too good. I stopped to see if he was OK and it turned out he was suffering with pressure in his head, but that he was OK. We chatted for a few minutes until he felt able to carry on, and I said I would ride with him for a while.

The guy had certainly been through the wars - he was forced to give up marathon running due to contracting meningitis twice, and the resulting complications. The partial cause of today's issues were the after effects of cranial drilling. Toward the top of the rise he complained of blurred vision, and as we reached the T junction he failed to unclip and fell into me, banging his head on the way down.

Realising the severity of the situation, I made him comfortable and called event control for immediate medical assistance. In the meantime, a gentleman stopped and said that his wife, who was just arriving, was a doctor. She checked him over and advised that he shouldn't continue.

Control were taking details of our location to enable the Medibike to find us, but our man had re-mounted and was insisting on continuing. Control asked that I go after him and ride with him, so away up the road I went to find him stopped, slumped over his bike. Within seconds of pulling up, he lost consciousness. He came around twenty seconds or so later, so we carefully pulled him off his bike and lay him down at the side of the road.

No time to wait for the Medibike now, so I called 999 for an ambulance. After some confusion as to our location, Andy and crew member Seb had arrived on the scene, and helped by controlling traffic on the lane. A Police doctor had stopped, and along with the Medibike guys looked after our man while we waited for the ambulance. Once the ambulance arrived they made the easy call to stabilise him and get him to hospital.

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