Volunteers and supporters of a Great Clacton café have raised more than £500 to help continue it continue its work with vulnerable people.

Frydays Community Café, which is part of St John’s Church, organised a mammoth 423 mile virtual cycle ride – the distance between Clacton and Edinburgh – on September 6.

The event was hosted by Anytime Fitness Clacton, which supplied equipment for the riders to virtually cycle to its sister site in the Scottish capital.

Tanith Puxley, a volunteer at the café and who cycled 60 miles, said: “What we do here is really important as we provide good quality hot meals at very reasonable prices.

“We also support vulnerable people whenever we can which can include homeless people, veterans or those without good social mobility.

“The cycle ride was an amazing way to do this and people in cars were honking their support and people stopped to donate their pennies.”

The event was spearheaded by Pride of Tendring Award winner Clive Upton, and coincided with the Tour of Britain’s fifth stage in Clacton as well as the Tendring Individual Time Trial.

Joe Dines, club manager for Anytime Fitness Clacton, said: “Anytime Fitness Clacton was very proud to supply the exercise equipment to support Clive and his team in completing their challenge.

“It was a privilege to help them raise money for our local community and we are always happy to play our part as a local business”.

The money will go towards buying new equipment for the café.

Frydays Community Café is based at St John’s Church Hall and is open every Friday from 8-11am, and 11.30am-1.30pm.