A thrill-seeking man is to begin an attempt to ride every rollercoaster in the UK in little over two weeks.
Dean Stokes, 36, believes he will become the first person to achieve the feat if he can succeed in riding 120 coasters across 32 theme parks in 16 days, starting in Brighton and ending at Thorpe Park.
Mr Stokes worked for five years at Google before leaving the corporate ladder to set up his own business delivering technology training, having grown tired of being unable to try new things.
The former UK head of Google for Education decided to set up his own YouTube channel as part of his new work and has already seen his videos about his planned adventure viewed hundreds of thousands of times across social media platforms.
Mr Stokes, from Brighton, in East Sussex, told his former Google colleague Simon Fasolo, 44, about his plan to travel the UK in pursuit of the aim.
And Mr Fasolo, from Perth, Australia, decided it would be a great way to explore the country – despite hating rollercoasters himself and refusing to join his friend on the rides.
The two will begin at Brighton Palace Pier, home to the Crazy Mouse and Turbo rollercoasters, and, according to the route map on the deanrides.com website, hope to have conquered four parks and eight rides in total by the end of the first day.
Mr Stokes said: “I’ve ridden over 100 rollercoasters in around 25 different theme parks across 10 different countries.
“But I still haven’t actually ridden loads of rollercoasters in the UK, so I just thought, why not?
“One of the reasons I left the corporate world was to have a bit more variety in the work that I do and so starting the YouTube channel on the tech side was part of that.
“And I just thought, if I was going to make a channel that was completely different to that, what would it be? And it would probably be rollercoasters and theme parks because I’m a big fan.
“I’ve included every rollercoaster that’s classed as a thrill or extreme rollercoaster, to avoid family and children’s rides. But we plan to do all of them consecutively.
“As far as I know, I think I’ll be the first person to do it – the only person mad enough to do it.”
Mr Stokes said he is open to ideas or suggestions from his followers on social media of tasks within the challenge.
The duo have booked around half of the hotels, and plan to travel in a hire car, but delays and unforeseen issues could lead to a stressful journey.
He said: “I think it’s going to be quite a lot of stress at points, but I’m looking forward to it overall.
“On social media, I realised it was really resonating with people.
“I think people want to go out and have fun and I think that often we are too scared to get out and just do the things that we love, especially as adults.
“There’s this whole community out there that loves theme parks, whether they’re proper enthusiasts or just people that like going in the summer with their family, and they are now really excited to follow my progress.”
He added: “Someone commented and said it is the UK theme park enthusiast’s dream. It might be difficult, so I’ll have to decide whether it feels like a dream at the end of it or not.
There are theme parks the two plan to visit across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and they are planning on driving to Dublin for an extra set of rides in the Republic of Ireland.
Mr Stokes is excited to support many of the amusement parks which are run as independent businesses, as well as visiting historic seaside resorts, such as Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach, which is over a hundred years old.
He has asked for permission to film for his YouTube, TikTok and Facebook, and a number of the theme parks have even offered him free tickets.
Mr Stokes said: “A lot of the parks have come back to me and are really on board with the whole idea.
“I need the good summer weather to continue, as I’ve only packed shorts and T-shirts, and one jacket. But if it all goes to plan, it should be a great trip
“And I’m already looking for inspiration for my next challenge once it’s complete – I think the natural next step would be to choose another country and do the same.
“Germany has loads of world world-class theme parks, so we could go and do it there.
“But maybe it could be a country that I’ve never been to. I know Japan has a few theme parks that’d be cool to get around. But I’ll do well to finish this challenge first.”
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