Paddy McGuinness on his Children in Need Chopper challenge and training with Olympics legend Sir Chris Hoy

On Monday 11th November, McGuinness will start at Wrexham Football Club and travel through Flintshire, Cheshire, Merseyside, Lancashire, Westmorland, Cumbria, Dumfriesshire and Lanarkshire before finishing on Friday 15th November in Glasgow.

The presenter, who can be heard on Radio 2 every Sunday morning, has been kitted out with an upgraded, unmissable bright yellow Chopper, complete with Pudsey Bear's face on its frame. Raleigh has reproduced the original Chopper, but with a different, higher seat that will work better for longer distances. And the gear shifter, with its three gears, that is traditionally mounted on the crossbar has been moved to the handlebars so that McGuinness doesn't have to keep reaching down to change gear while on the road.

"I've already killed two Choppers," he says. "They're just not made for that kind of distance. I've done 40 miles on it so far and they keep breaking on me, the gears keep going. The chain guard fell off, it was rattling and creaking. When I'm doing the challenge, there will be two or three of them in a van, and a mechanic just in case."

He's had no help from a personal trainer, nor has he stuck to any particular diet, but he does have a physiotherapist and enjoys an ice bath. He has also been receiving sage advice from none other than Sir Chris Hoy, the six-time Olympic gold medallist who recently announced his cancer is terminal. "He lives near me [in Cheshire] and he's taking me on a really punishing ride next week. I messaged him to ask if he was still up for doing this, and he went, 'Just because I've said what I've said, it doesn't mean I'm not going to brutalise you.'

"He told me to ride the Chopper every day, as it's getting your backside used to it, because it's so painful sitting in one position for so long. He's been going around finding me bum cream! I've got to slather it on myself, and the bib shorts I'm wearing. It feels awful, but if you don't have it on, you can't ride any longer than an hour or two, because of the friction."

McGuinness, 51, grew up in Farnworth, Bolton, and his parents – his mum was a cleaner while his dad served in the military, before working in the scrap metal industry, as a miner and a lorry driver – couldn't afford to buy him a Chopper. He instead had a heavy BMX 2000. "I have very happy memories of that bike," he says, "but I saw a lad with a purple Chopper and I remember thinking, 'God, I'd give my right arm for that bike.' I became mates with him and borrowed it off him for a while and swapped it for a Star Wars AT-AT [All Terrain Armoured Transport] toy. That's kind of what you did then. Everything was second-hand. It was probably like a really primitive version of Vinted [an app for pre-loved clothes]."

Years later, during the first Covid lockdown, to "cheer myself up", McGuinness bought a Chopper on eBay for £400 that was the same exact colour purple ("I've got it now, it's mine!"), and he's brought that bike with him to our photoshoot.

McGuinness has three children – 11-year-old twins Leo and Penelope, and eight-year-old Felicity, all of whom have been diagnosed with autism – who he shares with former spouse Christine. Now that he's in a position to spoil them, does he? "It's a tricky one with children, because if you've got the provisions to get your kid a toy if they want one, I think naturally, being soft as I am, I'm going to do that, especially not having had it myself. I remember how it made me feel in my childhood looking at the lad who had the best football boots, bike or toy.

"It didn't do me any harm, I was fine in life, but I don't want my kids to feel that, and they don't. But the great thing about my children is I treat them to stuff like any other parent does, but they don't mither me for a lot of things. They're happy with what they've got. When it comes to Christmas, it's me going, 'Do you want one of these?' and they go, 'Not really!' I try to get a nice balance with them."

As well as the cycling challenge, McGuinness is embarking on a comedy tour of the UK and Ireland from now until April 2025, his first in eight years. "It's safe to say there's quite a lot to talk about, and quite a lot of stuff going on in the world. I forgot about how difficult it is to remember the material I've written," he says. "Tours are so stressful. You do it, you go off stage, and then you collapse. You go back to it, because it's very seductive. When you're on stage and everyone's laughing, and they're listening to you and hanging on every word, you feel 10 feet tall."

McGuinness, who worked at a leisure centre and as a labourer, never really thought comedy was a career option. "I love my mum and dad to bits, and they absolutely love me to bits, but my dad would never take me to football and my mum would never be at a school parents' evening. It sounds grim, but it wasn't grim, it was just our life. I can't say no one from my area has gone to university, but it wasn't on the radar. Parents weren't going, 'Are you going to uni? What grades have you got?' It was more about needing to get a job as soon as you left school, just to bring money in."

Then, he saw his friend Peter Kay performing at a small comedy club in Manchester. The pair both attended Mount St Joseph High School in Bolton, and McGuinness would later go on to star with Kay in Phoenix Nights and Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere.

"He got £40 that night and I thought, 'Bloody hell, £40 for just talking sh**e on stage.' I did my first gig at Lancaster University, and it was called the Newcastle Brown Ale circuit. When I finished, the compere said, 'That was Paddy McGuinness, and he claims it's his first time.' I thought that was quite a nice accolade. It was purely a financial decision. I was doing all right in jobs and various things, but I would have never been the CEO of a business or anything like that. I’d have just stayed at the level I was, so I thought comedy was a great way to better myself and try to make a few quid to help at home."

It was Kay who then told McGuinness to leave his job at the leisure centre and properly go for it with comedy. "I'd have never done it otherwise, because I always liked the security knowing I had a wage coming in every week, whereas in my current job, if you’re not working, you're not earning."

Many will first remember McGuinness from hosting the ITV dating show Take Me Out from 2010 until 2019. "I'm really proud of it. It's had eight weddings and six babies," he says excitedly. "Social media wasn't that big, we would wish people well, but then we didn't really do anything or follow them. After Blind Date died a death, Take Me Out was the resurgence of dating shows again. First Dates and Love Island all came off the back of its success.

"I'm not dissing it, because people love Love Island, but everyone looks fantastic on it and that's not reality. If I was young watching that, I wouldn't want to be thinking, 'Oh, I'll not get a girlfriend because I've not got a six pack, or my teeth aren't a bloody certain shade of white.' On Take Me Out, I always loved how everyone was different, they weren't carbon copies. There were so many different shapes and sizes and jobs, with different looks and different backgrounds. That's normal life."

McGuinness will also soon be making an appearance on CBeebies Bedtime Stories. "I watch it with my kids and it's one I wanted to do for them so they can go, 'Daddy does that.' They're aware of what I do now. I read it as I would with my own kids. Felicity likes me reading books she has, but Leo and Penelope love me making up stories like my dad did with me, and it usually involves them at some stage. Penelope loves reading, she’s into the Dog Man book series. The only things I read growing up were The Beano and The Dandy. I was either out playing or there was the odd fight, I never really saw anyone read a book."

In McGuinness's episode, he's reading The Stompysaurus by Rachel Bright. Everything is going wrong in Stompysaurus's day, but he learns how to turn it around – teaching children how to overcome anger and annoyance.

"Books like this resonate. Kids see a character in a book doing something and they copy it. I think most of the mistakes I made throughout my life were just reacting too quickly to situations. If you take a moment out and just chill and weigh it up, it usually works out a lot better. I’m not as impulsive with a reaction now."

All this plus the recent BBC1 series Paddy and Chris: Road Tripping, with his former Top Gear co-presenter Chris Harris, keeps McGuinness busy, but he likes it that way. "When we're talking about everything I have on, I just have that work ethic, and I don't take anything for granted. I'm always looking at the next thing." With that, he's off in his van to pick up his kids, purple and yellow Choppers in tow.

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