Nick Page (16) and Sebastian Sole (17) will attempt to ride the 152km-long Otago Central Rail Trail in seven and a-half hours, as part of the school's McGlashan Challenge on Saturday.
Pupils in the challenge plan and undertake tough tasks while raising money for a charity of their choice.
Page and Sole were aiming to raise $8000, which they would split evenly between the Cancer Society and the Otago Medical Research Foundation.
''Our motivation was really to support some charities, partly within Otago, as well as since both of us have lost relatives to cancer, to raise some money for them,'' Sole said.
''So to raise money for the local community we decided to fundraise for the Otago Medical Research Foundation.''
Given most of the city's tracks were too short, the pair had been doing a lot of long road rides over the past six months in preparation. Both had experience on the Rail Trail, although Saturday posed a bigger challenge.
''We have [done the Rail Trail], but not in one day,'' Page said.
''We've both done short segments of it and there's a school camp that does the whole Rail Trail in three days, so we've both participated in that. We know the terrain well enough.''
Their parents would act as the support crew, passing bars and water bottles to them, although they expected breaks would be limited.
The target time was decided upon after looking at times taken to complete a race along the track. They wanted to set a time that would push them but that was achievable with training.
''I feel if we get good weather conditions, we can make it,'' Page said.
Neither had raced competitively before, although both had entered a handful of events through the school.
They were the only pupils completing the challenge this year. Others were in the process of carrying challenges out and were set to complete them next year. Donations could be make via their Give A Little page at https://givealittle.co.nz/fundraiser/mcglashanchallenge.
