Thanks for navigating your way onto my TransAmerica Cycle Ride fundraising page...get your credit card out!

Ruby died in July 2007 from a particularly aggressive brain tumour. The picture you can see was taken on our last holiday in Portugal two weeks before she was diagnosed. Unfortunately, these types of cancer don't get as much research dedicated to them as some of the more common ones and so this is why we have set up the Ruby Fund - we want to raise as much as we can to pay for further research. The Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust is the registered charity that the Ruby Fund is part of, so your donations are well looked after.

I completed cycling from Land's End to John O'Groats just before Ruby got ill so when I was thinking of how I could do some fundraising, another cycle ride seemed a good idea. Where to go was the next question - I thought about cycling to Sydney but that would have taken too long, so coast  to coast across the USA became the plan.

I should be setting off from Yorktown, Virginia on the east coast around the 9th July and arriving in Astoria, Oregon on the west coast sometime near the 12th September. The distance between these two places is approximately 4250 miles...that sounds a long way to me too.....

If you haven't donated through JustGiving before, it is dead easy, as well as secure. Just Giving will also claim 25% in Gift Aid if you are a UK taxplayer, plus a 3% supplement, that is added to your donation. Please donate as much as you can afford. It's going to be a long, hard ride, with lots of training beforehand and the thought of lots of money going into Ruby's fund will be a good motivating tool.

If you want to contact me, get me through Facebook or mftbrady@gmail.com. Subject to me obtaining the right computing skills before I go I'll be completing a blog so you will be able to follow my highs and lows as the ride progresses - I'll post the address before I go.

Thanks for the donation - I'll be in touch to let you know how it all goes,

Matt