As many of you will know, I rode in the inaugural Prudential Ride London 100 last year to raise money for the NSPCC. Thanks to your generosity, I raised a little over £1,800 for the charity – more with Gift Aid.

Managed Networks also gives to the NSPCC, as do I personally. Together with your kind donations, we gave a total of just under £5,000 in 2013.

But it’s not enough.

• Police recorded over 23,000 sex offences against children aged under 18 years in England and Wales between April 2012 and March 2013.
• More than one in three children (34 per cent) who experienced contact sexual abuse by an adult did not tell anyone else about it.
• Four out of five children (82.7 per cent) who experienced contact sexual abuse from a peer did not tell anyone else about it.
• In 2012/13, ChildLine counsellors dealt with 1.4 million contacts from children about various problems including, bullying, sexual abuse, violence and mental health issues.
• On average, every week in the UK at least one child is killed at the hands of another person.

So this year, I’m raising the bar. The target for 2014 is £7,500.

Managed Networks will give £3,000; I’ll add another £1,000 personally. That leaves £3,500 to raise from outside sources – you, in other words.

Since I’m asking you to put your hands in your pockets again, and put them in deeper, I thought I’d better work a little harder for the money. So here’s this summer’s schedule of cycling challenges:

May 11^th, FT London Sportive, 100 miles, 1100 metres of climbing
June 7^th, NSPCC Tour of the South East, 180 miles, 2000 metres
July 10^th, Alpine challenge, 220 miles, 6000 metres
August 10^th, Ride London 100, 100 miles, 1200 metres

In all, that’s 600 miles and 10,000 metres of climbing. For the events I’ve done before I’ll also be trying to beat my previous time; when it comes to the Alps, I’ll just be trying to survive.

You can follow my progress on Strava: http://app.strava.com/athletes/1285758

I’ll post occasional updates, and the results from each event, here on my JustGiving page.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity. So it’s the most efficient way to donate – saving time and cutting costs for the charity.