This August Bank Holiday, along with my long suffering wife and best friend Howard Hughes, I will be riding the Way of the Roses.

Day one will be just over 100 miles from Morcambe, through The Dales, ending in York. Day two will be an easier day covering over 70 miles from York to Bridlington. We will be doing this in aid of Help for heroes. If you wish to know why please read below.

As some of you will know on 24th of July 2010 I was involved in a road traffic accident. While on my motorbike a car pulled out of a side road without looking, unable to react in time I drove straight into it. I cracked my pelvis, sheared off the ball of my hip and smashed my tibia, fibula and knee into many pieces.

When I woke up after my first operation I had a very large piece of scaffolding on my leg and a man stood in front of me telling me quite exitedly that this was only temporary measure and that I was to get a fabulous bit of kit called an Illizarov Frame (see picture below). This man was Mr Simon Britten, orthopaedic surgeon extraordinair. He told me he was going to use it to pin the jigsaw that was my lower leg back together.

Prior to the accident I enjoyed distance running, I had run numerous marathons and coached endurance athletics for Leeds City Athletics Club, I asked Mr Britten if I would ever run again. When he found out how many miles I ran a week he shook his head and said that it was very unlikely that I would be able to do that any more, but on the TV next to me was that years Tour De France and he said that as there was no impact with cycling I ought to be able to manage that. From that moment on I was a cyclist.

Realising that I would need a goal to help get me fit and push me through recovery I looked around for something to aim at, Lands End to John O'Groats was probably too big to start with but  Paul Drinkwater, a fire fighting tri athlete (he actualy spent 5 minutes kneeling on my helmet to stop my head moving at the scene of the accident), suggested The Way of the Roses, 180 ish miles coast to coast. 

As Mr Britten was responsible for mending my leg I asked him which charity I should do it for and he suggested Help For Hero's, apparently legs tend to brake when parachutes don't open, giving him a lot of practice in fixing bones. 

With a lot of support from Paul and the loan of his sons bike I managed to get out on a ride for the first time on March the 6th 2011. I completed the grand distance of 7 miles in around 45 minutes, I used to be able to almost run that fast! I had planned to do the ride in the summer of 2012 but had to undergo a further operation that June and so the ride was put back to this year.

Training has gone well this year, we recently completed a 60 mile ride around Ripon without my knee hurting too much, so we should be OK for the ride at the end of August. Once we have completed the ride I will be able to say that I have completed my recovery.

I would like to thank a number of people for their support over the last few years;

Mr Simon Brittain and his team for their outstanding work.

All the Physio's at Jimmy's.

Mark, Della and Paresh for their support.

Paul Drinky for his time, sympathy and advice.

Howard and Nikki for everything.

Patty for putting up with me!

and anyone who donates......... thank you.

Oh and in case you were wondering, yes, the arrow on my leg in the frame photo really was drawn on to show Mr B' which leg to take the frame off of!

UPDATE: Well we did it!

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Thanks again everyone.