Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Thank you SO much to everyone who has donated to this amazing charity – we were getting updates on the total amount raised whilst we were away and as the total crept up it helped boost our morale as we covered the miles.

Please read our story and at the end there is an update on the Bike Ride :

Gege, Lewis and I have decided to cycle from Forest Row to Amsterdam which is about 300 miles EACH WAY !!! We will start in Forest Row on Tuesday 20th July and cycle to Dover where we will catch the ferry to Dunkerque. We will then cycle up through France to Belgium and into the Netherlands. We will be camping along the way so we will have to carry all our kit and tent on the bikes as we travel. We are hoping to get there in 3 days, however sleeping in tents and carrying everything we need with us may slow our trip a little.

When we arrive in Amsterdam we plan to recover for a few days and do some sight-seeing !!!! and then start on our way home aiming to be back in Forest Row by 3rd August.

We have chosen to support the Air Ambulance because I was air-lifted to hospital after my accident last year and I am so grateful to them. I was shocked to find out that they receive no government or lottery funding and are totally run on fund-raising and donations. It is not until you need their services that you really appreciate the job they do and the service that they provide so we decided to do this bike ride for them.

In the accident I sustained :

- a comminuted fractured femur (smashed into lots of bits) so I have had a titanium plate inserted down the centre of my femur bone from the hip down to the knee. The broken bits of bone have been screwed into the plate and they are now re-joining with the rest of my femur.

- a lateral open patella fracture ( broken knee with a 6 inch gash) so I had that 'stapled' back together.

- a metacarpal fracture ( broken thumb) which wasn't that painful - just very annoying when I had to use crutches for the broken leg !!

- 3rd degree friction burns to side of my foot - my shoe came off and the tarmac took the side of my foot off right down to the bone. I had to have skin grafts for this and it still looks pretty weird and always will.

I was bed-ridden for weeks and then wheel-chair bound for 8 weeks and then on crutches for a while. During this time I had a lot of time to think and I decided that life is too short (or very easily could be !) and that you should make the most of it. I plan to do lots of exciting things now that I am so lucky to be recovering well. My physiotherapist suggested cycling would be good to build the muscle back up in my leg - I don't think he meant me to go quite as far as Amsterdam though !!! 

After my accident I was extemely lucky to have such good friends - they had to operate a queuing system in the hospital corridor as the nurses would not allow 12 round my bed at a time !!! When I came home and was stuck in bed I think I would have gone crazy if my friends had not been so thoughtful and good at visiting me - they kept me sane and I also want to do this bike ride to show them that I am recovered now.  

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So please dig deep and donate now.

Thanks

Luke

Update after the Bike Ride …

Well we are back and still talking to each other after sharing a three man tent for 2 weeks !!! Lewis and Gege had 6 punctures EACH over the 620 miles but I was lucky enough not to get one until after I got home.

I had no idea quite how hilly Kent was until we had to cycle to Dover – when you travel by car you just don’t seem to notice the hills but by bicycle you are much more aware of your surroundings and the hills, especially with your kit when going up !!! and there definitely seems to be more of these than those going down !! When we arrived at Dover we were VERY pleased to see my family had come to wave us off especially as they had brought food with them. I don’t know how many calories we used up a day but we ate as much as possible as often as possible and still managed to lose weight ! Norfolkline ferries were very generous and gave us (& our bikes) free passage from Dover to Dunkerque and back so a BIG thank you to Norfolkline.

We did take a map with us but unfortunately it was of Holland and not a lot of use to us when we arrived in France ! Another thing we wished we had practiced a bit before we set off was constructing the tent – by the end we could put it up in a couple of minutes (as stated in the instruction booklet) but that first night took a while even though there was only one long and one short pole to choose from.

Along the way we met a lot of lovely people who chatted to us and gave us directions (even though we had bought a map of France it was still nice to confirm that we were where we thought we were !!) one guy even cycled with us for a few hours and bought us a drink because he was impressed with what we were doing. When we got to Holland it was amazing because there were more cycle paths than roads and we cycled along a path through a nature reserve across the dunes overlooking the beach and the sea – it was fantastic.

We bought food and drink at markets, supermarkets or wherever we could find it as our panniers were pretty loaded already so we could not carry much food with us.

We were SO happy to arrive in Amsterdam and see Gege’s family but were totally speechless when we met up with a group of friends from Forest Row who had driven to Amsterdam for the weekend to see us !! It was totally surreal to see them there but lovely to see familiar faces after such a long bike ride. Whilst we were in Amsterdam we did some sightseeing – the torture museum ( really gruesome) and the Heineken factory (really tasty) and a few other famous landmarks too !!

The journey home was long …

When I arrived home and unpacked the bike panniers the contents completely covered the driveway – it is amazing how much you can fit in to them and I even bought back presents for the family – much to their amazement.

Our parents arranged a homecoming party for us at the Brambletye pub in the village and it was great that so many people turned out to welcome us home.  We are amazed at the generosity of people and we are thrilled to have raised over £1700 for the air ambulance so far – apparently the average rescue costs about £1500 so we have repaid my rescue and a bit more.