Last Summer I took off with a rather wonderful bunch of brave and inspiring people to take part in my first Fireflies Tour - an annual pilgrimage cycling from the shores of Lake Geneva, over the Alps to Cannes.  1000km, 18 mountains with 80,000ft of climbing....(i.e. 3 x Everest).  

It's impossible to stress how absurdly difficult an undertaking this Tour is.  I was new to cycling at the time, so had no idea what to expect.  The rest of the gang had been on bikes for a lot longer, many taking part in their 4th, 5th, 6th, 10th tours.  During the week that followed I'm pretty sure every one of us was turned inside out to get through each day and on to the next.  'The worst weather in Tour history' people said, and I'd have to agree - it was genuinely horrific, and more than occasionally terrifying.  

Last year I'd lost a hugely dear friend to Leukemia a couple of months before the tour, and I had two hugely dear friends and the daughter of another going through their own battles with chemotherapy.  There is nothing more horrific and terrifying than this, and is why people keep coming back tour after tour after tour, and why I'm coming back myself.

This time, thankfully, I have no nearest and dearest grinding through the chemotherapy mill, because these fantastic people have all beaten it and come out of the other side.  That's not enough though, because there are still millions of people I don't know who still have to get up every day and struggle through something they don't want to do, but have no choice.

The Fireflies tour motto is 'for those who suffer, we ride'. So in a few weeks, we'll all be forcing down awful French breakfasts at ungodly hours, then eating more because someone who knows better tells you you need to eat more, then feeling sick and tired and awful, setting off for 8/9/10 hours in the saddle and and down some mountains in torrential rain, hail, sleet, snow, sub zero and baking hot temperatures, forcing down artificial energy bars and gels because we're getting through 7000 calories a day, then getting up after not much sleep and doing it all again for 8 days straight.   This isn't the same as the treatment and trauma patients have to go through, but it's a gesture towards.

Every penny raised through sponsorship - 100%, all of it, every bit goes to Bloodwise, who support pioneering research in this area.    The riders pay our own way to take part, covering all our own costs. 

None of this is normal, but all of it is life changing, so please contribute whatever you can, as it all helps!

Thanks for visiting, and please visit the links below for more info.

Steve

http://thefirefliestour.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjoGgtmNA_A  (what this is all about)

www.bloodwise.org.uk