Thanks for taking the time to visit my Just Giving page.

I have been a cyclist since I was 15 and loved it as a form of exercise and grew up watching  the short clips of the the big cycling events like the Tour de France on TV  whenever I could. Back then we were lucky to see 10 minutes of the cycling biggest race in the world but when it came to England for the first time I was there. I was there when it went to Ireland and I was there when it came to Yorkshire too.

Although by the time it came to Yorkshire I had given up cycling due to a serious leg injury that left me struggling to walk for four years, leaving me with a limp. By then I had developed my other hobby of photography and combined it to provide photographs for the the local charities that were supported.  

The arrival of the Tour de Yorkshire was amazing. My photography was better and I developed close links with the office TDY charities to provide them with photographs of their day including Alzheimer's Society (2017) Yorkshire Air Ambulance (2018) and Help for Heros (2019) and had been looking forward to doing this again for Cancer Research Yorkshire.

This is an important charity personally for me because in 2018 I was diagnosed with Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia. I consider myself lucky that it was diagnosed early and that due to research in the past at present all I have to do is take one tablet a day and attend 3 monthly check ups.

When the TDY was postponed due to the Covid 19 pandemic I was put into the Shielding group due to my illness as is my wife due to her own health problems. This mean neither of us are able to leave our apartment and we reply on others totally and are so thankful to them but our ability to exercise if very limited.

We chatted one night about where would walk to when shielding was lifted and decided on a walk along the canal and my wife said she thought it unlikely we would get past the bridge 500 yards away.

The next morning I noticed my static bike in the bedroom that was now a clothes rail covered in dust and clutter. I started to pull it out as my wife woke up and this began our project to raise funds and smiles.

My aim is to cover the miles of the Tour de Yorkshire (549.5 km or approximately 330 miles) on the static bike before the normal start of the Tour de France in early July, that co-incidentally is close to my birthday when I will be 62 this year.

This will be a gradual build up because it is now over 15 years since I was last on a bike and I have to figure out how to convert time on the bike into miles because the battery compartment was rusty and we are awaiting a new charger.

That is the first aim but (just in case) there is the revised date due to Covid of 29th August 2020 to aim for too.

During this time I will be posting mileage updates and vidoes to make you smile. Please support me.

P.S. Would be GREAT if others fancied joining me in this challenge, I would happily create a new face book page dedicated to this.

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.