Devon Freewheelers EVS, also known as the Blood Bikes provides a free out of hours courier service to the NHS across Devon. The service is provided mainly on motorbikes, ridden by volunteers. The Blood Bikes carry whole blood, blood and other medical samples, medication, emergency medical equipment, tissue samples for cross matching before transplant operations and donor breast milk for premature babies.The charity receives no funding from the NHS for this service and relies on public donations to be able to continue to operate.

I started open water swimming exactly 9 years ago with a one mile charity swim at Roadford Lake. It was so exciting that I came out of the water and promptly signed up for another swim. Since then I've swum various Devon organised swims, the Dart 10K, Bantham Swoosh and the Exmoor & Dartmoor Lake swims, leading to One Way Windermere (10 miles) in 2017 and a 27k (17 miles) race (taking a whopping 9 hours !) in Italy last summer. After coming out of the lake in Italy I thought 'that's it' but nooo.....always on the look out for a challenge.

This challenge has currently been postponed to 2021 due to Covid so watch this space. 

What better Charity than the Devon Blood Bikes too..We never know how strong we can be unless we constantly challenge ourselves.