Story
This year's ride is on 6 and 7 July.
We start in glamorous Willenhall on the outskirts of Wolverhampton and we then head west to go somewhere unpronounceable in Wales and back again.
As ever, we’re looking at a couple of hundred miles and a fair leg-breaking few hills.
We're raising money once again for Whittington Babies, who support the neonatal and SCBU units at the Whittington Hospital in North London.
We lost our daughter Jasmin five years ago. After a
traumatic birth at home, which wasn't the plan, she ended up spending the majority of her 18 weeks of life on the neonatal ward at the Whittington. She received wonderful care and treatment from the doctors and nurses there.
The fight she showed to live for that long, when all hope seemed gone after she was born, inspired us to set up an annual ride in her memory. Whittington Babies do a wonderful job and, in short, we want to help them because they helped us.
Every baby deserves the best shot at life right at the start of life and this is what neonatal units up and down the country do. The sort of equipment needed isn't cheap: baby monitors cost close to £10k for 12, breast pumps £2.5k for 25 and baby-sized stethoscopes cost £1,300 for 24.
Whittington Babies is a tiny little charity - income to March 2018 was just over £43k - so they're not swimming in money. All the money raised goes straight into equipment. They have no overheads as they’re all volunteers, parents of kids who’ve been on the ward. They do so much good.