I turned 60 this month and always intended to mark this milestone with some form of charity event but this became far more significant for me when one of my best mates from school, Lez Szkoda, was diagnosed with this cruel and currently untreatable disease in 2021.  Not only is Lez one of my best mates, he is like a brother to me and we enjoyed sailing, skiing and golfing together, all of which we are no longer able to do.

As Lez said himself in a Facebook post earlier this year:-

"Life can be unkind: one minute you’re enjoying all the fruits of your hard labour over the years, the next you're faced with a life changing catastrophic medical diagnosis.

Almost 2 years ago Amanda and I received devastating news when I was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. To say it knocked us for six would be the understatement of the century. The following few weeks were the darkest days of our lives. These things just don’t happen to us. Why me?  Was it just that life can be so sh*t at times  Because one minute you’re celebrating reaching the peak of a mountain (quite literally), the next you’re unable to climb one flight of stairs.  

Yes, Life can be cruel: One minute you’re training for a marathon, the next you’re being measured for a wheelchair. I’ve had to give up cycling, running, golf and tennis. I miss them all deeply."

MND is a fatal, rapidly progressing disease that affects the brain and spinal cord.  It kills a third of people within a year and more than half within two years of diagnosis so we cherish every day that we have together. 

Whilst the profile of MND has been raised significantly with the likes of Doddie Weir OBE (who died last year age 52) and Rob Burrow MBE and the amazing charity being undertaken by his great friend Kevin Sinfield, as well as now through a current story line in Coronation Street, this is still an acutely under funded disease which I want to help in my only little way.

This is going to be tough with the longest ride I have done to date in one day being c.55 miles but I can at least still attempt this so, with the reason for doing it driving me on, and the support of my son AJ who has agreed to do it with me, 28th May it is.

Ride London is a 100 mile cycle setting off from Victoria Embankment heading past the Olympic Park and through the London boroughs of Westminster, City of London, Tower Hamlets, Newham, Hackney, Waltham Forest and Redbridge before coursing into Essex via Epping Forest.

We then get to cycle through some of the county’s most picturesque towns, villages and countryside – including Epping, Ongar, Great Dunmow, Felsted and Writtle – with a section of the route replicating the 2014 Tour de France stage that went through Essex and finished
in London.

Once back in the capital, we will complete our ride at Tower Bridge.

Every penny will help so please please support me and the Motor Neurone Disease Association.

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