Thanks for visiting my page. I'm raising money for the British Heart Foundation and I'd be so grateful for your support. The BHF has helped halve the number of people dying from heart and circulatory disease in the UK but sadly every day hundreds of people lose their lives. It's only thanks to support from people like us that the BHF can create new treatments and discover new cures. £24 could pay for two hours of research by an early career scientist, but every pound helps so please give what you can to help me hit my target. Thanks!

As I’m approaching 40 and have become increasingly sedentary from a fitness perspective having two young children, I decided to set myself a challenge. Paris Roubaix is one of five cycling monuments and having completed that in 2014, I aimed to complete the set before I turned 40. This fundamentally gave me 2 years to complete this. Fully expecting my body to fail, I’m planning to attempt these all within 2023 with the thought that if my body fails or I have mechanical problems, at least I can have another crack in 2024 to try to hit my age-related deadline. Given 60% of the rides I'll be doing are longer than my longest ever ride on a bike, it seems appropriate to see if I raise raise a few quid too, so have elected to raise money for the British Heart Foundation.

The Monuments are five classic cycle races generally considered to be the oldest, hardest and most prestigious one-day events in men's road cycling. The two in Belgium cover section on both tarmac and pave (cobbles). The other two races in Italy are exclusively on tarmac. All races will be done on a road bike. In addition to this, I’ve also added my London to Brighton entry. This is because it ties in with the BHF aspect but also hope for those who’ve already done it, it gives some context around the length of the other rides! I have no aspirations for fundraising targets with this, but hope that some people can chuck in a few quid if they think the effort should be recognised for a very unnatural athlete like me doing this.With the hope of further pulling at your heart/wallet strings, these rides will all be 100% self-funded, including race entry, travel, accommodation, just in case anyone was thinking that any donations might be funding a prolonged stay at any Italian 5* lakeside retreat.I’d like to raise any funds for this for the British Heart Foundation. Not only are they the sponsor for the London to Brighton ride, but my father in law also suffered a heart attack owing to type 1 diabetes in 2015, requiring an emergency stent and subsequent quadruple bypass. He’s still going strong but were it not for the intervention of some excellent doctors, my wife, her sisters and their mum would have been deprived of a cornerstone of the family far too early in life and my children would never have met their Grandad (although they may have fewer bad habits as a result…)

Details of the rides:

Ronde van Vlaanderen (Tour of Flanders) - 239km (149 miles) / 1978m of elevation. The Tour of Flanders sportive is your chance to ride over classic cobbled climbs including the Koppenberg, de Oude Kwaremont and Paterberg.

Liege Bastogne Liege - 255km (158 miles) / 4400m of elevation. The hardest sportive of the spring classics, the full route of Liege Bastogne Liege is a full 271km and a massive 4,400 metres of climbing – more than Stelvio Santini or the Etape du Tour and half the height of Everest.

London to Brighton - 85km (53 miles) / 1058m of elevation. Hopefully a nice and uneventful bike ride to the coast!

Milan San Remo - 299km (186 miles) / 2090m of elevation. This is the longest one day amateur road cycling event in the world, with a distance of about 296 km from the outskirts of Milan, crossing the Lombardy and Piedmont Plains, proceeding to the ascent of the Turchino and arriving finally at the Ligurian Riviera.

Il Lombardia - 109km (68 miles) / 1700m of elevation. Dubbed “the race of the falling leaves”, it starts and ends near Como, the route takes in the iconic Ghisallo, the 20% plus Muro di Sormano and several other famous climbs of the pro race.

The Monuments all offer a variety of lengths. In all cases, I'm doing the longest length which will most closely reflect what the professional riders do.

Aiming to raise £1 per mile for all of the above.