I'm riding from London to Southend on 16 July to raise funds to build a mindfulness practice centre in the UK. The Being Peace centre will be located in the countryside, with good transport links and close enough to urban centres to be able to engage in outreach work. It will offer accommodation, camping, a meditation hall and other indoor and outdoor spaces for retreats and mindful living.

Mindfulness is not about escaping from reality, but helps to ground us in order to see more clearly and engage more wisely in the world. Many leaders and campaigners have found that it helped them navigate difficult situations - such as Christiana Figueres, who negotiated the 2015 Paris Accord on climate change. Mindfulness can be practiced by anyone regardless of their background or beliefs.

I'm also riding in memory of my friend Gary Born, a keen cyclist and mindfulness teacher who died in 2022.

Thank you for reading, and thanks again if you've donated!