This will be our fifth year since losing my brother Xavier to Amyloidosis. He passed away at the young age of 30 on July 16th, 2020. Every year since he passed away, some of my family and friends join me in a 500km + bike ride to raise awareness and vital funds towards Amyloidosis research. Throughout these long five years we have cycled across Scotland, England, Ireland, Canada, and the United States. We have raised nearly £35,000 and donated in every country we have cycled through. We’ve spread awareness and connected with many people, with each year being more successful than the last as we welcome both new and familiar faces with us on our journey. This year we are bringing the ride back to the UK as we cycle across Wales and cross the finish line at the Warhammer World factory in Nottingham - an homage to our first ride in 2021 where we cycled from Glasgow to Warhammer World (which was a bucket list place for Xavier that he got to visit not long before he passed). This year is a particularly important year for our family, as we hit the five year milestone of losing our Xavier. A little bit about Amyloidosis for context:

Amyloidosis is a rare disease caused by damaging build up of abnormal protein fibres, called amyloid, within the tissues and organs. Amyloidosis can affect any part of the body and lead to life threatening organ failure. It causes the death of about one person in every thousand and there are about 6,000 cases in the UK at any time. This is vastly more than when we first started doing this bike ride 5 years ago (4,000 cases in the UK at any time). This can possibly be attributed to more research going into Amyloidosis, and therefore more diagnoses to create that statistic.

Donations to the Amyloidosis Research Fund within the Royal Free Charity supports the research, development and patients of the UK NHS National Amyloidosis Centre (NAC) at the Royal Free Hospital. The Centre, established in 1999, is funded directly by NHS Specialised Services to provide diagnostic and management advisory services for all UK amyloidosis patients.

Gift Aid supports the Royal Free Charity's full range of vital support services for staff and patients across the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, as well as supporting research and innovation.

If you are interested in supporting our cause, we appreciate any donations. Equally importantly, you can help spread the word by sharing the link so that we may raise as much awareness about this horrible disease as we can. We have a website as well as social media pages, where we provide updates about the bike ride and any other fundraising efforts that we have. All relevant links can be found below. Xavier's full story can be found on our website, as well as detailed information and photos from previous rides. We also welcome any sponsorships or donations to the ride itself. In previous years we have been fortunate to receive sponsors for our cycling t-shirts and some of our cycling equipment, so every little bit helps.

Thank you all for your continued support in helping us keep Xavier's memory alive while also paving a path to supporting others currently living with this disease. To see where our donations have gone in the past, please check out the links below.

WEBSITE: www.amyloidosisawareness.com

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/AmyloidosisAwarenessJourney

TWITTER/X: https://twitter.com/amyloidosisx?

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/amyloidosis_awareness_x/