Dear friends, relatives, and supporters,

September 24th 2026 will mark the fourth anniversary of the worst day of my life - the day my daughter, Lia, passed away in my arms after having been declared braindead following a cardiac arrest that occured completely out of the blue a few days earlier. Our lives have never been the same.

Since then, we have tried to honour Lia's gentle, generous, and empathetic spirit through our actions. One such avenue is Lia's Wings, a charity that was renamed in Lia's memory in early 2023 and for which my wife and I serve as trustees.

Lia's Wings is the UK's only aeroplane ambulance charity for children, helping extremely premature babies and critically ill children as well as adolescents access urgent specialist care when it isn't available closer to home, or if an incident or accident happens while away (often in foreign countries). The charity supports families facing some of the most difficult moments of their lives, in many way similar to the one we faced in 2022, and my personal goal is that the charity can say "YES" to any child or family that wants and needs our help. That is not easy, because unlike many healthcare services, Lia's Wings receives no government or NHS funding and relies entirely on donations and fundraising to continue its lifesaving work.

As a result,I am again doing something I do not really enjoy -- cycling a long distance -- to raise vital funds for the charity and the families it supports. Following prior cycling challenges (London to Paris in 2024 and Lisbon to Praia da Falesia in 2025), a peloton of 40 cyclists will start out in Salzburg and make its way to my birth city of Munich, touching along the way various places that Lia visited and loved in her short life - her grandfather's hometown of Bad Wiessee on the idyllic Tegernsee, my hometown of Wolfratshausen on the river Isar, and of course Munich itself, home to Lia's American grandmother, aunts, uncle, and cousins.

If you're able to support me, I'd be incredibly grateful.

Thank you for your generosity and support.