UPDATE FROM EVENT CAN NOW BE FOUND BELOW…

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At 05:00 on Saturday 12/07/2025 I will be starting what will be the hardest challenge I have ever attempted.

Le Tour du Mont Blanc is a one day ultra endurance cycling challenge where I will joining 500 others to attempt a clockwise loop around the base of Mont Blanc. A 338km (210mile) quest through the mountains that surround Europe’s tallest mountain. It is regarded as the toughest single stage high mountain cycling event in the world.

Travelling through the French Alps, the Swiss Alps and the Italian Alps, the accumulated elevation at the end of the route will be 8,500m - that’s just 349m less than the height of Everest!!

I wanted to use the event as a platform to raise money for a good cause as the suffering I will no doubt be experiencing on the day, will be nothing compared to some of the 500 children who everyday rely on the services and support of the biggest children’s hospital in Scotland - Glasgow’s Royal Hospital for Children.

Glasgow’s Children’s Hospital Charity fundraise to ensure that every baby, child and young person treated receives the extra special care they deserve during their most difficult days. The charity rely on donations to fund life-changing medical equipment, family support services, research, play programmes and bereavement support.

If you could spare a few pennies for this great cause then please donate, thank you!!

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

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Firstly, thank you to everyone who has donated and contributed to raising a fantastic amount for this great charity.

I arrived at the start line in Les Saisies with just over 200hours of training in the legs, year to date. That averaged out at almost 7.5hours a week. Written down it really doesn’t sound like much, but that’s all I could manage with full time work, family commitments and football coaching twice a week with my youngest boy. If it wasn’t for the fantastic support from Kirsty then that training total would’ve been more than halved, what a star she is looking after the three boys to give me so much time to train.

554 hardy souls rolled out at 05:00, with a full moon lighting up the cloudless sky. 98 of them wouldn’t finish the event.

The scale of the Alps is something that’s has to be experienced to appreciate, to be riding through them as the sun breaks was truly spectacular.

The first 40km was a gentle introduction to the event, with the majority of it downhill. The first couple of climbs on the day however felt a lot more difficult than the route profile would suggest. This warmed me up for the first major climb of the day up to Champex which was a 10.5km climb at an average gradient of 8.2%. This was my first realisation that the gearing setup on the bike was going to make for an challenging day out. My bike is absolutely fantastic, but a fair age now so I am limited to how I can setup the gearing ratios. My easiest gear was a 36x30. For those non-cyclists, imagine the feeling as a kid when your legs were spinning with little resistance when in an easy gear. I was searching for that gear on the big long climbs, but was instead a grovelling 60rpm mess. Nothing I could do but grind it out.

The descent off Champex was great fun, until it brought me to the turn onto the foot of Col du Grand St. Bernard. This is an absolute brute of climb at 41km long, ascending 1,983m vertical meters up to a summit 2,473m above sea level. The majority of the climb was pleasant until the last 5km where the combination of steeper gradients, fatigue, thin air and poor gearing nearly broke me on multiple occasions. I eventually made it up to the historic monastery at the summit and a welcome stop to top up food and supplies. This is where I took the picture with the charity banner. I also grabbed a small memento for Arlo, a cuddly St Bernard from the location where they were originally bred as mountain rescue dogs.

34km of glorious descending followed into the Italian city of Aosta. My cheeks were genuinely sore from smiling by the time I arrived after going from 2,473m of altitude to 592m through long sweeping roads and 21 hairpin turns. I didn’t realise at the time (as I was too busy feeling like a 9 year old kid), but I hit 77km/h (48mph) on that descent!! A wild speed for a road bike!!

A long drag through the Aosta valley followed in what felt like an oven. It reached 39C at this part of the day in the depth of the valley. This is where the scale of the event started to become reality as I was faced with the prospect of 3 very large climbs remaining as I left the Aosta valley.

There absolutely nothing small about the Col du Petit St. Bernard which followed, a 23km climb, ascending 1,203m to a summit at 2,200m. You know you are at a high altitude when the packet of crisps you are handed at the feed stop resemble an over inflated balloon ready to pop. The legs were starting to feel it by the top and it had become a real struggle to eat or drink anymore. My stomach was starting to reject anything given the amount I was having to consume to fuel the ride. I had reached the summit at around 17:30 so I’d been eating and drinking constantly for over 12 hours to keep myself moving. I had a few energy, isotonic and electrolyte gels at the top in the hope they would work their magic on the 30km descent and perk me up a bit.

Once back in the valley, an event feed station was serving fresh pasta but I could only managed a few bites without wanting to throw up. The pasta was lovely, but my body was done with any type of food so on to the penultimate climb with me currently running 2hours ahead of the cut off time.

On a standard day, the beautiful Cormet de Roselend climb from Bourg-Saint-Maurice would be challenge. By the time I’d reached the top I had over 7,000m of climbing in the legs and I was a bit of a mess. I was however delighted that I could descend off the mountain in daylight given the technical nature of it. Fatigue, time of the day and an elevation of 1,969m meant I was shivering most of the way down the technical descent, but knowing that once I had made it down then I would have one last 16km climb to the finish. That hope was keeping the lights on.

In a world of pain, and the daylight slowly fading, I embarked on the loneliest, hardest and strangest climb I have ever done on the bike. I’m not sure if it was the exhaustion or the fact it was pitch black but I felt like I was in some weird dream where I felt every single pedal stroke but had no sensation I was moving. There were no landmarks to reference, or other riders to gauge progress from. If it wasn’t for the metres ticking away on my cycling computer, I would’ve sworn I wasn’t moving.

The last few kilometres were brutal given what had come before it, but it’s fascinating how much the brain can overcome in these situations. I was absolutely empty, had nothing left but still kept pushing the pedals one more revolution at a time grinding ever closer to the line. I could feel my energy levels shoot up as I hit the last 1km through the ski resort and came into the streetlight lit main road. The bars and restaurants were emptying give it was gone 22:00 but families and groups were gathered along the road side cheering the broken riders in one by one. Kids out high fiving the riders, people hanging out windows shouting Allez, Allez, Allez!! The world is a magical place sometimes where a person you don’t know, and will never see again, gives you the biggest boost of energy from something so simple in such a dark moment. With the hugest smile on my face I rolled over the finish line at 22:26 to receive my finishers medal and with it muted sense of achievement which has still to settle in.

I’ve never done anything this challenging, and may never do so again. There is however nothing quite like exploring just how far you can really push yourself in life, and appreciate just how amazing we all are.

It took me a total time of 17h26mins to complete the event, with 15h25mins of that in the saddle with 58,388 pedal strokes. In that time I burned 10,293 calories. Ironically, I couldn’t face eating for almost 24hrs after the event.

Thanks for donating to this challenge and thanks for reading my summary. Who knows, it might inspire someone to do something similar.