Cycling for Heroes
Keith Gelder is Cycling for Heroes
To celebrate my 70th birthday, six years ago, I cycled solo from Land’s End to John O’ Groats in 12 days and raised £3,400 for the Cystic Fibrosis Charity.
Now I’m asking you to give your support to another worthy cause - the “Help for Heroes” charity. This organisation provides practical help to our injured Armed Forces service men and women returning to the UK from deployment in areas of international conflict. Most of them have lost limbs (and worse) and need a great deal of practical support and encouragement during their rehabilitation period. Many go on to obtain new employment, whilst some return to our Armed Forces. If, like me, you have been touched by the bravery of these guys and their valiant efforts to rehabilitate themselves, please join with me and others and pledge your financial help.
To publicise their plight, I‘m “going for broke” and will shortly be undertaking the ultimate amateur cycling sportive – the Rapha Cent Cols Challenge - with 33 other cyclists. This is a tough Alpine challenge, starting on 13th September 2010, from Annecy in the French Alps. The Challenge entails climbing at least 100 cols (mountain passes) and covering over 1000 miles in 10 days.
We will face challenges where team-working and mutual support will be vital to our success. This is probably as close as ordinary mortals will ever get to the level of camaraderie which our service men and women experience in their military deployments – but by no means as brave or as dangerous!
It’s easy to make a donation by going to my web-page at www.bmycharity.com/keithgelder where there is more information. You can donate on-line here and enable Gift Aid so that the Charity can re-claim any tax paid by you and increase the value of the funds raised.
All the costs of the trip are borne by the riders themselves and no administration deductions are made by the web-site, so every contribution goes directly to "Help for Heroes" and every penny you give counts!
If you’re interested in following the actual route, then please go to the website at www.centcolschallenge.com
Thank you very much, Keith Gelder
