Some 26 riders backed by VPS, Vacant Property Specialists, rode from Le Mans to Olney in Buckinghamshire to raise £44,000 for charity.VPS project manager Nigel Byrne and group company secretary Tim O’Gorman organised the biennial charity ride and devised a route taking in the final stretch of the Tour de France on Paris’s Champs Elysees and part of the 2012 Olympic Road Race on Surrey’s Box Hill.
The seven-day ride covered 552 miles and involved a climb of 30,000ft. VPS was one of more than 20 sponsors of the ride and was thanked by the organisers for a cash donation and for providing two support vehicles for the riders. Nigel Byrne says: “There were one or two parallels with the Tour de France. We managed 25 punctures in one day, even without tacks on the road. And if we’d known what Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish would achieve on the Champs Elysee shortly afterwards, that stretch would have meant even more to us.”
All of the money raised will be shared between national children’s charity, Caudwell Children, and Olney youngster, Maya, who needs expensive equipment to cope with Spinal Muscular Atrophy. The riders covered the costs of the ride themselves.
As the third charity ride organised by B2B since it was established in 2007, the Le Mans to Olney ride follows a 700-mile ride from Brighton to Berlin in 2008 and a 900-mile ride from Brighton to Barcelona in 2010. Planning has started for B2B 2014; visit www.b2bcycle.co.uk.
