David Taylor’s Dartmoor Cycle Challenge
Full press release: Dearest Friends & Family,
On behalf of Carly Taylor, her family and the Southern Spinal Injury Trust (SSIT) I would like to personally thank you for your very kind and generous donations. With your support I have raised £756.25 for SSIT and £230+£100 cash on the day with more cash on its way for Carly (GoFundMe). In total SSIT raised over £40,000 on the day which is just fantastic effort and would of not been possible without your very kind donations. My charity web sites are still open and I will continue to raise more money for Carly as more money comes in. The money will go towards Carly’s trust fund to help contribute towards essential exercise equipment and help fund a specialist physio to work her legs, body and arms.
It has to go down as one of the toughest bike rides that I have ever done, the Dartmoor National Park is more like a mountain range than a series of hills! 220 cyclist attended, some doing a family 1 mile ride around the River Dart country park, about half doing a 22mile ride and the remainder of us doing the long 61mile (104km) challenge. I completed the long 104km Dartmoor Cycle challenge in 6h34mins (I believe the quickest was around 5hr30mins) . Some of the riders unfortunately did not finish due to incidents or exhaustion and some gave up only after a few miles due to the climbs, but a few of us persevered and completed the course completely knackered but it was worth every single turn of the crank for Carly.
The weather in the morning was very poor and I got completely drenched, but the afternoon was fantastic with temperatures reaching 24degrees. The route covered all corners of Dartmoor and we climbed to heights of 1300ft with some hills approaching 25% gradient which were near impossible to ride. My bike performed faultlessly throughout the whole day and was a pleasure to ride.
You can see pictures of the Dartmoor Cycle challenge event on the SSIT web site and their facebook page…..
http://www.ssit.org.uk/news-latest-item.php?itemID=67
http://www.facebook.com/#!/media/set/?set=a.288125827950708.63074.159759467454012&
A very big thank you to Emma’ s parents, Paula & Dave Williams, who ran the “Team Williams” support vehicle loaded up with goodies, spares, snacks and kit (and talc powder!) to keep me going on the day, I could not of done the ride without you!
Finally to my two beautiful ladies in my life Emma & Tegan who have supported me throughout my training and put up with bikes and bike-bits scattered throughout our kitchen for the past 6months, seeing you both at the finish line was so overwhelming and an experience I will never forget, it made it all worthwhile and took away all the aches and pains I gathered whilst on the saddle for 6.5hrs!
Once again, many thanks for your thoughts, words of support, generosity and kindness towards this cause, with your support you will be helping many paralysed people under the care of SSIT and will be helping Carly and her family with her devastating injury.
PS – there are a few of our fav pics of the day for your enjoyment!!
All our love
David, Emma & Baby Tegan
xxx
