I would like to thank all of you who donated to my justgiving site in aid of our two Charities, Nordoff Robbins Music Therapy and Childline. I would also particularly like to thank Scott, Phil, Chris and Michiel for their incredibly generous support of the FC Exclusive Auction which raised £10,978. The Charities and myself greatly appreciate your support and the money will help a lot of children in difficult times for many Charities.

All 24 riders succeeded in completing the challenge with no casualties and just a few falls!!. We cycled over 100 miles with much of it over some very pock-marked and rough country roads requiring eagle eyes to miss the many holes along the way, plus a few magnificent hills especially the one leading to the finish, a real monster! The pic below is the whole team just after finishing but before the celebrations began in earnest!!

I will be posting here on our website, in a few weeks’ time once fundraising is complete, tales of the ride and plenty of pics for your amusement, along with final numbers of how much we were able to raise. We are hoping to get to a profit of £150,000 to be split equally between the two charities. Most riders, including myself, have paid their own costs so donations go direct to the Charities and, with a lot of generosity from friends and thanks to the auction and many of you guys, I have been able to pass my personal fundraising target of £66,600.

If anyone else would like to assist these two excellent causes we haven’t stopped fundraising yet and you can do so at www.justgiving.com/RodSmallwood

So huge thanks and best wishes

Rod Smallwood