105 mile cycles raises £10,000

A team of intrepid cyclists have raised over £10,000 in a 105 mile ride across Lancashire – all to raise money for local charities.

One of the team, elite cyclist and former British Hill-climb champion Jim Henderson, gave himself an even bigger challenge, completing the course twice and covering over 200 miles. To make things even harder, he did it all on a fixed-wheel bike, with no gears.

The cyclists –  all colleagues at Leyland Trucks and Lancashire DAF – completed the cycling in a bid to raise cash for Leyland Trucks’ Helping Hand charity, which supports good causes in the region.

The Factory to Forecourt event saw the team cycle 105 miles, from the Leyland Trucks facility in Leyland early in the morning of 14 July, to the Lancashire DAF dealership in Preston, where they were welcomed home with a family festival later that day.

The 18-strong cycling team were inspired to take up the cross-county challenge by the work of Helping Hand, the Leyland Trucks employee charity, which will donate all money raised to the Rosemere Cancer Foundation, Cancer Help (Preston) Ltd and The Christie Charity.

The riders themselves ranged in ability and role, with three members of the senior management team taking part along with Lancashire DAF MD Paul Entwistle. The team split into groups and made sure even those who were not finding it easy, kept going.

Peter Jukes, Leyland Trucks operations director said, ‘It was certainly a tough challenge, but we really wanted to do something meaningful and ride as a team. The charities we chose to support were brought into sharp focus recently when we sadly lost Chris Whittle, one of our own employees to cancer just a few weeks ago, this spurred us on to raise as much as we could. The ride was not about getting a fast time, but about working together as a team as we do at work and helping each other complete the ride, which I am proud to say we did.’