Finlay’s Fighters’ 3-peak bike and walk challenge

This comes to us via one of our Premier Partners, Lucy from Bike Verbier:

Last weekend, Lucy’s friend Chris Marriott and 20 of his friends, Finlay’s Fighters, cycled 450 miles in 4 days – from Snowdon to Scafell Pike to Ben Nevis, to hike each mountain as they went.

This was all in order to raise money for Abbie’s Army, a charity which helps children with brain tumours and funds critical research into DIPG (Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma) tumours, which are particularly nasty. They’re very resistant to chemotherapy, and because of where they are and the fact that they’re diffuse, you can’t even operate to remove them.

Back in February 2013, Chris’ son Finlay was diagnosed with a DIPG tumour. Over the following 12 months he put up an incredible fight against this most fatal of cancers; his family say that his determination and positivity throughout this time was truly amazing and inspiring but, tragically, he died on 27^th January 2014 aged just 9 years old. You can learn more about Finlay’s story here.

Chris said, “It was the most exhausting thing any of us have ever done… and there were some proper fit cyclists involved too!” Frankly, we’re not surprised. Chapeau, people, chapeau.

Chris and his friends have so far raised over £25,000, over eight times their original target – an astonishing achievement. But their JustGiving page is still open for donations – you can donate here.