TV personality, motorbike madman and side-burn grower extraordinaire Guy Martin and his lesser-sideburned athletic mentor Jason Miles are getting together to ride further in a few days than many of us will do in a whole summer of rides. Between 14th and 17th April, they’ll be covering around 140 miles a day, riding what Jason calls a ‘Coast to coast to coast to coast’.
These mile munching duo will be riding from Berwick upon Tweed to Stranraer, taking in the red trails of the 7 Stanes along the way, then hopping on a ferry over to Northern Ireland to ride from Belfast to Portrush along more trail centre red routes. This will form part of Guy’s training for the Tour Divide, and Jason’s training for the Rumble in the Jungle in Sri Lanka – which he’ll be writing about for Singletrack.
But it’s not all about the training – the real reason for this red trail rideathon is to raise money for Michael Bonney, long time friend of Guy and many others in the bike industry. Following a bike accident in 2013, Michael is paralysed from the neck down and can no longer ride a bike, but with a specialist Functional Electric Stimulation (FES) exercise bike it is possible to get him pedalling again. The FES bike fires electric pulses into Michael’s leg muscles and with some clever computerised timing Michael will be able to turn the pedals. Having the FES bike would provide some much needed physiotherapy, the health benefits to tetraplegics are extensively documented but equally as important are the psychological benefits of giving Michael the feeling of exercising again. The FES bike is not available in Michael’s NHS area, so his friends have set about raising the money to buy one.
If you would like to donate to the fund, click here: https://www.gofundme.com/getmichaeltopedal
