The Long Day Down (now Up) challenge started 7 years ago when a bunch of lunatics from the Performance Bikes Magazine Forum decided that simply riding from one end of the country to another in a day wasn't hard enough, they would also do it on bikes that cost no more than £300...

This is something of a challenge as even finding a running bike for that amount is seriously hard work, let alone one that will pass an MOT and be suitable to do 1000 miles in 24hrs...

I have decided to compete in the "not a race" this year and raise funds for the very research that saved my life.

I was diagnosed with Lymphoma 3 weeks before my wife and I got married back in 2007, it was somewhat bad timing!
However, with the help of the amazing Docs and Nurses of the NHS and in particular the wonderful teams at Monklands Hospital in Airdrie and the Beatson in Glasgow, a year and a bit later, it was all gone and life could resume.

I was very fortunate to be able to get the full gamut of treatments available at the time, including monoclonal anti-bodies, various types of chemo (R-CHOP, R-DHAP and BEAM if you are interested) and a stem-cell transplant.

These treatments are only available because of the astonishing work carried out by the researchers and scientists of organisations like Cancer Research.

Cancer still kills far too many people and we need to do what we can to help reduce that in the future and strive to end the scourge of cancer.

We owe it to our kids and all future generations to do what we can, so please dig deep!