I am riding the 89 mile Dragon Ride "medio fondo" sportive in South Wales in June. For company I am taking along my colleague and good buddy Timbo, one of our excellent stroke Advanced Nurse Practitioners, from the JR in Oxford. This madness entails some of the steepest climbs in South Wales with around 10,000ft of total ascent during the day. For me, being an overweight middle aged layabout this is going to prove quite a challenge.....for Timbo, being a millennial lay-about who doesn't believe in training, this is also going to prove a challenge........

Why am we putting ourselves through this purgatory? We are doing this to try and raise some money towards my young nephew Ravi Adelekan's ongoing fundraising for the brain tumor charity (ravisdream.com) This brave little lad was diagnosed with a benign brain stem tumor at just 6 years old. This could not be entirely removed and he lives with its effects every day still. Despite this Ravi doesn't let this stop him living life to the full, and raising a tonne of money to help other kids like him. But we need more!

You may well have seen Ravi and his exploits on television - most recently the little tyke has managed to put together a choir that have made it to the Britain's Got Talent semi-final!
https://ravisdream.com/

Of course, if they win BGT they will get £250k to give to their chosen charities, however let that not diminish the 0.4% of this total that we are aiming to raise by nearly killing ourselves in South Wales. :-)