Raising over £20,000 - supporting the Local Community in Gloucester

An epic sponsored bike ride from Gloucester to the Scottish Highlands covering 750 miles in 10 days.  Director Richard Tuck and wife Faye along Michael Tuck in a support vehicle raised almost £2000 for the British Heart Foundation.

Every November and December, The Tree of Light’s fabulous lights shine brightly in The Oxebode, Kings Square, Gloucester until after Christmas on 12th Night.

First launched in 2011, the huge tree adorned with thousands of lights has raised £86,000 for the local people of Gloucester and for local charities alike.

At our spectacular switch-on, Father Christmas, the City’s Mayor, Councillor Kathy Williams, the President of the Rotary Club of Gloucester, Chris Rawlins, and others, were all hosted by Jon Smith, Breakfast Shiow host at BBC Radio Gloucestershire.

Two colleagues Richard Tuck and Louise Pledger rode the 65m London Nightrider to raise funds for Child Bereavement UK and then decided to ride another 110miles back home to Gloucester!

The journey began on Friday 22nd June 2007; the first step was an all day drive to Fort William at the base of Ben Nevis. This went without incident until Tim Price (only 90 seconds after taking the wheel at Gretna Green) hit a pedestrian island and burst two tyres on one of the support vehicles!

After plenty of cursing the other cars continued the journey while Tim and Richard Tuck managed to get the damage repaired and after some nifty driving arrived at Glen Nevis Youth Hostel only 1 hour after the others.

A few bottles of beer and a ‘Jane Price Special’ Chilli Con Carne later we tried to get an early night ready for the 06:00 start on Saturday morning.

After very few hours sleep we woke up to porridge and warm coffee before setting off on the first ascent; a 10 mile walk reaching the peak of 1350m above sea level. The weather started off mild although we were all soon scrambling for waterproofs as it became evident that visibility would be next to zero as we approached the cloud line. The climb was reasonably tiring and although we were warned there would be snow at the peak it was still a surprise (fleeces, gloves and woolly hats quickly came out of the rucksacks). The main problem, however, was the descent which proved to be a ‘killer’. Tim Price and Chris Cousins both slipped on the wet rocky paths and tweaked muscles and Rob Smith struggled with a knee injury. It was a very slow trek back, taking us a total time of 6 ¾ hours to reach the expectant support team of Jane Price, Louise Pledger and Miles Pledger at the Glen Nevis car park at 12:45.

It was a 6 hour drive before we arrived at Wasdale Head in the Lake District ready for the 978m ascent of Scafell Pike, the highest mountain in England. We started to walk at 19:45 with the grim realisation that the delays on Ben Nevis would mean it would be impossible to get up and down before night fall. With this in mind we set of at a cracking pace. Chris Cousins soon had to turn around, however, after bravely trying to walk with a groin injury. Although on paper the shortest walk of the three, the climb was steep, uneven and relentless. The weather conditions didn’t help either, we were walking through cloud again which reduced visibility and made everything wet. At 22:00 after a final dash, Richard Tuck, Jack Price, James Lloyd and Ian Lazell reached the summit just as darkness set in. The descent was a nightmare, by now Tim and Rob’s legs had gone and they seemed to be slipping on the rocks at every other step. Visability was zero and we eventually got back to the support team and rudely awoke them at 00:30

After a very challenging 5½ hour drive through the night swerving to avoid sleeping sheep and deer on the country lanes we arrived at our final destination, Snowdon at 6:00am.

The remaining walkers had a second wind with the last peak in site and reached the cloud covered summit in just over 2 hours, which meant all three peaks were reached within 23 hours. The descent was down the ‘Llanberis path’ which had been recommended as an easy shallow walk. What we didn’t realise was that the path was 10 miles long and appeared endless!

After arriving back in Gloucester we completed 1150 miles and almost 30 miles of walking the three highest peaks in Scotland, Wales and England the whole challenge was completed in about 29 hours.

Despite not having a single good view from a mountain summit and four out of the seven starters completing the challenge we were all proud of our effort.

We managed to raise over £3000 for www.headlines.org.uk and would like to thank everyone for their generous support.