On the 17th and 18th of June, a group of Christie and UCLH riders will depart from the building site of the Christie Proton Beam Therapy Centre and cycle to the University College London Hospital PBT centre building site. The distance is 200 miles and it'll take us two days to get there.

The Christie is one of Europe’s largest cancer hospitals treating in excess of 40,000 patients per annum. It was chosen by the National
Health Service as one of the two UK proton therapy sites and will start treating patients in 2018.

All of the riders from each site are staff, contractors, or other stakeholders in the NHS national Proton Beam Therapy Programme, which will make an advanced form of radiotherapy available to patients within the UK for the first time.

The Christie Programme does not end there, however. As part of the Christie NHS Foundation Trust and University of Manchester commitment to cutting-edge research into high energy protons and their clinical and scientific applications, The Christie Charity has agreed to fund a "research room" at the Proton Therapy Centre in Manchester, which will house a unique Proton Therapy Research Beamline to carry out experiments using the cyclotron and proton beam.

I have been involved with the design of the Christie Proton Research Beamline since I started working at the Christie and the University of Manchester last year. It will be an honour for me to cycle all this way with some of the people who have worked so hard to make this project possible.

I've never cycled 200 miles before, or even 100 miles in one day, so I'm really looking forward to the challenge, although I'm slightly nervous, because the first part of the route goes straight over the top of the Peak District!  Zoe and Sophie have been very supportive in helping me train, so I'm feeling confident I can manage the whole distance. Without Zoe's flapjacks in my cycle bag, I'm sure I'd never make it!

However, I am really looking forward to raising some money for the Christie Charity. I'm very grateful for your sponsorship on this monstrous cycle journey to contribute to fundraising for this project which I know will make a real contribution to Proton Therapy research.

For more information on the Proton Beam Therapy project:

http://www.christie.nhs.uk/services/i-to-q/proton-beam-therapy/

For more information on the fundraising team click here on our just giving group page:

https://www.justgiving.com/teams/Cycle-o-tron

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