Veteran cyclist Gerard McCarten will start his latest charity challenge on Monday – with the help of a West Cumbrian Olympian.
Gerard, 85, has set himself a target of conquering a four peaks mountain challenge – from outside his home in Hensingham.
Gerard has been in training since the beginning of last month – and has managed to so far scale the height of Everest.
There to support him will be Mike Cowley, of Thornhill, near Egremont who competed for Great Britain in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and was close to a medal.
Mike found himself in the lead heading for the finish line in the 194.8km road race with the world-renowned Eddy Merckx, of Belgium, and a third rider.
As the trio raced through the rain into the last corner the third rider tried to come through on the inside of the bend, lost traction in the wet and brought Mike crashing down. Merckx escaped the carnage as his two breakaway riders slid across the rain-soaked track into the barriers. So close and yet so far from an Olympic medal.
Mike would go on from the 1964 Olympic Games to be a multiple stage winner in several Tours of Britain. He was a professional rider with Carlton Cycles for two years then with Holdsworth Cycles 1969 and 1970.
Fast forward 50-odd years and Mike has offered to support the Whitehaven veteran when he starts his three-day cycling challenge.
McCarten, a former team-mate with Mike in Derwent Valley Wheelers, begins on Monday to coincide with World Bronchiectasis Day.
He intends to cycle the height of the highest mountain in Scotland, Wales, Ireland and England in three days.
The combined height of the four peaks is 4,446 metres (14,583ft) and Gerard will travel no further than 50 metres from his front door.
Gerard wishes to raise awareness of the forthcoming Asthma + Lung UK campaign for funding research into bronchiectasis.
World Bronchiectasis Day will be followed on 4/5/6 July by the World Bronchiectasis Conference in Dundee, Scotland.
According to Asthma + Lung UK one in five people will have a lung condition during their lifetime.
Gerard said his wife Margaret had been a long time bronchiectasis sufferer before her death in October 2023, hence his desire to raise awareness about this little-known condition of the lungs.
He has launched a Justgiving page in the hope he can raise £500 as he begins his epic ride.
To attain his target height Gerard will tackle an 8% gradient on the road outside his house on Balmoral Road. This intrepid rider will need to tackle the slope no fewer than 757 times, each circuit attaining a height of 5.875 metres (measured by calibrated laser theodolite).
It’s a handy little course that Gerard knows well, for last year he used the road outside his house to deliver 10,000 kisses to doctors, nurses and carers!
He wanted to repay the medical profession for the help they have provided him and his wife Margaret over the last two decades.
Proceeds were divided between Hospice at Home West Cumbria, the ambulance service and Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service.
Gerard survived prostate cancer, detected at the turn of the century, and then he had a heart arrythmia attack in 2016 while on his regular cycle ride.
Three good Samaritans in Cleator Moor called the emergency services and made sure he remained conscious until they arrived.
He now rides with an ‘angel’ on his shoulder in the form of a defibrillator. His operations were carried out at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle.
Using the power of radio transmitted heartbeats, Gerard cycled for 100 minutes and maintained a heart rate of 100 beats per minute for the duration of his effort.
Each and every heartbeat was transmitted over the ethernet to all the doctors, nurses and carers in the community.
