Almost two million people in the UK are living with sight loss that has a significant impact on their daily lives. Of those, around 180,000 rarely leave their homes alone and lead lonely, isolated lives. Guide Dogs works for a world where people with sight loss are never left out of life, for a world where being blind or partially sighted is not what defines you. A world with enough support to make the challenges of sight loss no barrier to fulfilling hopes and dreams.

Ken Wilkinson and John Rigby have been cycling together regularly since retiring from work and decided last year that we would like to take on the challenge of riding from Lands End to John O'Groats (1000 miles in 14 days).  We have committed to starting the ride on Sunday 23rd June and are now in our final training preparations.  The size of the challenge is becoming ever more apparent as we increase our weekly mileage in the saddle in the run up to the ride.

We wanted to support a charity at the same time and have chosen Guide Dogs because Ken is already a volunteer driver for them and has also raised 3 Guide Dog puppies (Lily, Emily and Henry) with his wife Pat.  Lily and Emily are now working Guide Dogs and Henry is currently in the final stages of formal training.  In his work as a volunteer driver Ken has met many Guide Dog users and has seen first hand what great support the organisation provides.  During this time John has known the puppies and has been interested to learn more about Guide Dogs as an organisation and the valuable work that they do to help people to live independently.