Julie Evans, one of my best friends, is suffering from Parkinson's disease. I will be cycling 3000 miles across the USA in March and April 2025 to raise funds for Cure Parkinson's.

My friend Julie.

Richard Evans- no relation to Julie- one of my team mates from Merton RFC in the late 1980s, is suffering from Parkinson's disease.

Justin Currie, lead singer of Del Amitri, one of my favourite bands, is suffering from Parkinson's disease.

As are approximately 145,000 other people in the UK, and approximately 10 million people world wide.

Parkinson's is a progressive neurological condition. This means that it causes problems in the brain and gets worse over time. It causes a range of motor and non-motor symptons. It is the fastest growing neurological condition in the world.

Cure Parkinson's helps to fund innovative research which has the potential to slow, stop, or reverse the devastating progression of Parkinson’s.

This is thus a very personal quest, and a quest for many many other people who I don't know.

Please help me raise funds to support the great work of Cure Parkinson's. If I raise £3 per mile then that would total £9,000!

If you sponsor me 1 pence per mile that is £30 towards it.

The photo below shows Merton RFC first XV in 1987, two seasons before I joined. Merton played in Surrey Div 1 at that time. Richard Evans is in the back row, fourth from left. Sadly a few of these men are no longer with us.

We have also set up a fund raising website providing more information about the trip, and I will submit updates during my ride, more information about Parkinson's and about Cure Parkinson's, and also about other fundraising initiatives we hope to organise in 2025.

www.brentknollcureparkinsons.com