On July 11th fellow colleagues Tim, Gary & Francois will be entering L'Etape du Tour. This is a chance for keen, or depending on how you look at it, slightly deranged amateur cyclists to tackle a stage of the Tour de France. The professionals tackle the same route a week later and will complete it in a fraction of the time, but they're all cheating drug takers anyway, so this is the real contest.

This year's Etape will be 109km long, covering 3,500m of ascent over some of the fiercest Alpine mountain climbs - Col du Telegraphe, Col du Galibier and ending with mighty Alpe d'Huez. So it will hurt.

Apart from Francois' dodgy back, his training is going quite well. Gary is basically Lance Armstrong in disguise so he'll have no problem getting up those mountains. Tim has only just bought a bike and is waiting for the snow to melt before he transfers from skis to wheels, but he says his training will start in earnest pretty soon. Our aim is to be able to finish before being swept up by the dreaded 'balai' or broom - they literally throw you out of the race and into the broom wagon if you go too slowly - and in so doing, raising as much money as we can for Macmillan Cancer Support. We've made a pact to tow each other by our rear derailleurs (not a bodily part) in the event that the 'balai' beckons for any of us, so you will be secure in the knowledge that your donation will not be wasted.

One in three of us will get cancer. We are all affected by cancer. We have our personal reasons for wanting to ride for Macmillan Cancer Support. Francois' is because my friends Paul, Carrie, Carl's Josie and my father-in-law Roy have all relatively recently recovered from cancer. Similarly, Gary's brother-in-law has recently recovered from cancer and his Dad is managing prostate cancer.  I know the suffering they've had to go through, how it's affected their lives and the lives of those who are close to them. Sadly, the outcome for many is not always positive. We wanted to put all our efforts into raising money for a charity that makes life more bearable for sufferers.

Macmillan Cancer Support improves the lives of people affected by cancer. They provide practical, medical and financial support and push for better cancer care.

As treatments improve, more and more people are living with cancer in their daily lives. This means they need more than medical help, they also need practical, emotional and financial support.

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