After raising money for a local charity last year, I’ve decided to go for it again. My chosen punishment for the fundraising is the Haute Route Stelvio which is a multi day road bike race in the Italian mountains. The course features 5 Categorised cols, with a total of 226km and 8641m of climbing over three days. Day 1 is 83km with 3300m+ of climbing, day 2 is 122km with 3800m of climbing and day 3 is a time trial up passo stelvio for 21km with 1541m of climbing.

I’m riding for a charity called Kissy Puppy. This charity was initially set up for a young Island girl called Sophie Rolf. In May 2012 Sophie’s parents noticed a tremor in her left arm, and after numerous hospital visits and finally an MRI scan in June, the family received the terrible news that Sophie had an aggressive brain tumour. Initially ‘KissyPuppy’ was set up as a mechanism to fund raise for Sophie and her family. Sadly Sophie lost her battle at the end of 2012, but KissyPuppy intends to continue to provide support to children on the Isle of Wight suffering from life-shortening conditions and is now KissyPuppy – The Sophie Rolf Trust.

If you can, I would be extremely grateful if you could donate to this very worthy cause.