Thanks for taking the time to visit our JustGiving page and for all your kind donations to date.

Update 14/7/14  -  Check out the video below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwWJy11kw70

Update 13/6/14

Well we did it!!  Everything went largely to plan and our support teams, Glynis and David, Heather and Christine, played an important part in keeping us fuelled and morale up en route.  A huge thanks to them and all the other people that played a massive part in supporting us, particularly our partners and families who had to put up with the weekends of training rides when we'd disappear for hours or even days.

To each one of you that has donated, thank you very much.  Sam would have been so pleased with your support for the charity and a cause that we talked about many times, in the hope that improved treatments and even prevention or eradication of brain tumours may result from research carried out here in West Yorkshire.

For more pictures and stories follow the link to the facebook page https://www.facebook.com/tourdeforce2014  and if you haven't donated yet, please do so, every little bit helps.  Best wishes from the Tour de Force team, Neil, Allan, Cat, Simon, Truus and Stuart.

Update 28/4/14

A lot have you have received the email with our little newsletter, thanks for responding so positively.  Things are going well and we had a full UK team ride out to Hull and back over the weekend, just to make sure we could at least do Day 1 in time to catch the ferry.  Our Minister for Sport and Carnage (Stuart) lived up to his title by taking a spectacular spill, fortunately on a quiet road and not taking anyone else out.  He receives the rubber chicken for the weekend and may well retain it for the start of the tour. 

Warning - Ear defenders must be used overnight to protect against excessive snoring (Neil, Minister of Culture).  No healthy food was consumed during the making of last weekend, except by Cat (Minister for Foreign Affairs).  Simon (Minister for Obesity) on a diet of 3 full breakfasts a day has set the early pace but is still unlikely to reach 10st.

Allan has been appointed to a dual role of Minister of Common Sense and Minister of Weather where his frequent hedge consultations, tree hugging and special wiggle dance should should bring out the sun and crowds.  Although currently absent, in France, Prime Minister Truus has made 2 final appointments, Harvey Brayshaw will become Minister for Diplomacy and Julie Cecere is Minister of Health and Gossip.

Update 30/3/14

Training still on course, nutrition will play a big part in our trip.  Stu has been at the seaside - fish, chips, mushy peas, 4 rounds of white bread and a pot of tea.  Truus, has asked for goody bag of good British curries, naan breads and other delicious treats taking over to France to aid training.  Allan has been visiting the Rupali and Bull, purveyors of curry and beer, respectively, as often as possible.  Neil continues with his usual diet of beer and red wine. Simon has been working away all week, so pub grub ruled. Cat has probably been a goody two shoes, no doubt on a fish diet in Melbourne so doing better than the rest of us.

Update 18/3/14

Thanks for all the latest birthday support.  Training was going well during the lovely March weather last week.  Unfortunately, wind caused havoc with our training at the weekend and the weather didn't help either. 

Cat's off to Australia for a few weeks and has promised to borrow a bike for frequent training sessions.  Yeah right, also Allan and Neil will be commuting regularly to and from work - yes we will.  Simon is already over 1500 miles this year, so the rest of us have some catching up to do, although Truus has probably been getting in some good rides in the lovely French sunshine.

Update 6/3/14.

Thanks everyone that supported for the beige students 60th birthday in February.  Neil and Allan have been doing rather too much training in the pub for the last few months and the task ahead is looking more daunting than ever, so some serious training is required over the next 10 weeks.  Cat is training hard but keeps getting interrupted by hen parties and weddings.  Simon and Truus are both training like crazy so will be difficult to keep up with.  Latest recruit Stuart is a bit of a dark horse and is keeping his training regime quiet.

Please keep up the support and we'll make more regular announcements now we're rapidly approaching le petit depart.

This is a team effort to raise money for BTRS across Yorkshire following our personal experiences.  Sam died 2 years ago because of a particularly aggressive brain tumour and he set the ball rolling with his first justgiving site www.justgiving.com/samuel-harvey to help raise funds for the charities that had helped him.  We said we would continue with his wishes to help fund research and support and hence this site supporting BTRS across Yorkshire.

On a Sunday morning bike ride after the announcement that Le Grand Depart would be in Yorkshire, we decided that it would be a great idea to have our own Pre Tour, Tour de Force in memory of Sam linking the two places he loved, home in Baildon and his favourite holiday spot in the French Dordogne.  The plan hatched, a serious training schedule was put together to take us up to the departure date of 24th May 2014.

The plan is to ride the 1200km over 10 days with a rest day at the halfway stage in Paris.  The team for the full ride so far are Neil Harvey (Sam's Dad, Met Consultancy Group), Allan Booth (Mr Smoothy of Rance Booth Smith, Architects), Cat Binstead (Sam's sister, Switch Thinking Ltd), Simon Chappell (Met Geo Environmental Ltd) and Stuart Humphris (old college mate).  Truus van der Wurff who lives in the Dordogne and is a very close family friend of the Harvey tribe, is meeting the team in Zeebrugge for the ride down through Belgium and France.  Its a big committment so a number of other friends hope to join for the last 5 days.  None of us have ridden over such a long distance in such a short time so the training has been important, but, fear of sore nether regions looms large in our psyche.

Your support by sponsoring us on this cycle ride will be going to a great cause.  Brain Tumours are now the single biggest killer of children in the UK and the incidence in adults is increasing.  BTRS are supporting research programmes being undertaken here in Leeds and your sponsorship could help towards finding the next big breakthrough and supporting families affected by brain tumours.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity. So it’s the most efficient way to donate – saving time and cutting costs for the charity.