World Cup charity bike ride

Escape to victory!

Simon Webb, gapyear.com's Disabilities Editor, is cycling from Wembley to Berlin over the 4th to 9th June 2006

On Sunday June 4th, around 50 people left Wembley to cycle the 370 miles to Berlin’s Olympic Stadium. The journey will last six days, with the group arriving for the start of the World Cup.

This is not a desperate way of trying to be at the biggest football competition on the planet, but a fundraising mission for the cerebral palsy charity Scope.

Amongst them will be Simon Webb, who will be taking part in his fourth charity bike challenge, despite being registered blind.

Simon is using a tandem to complete this challenge. In the past, he has cycled from the Eiffel Tower to the Tower of London twice, and from Havana to Trinidad in Cuba. This time Simon will be joined on the front of his tandem by Matt White, who works for Scope.

'To be honest it was the connection with the World Cup that first attracted me to this one,' Simon explained, 'but having raised money for Scope before in Cuba it is a charity that I had every intention of fundraising for again and would have been taking my bike somewhere abroad sooner or later.'

The World Cup Bike Ride began at Wembley Conference Centre, and the cyclists will spend the first two of their six days in England. They left London and travelled through Essex and Suffolk, and catch a ferry from Harwich at the end of day two. Once in Germany they will spend much of their time on cycle paths, passing through Hamburg, arriving in Berlin in time to watch the opening ceremony and the first match on a big screen.

Simon has been totally blind since the age of 12, which is around the time his sporting life started. He has attempted many things from five years of rowing, to less successful times as a footballer and cricketer.

'I had no skill or flair as a footballer, which is probably why I’d rather watch a team get stuck in than do step overs and fancy ball tricks.'

Simon’s greatest sporting success came in 2002 as an athlete. Having been on the fringes of the Great Britain squad for several years, he was selected to represent England in the Manchester Commonwealth Games. He competed in the EAD (Elite Athletes with Disabilities) 100 metres.

'Manchester decided to include disabled sport in the overall medal tally and luckily my event was one of the chosen ones. I didn’t get out of the first round but the whole week was really good fun and at least I can say I’ve run for my country which very few can do.'

All cyclists have to raise a minimum of £1500, Simon has already covered the costs of the trip and so any money donated from here on is going directly to help people with Cerebral Palsy.

Cerebral palsy is not a disease or an illness. It is the description of a physical impairment that affects movement. The movement problems vary from barely noticeable to extremely severe. No two people with cerebral palsyare the same; it is as individual as people themselves.

Some use wheel chairs and many have varying communication problems. For more on Cerebral Palsy and Scope's fundraising challenges please see the links below.



Sponsor Simon >> Do it! Do it! Do it!
Find out more >> about Scope and Cerebral palsy