Portcullis Tennis Club's Chairman Alan Hayes and Head Coach Ryan Trickey successfully completed their 'Big French Bike Ride' raising over £1600.00 for the Dan Maskell Tennis Trust.
"This to say thanks to everyone who sponsored me and Ryan, my tennis club’s coach, on our ‘Big French Bike Ride’ between Wimbledon and Stade Roland Garros. We completed the ride over 3 days logging 241.66miles between the two venues in 21hrs and 54minutes of riding.
On Friday 21st May we set off from the Royal Steps outside Wimbledon’s Centre Court with past Dan Maskell Tennis Trust President and Wimbledon commentator John Barrett and the LTA’s Annette Atherton seeing us on our way and wishing us well. We arrived at Stade Roland Garros on the evening of Sunday 23rd and enjoyed a full day’s tennis on the Monday being lucky enough to see Roger Federer, Serena Williams and France’s Gael Monfils in action on the main court.
The ride was completed on the hottest weekend of the year to date. In spite of that, high protection sunscreen and copious liquid, carbohydrate, protein and calorie intake meant we completed the ride in good physical shape and with our humour intact. The ride was more or less without incident save in so far as we did get lost within a mile and a half of setting off; taking a right turn instead of a left at the top of Church Road we ended up on Wimbledon Common instead of the A24! After rectifying that error a little way down the A3 the rest of the route was fairly straight forward; until we neared Stade Roland Garros when the task of pinpointing its exact location among several other stadia, Paris’s notorious peripherique and our limited understanding of directions offered by several helpful locals. We made it though!
So thanks to you all for your sponsorship. Your support certainly kept the pedals turning.
Through the ride Ryan and I have so far raised over £1600 for the Dan Maskell Tennis Trust, which provides tennis coaching and equipment for wheeIchair users, deaf people and people with learning disabilities.
Thanks again
Alan"