Jimmy’s Cambridge to benefit from charity cycle ride

Gary Doctors, a Cambridge resident, has completed a five-day charity ride from ’s-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands – colloquially known as Den Bosch – to the Danish capital, Copenhagen.

Accompanied by nine of his work colleagues Gary, an engineer at Dassault Systèmes, whose Cambridge office is located on the Science Park, covered 500 miles over the five days – by far the longest cycle ride he has ever done.

The challenge, which ran from June 8-12, was a continuation of a ride he and some of the others undertook from Cambridge to Den Bosch in 2019, when around 20 people took part.

This time, Gary was raising money for Jimmy’s in Cambridge. He said: “Luckily I had done enough training; I was of course worried about it at first, whether I would manage to do it day after day, because it was five days in a row.

“But I pressed on; there was just enough time at the end of each day to recover, have dinner and get ready for the next day.”

Gary notes that he and the others cycled around 100 miles each day. “There were lots of different places that we went through,” he explained, “for example Lübeck is a lovely town in the north of Germany.

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“Then we went through Hamburg at the end of our third day, and Puttgarden in the north of Germany, which is a little place which is there just so that people can get on the ferry to Denmark…”

Gary chose Jimmy’s as it’s a charity close to his heart. “I think they are one of the most effective charities in helping homeless people,” he said, “they seem to provide everything that people need to move into a new place – and I like the idea of the new starter homes that they have built in collaboration with the council.”

Gary has so far raised £449, 64 per cent of his intended target of £700. He is still waiting for more sponsorship money to come in.

Visit Gary’s JustGiving page at bit.ly/3p5JxA6.