Magnificent seven adopt pedal power

Seven legal experts are embarking on a near 240-mile bike ride to raise over £15,000 for Birmingham Children’s Hospital. The intrepid team from Talbots Law will swap their daily workloads for the chance to emulate their cycling heroes by travelling from Steelhouse Lane in Birmingham to Amsterdam in just three days.

Peter Hill, Keith Yates, James Gwilliams, Callum Haynes, Richard Stone, Claire Kenny and Steve Kenny will travel to St Neots on day one, before heading to Harwich where they will catch a ferry to the Hook of Holland. The final ride will be about 70 miles along the coast of Amsterdam.

This is the latest in a series of fundraising efforts by the Black Country law firm and comes just a few weeks after it was named as Corporate Sponsor of the Year by Birmingham Children’s Hospital for raising over £50,000 in 2018.

“The long distances back-to-back will be tough for the team, but most of us are experienced cyclists and, for those that aren’t, they’ve been putting in a lot of hard training miles,” said Peter Hill, director at Talbots Law.

“We’ve got a cracking set of riders drawn from different local offices and different legal specialties. It should certainly make for an interesting journey and the most important thing is raising lots of money for such a great charity. A lot of our staff have been, and are currently being helped by BCH so it’s a cause very close to all our hearts.

“To help raise interest in our challenge, we completed a 52-mile training ride around our six offices, starting and ending in Codsall, but taking in Kidderminster, Stourbridge, Halesowen, Dudley and Wolverhampton on the way.”

The Amsterdam Bike Challenge is just one of a number of activities Talbots Law staff are taking part in to try to surpass last year’s £50,000 total.

So far, the firm has had Sarah Rooney, a member of its dispute resolution team, complete the London Marathon and four colleagues compete in the Birmingham Triathlon, with 22 people set to jump out of a plane for a sponsored sky dive in September.

Mary Mocklow, CEO of Talbots Law, said: “I know we have some great people working for us, but watching how everyone has got behind our fundraising efforts for BCH over the last eighteen months has been fantastic. We’ve already raised over £25,000 in 2019, with some big events and activities still to come. I’m pretty confident we’ll smash the £50,000 mark to help give more children the best possible chance of getting better.”

Last year, the fundraising went towards lifesaving equipment for the fleet of four KIDS/NTS ambulances - mobile intensive care units contained within an ambulance that provide emergency specialist transport for critically ill babies and children across the region.

Pictured: From left, Peter Hill, Keith Yates, Claire Kenny, Steve Kenny and Callum Haynes