Club member and driving guru Dave Wilson will be riding this year's RL100 for a very worthy cause.

He writes: This summer I am doing the Ride London 100 cycle event in memory of my little nephew William who passed away last year aged 2 from a serious heart condition.

I am raising money for a fantastic charity called Friends of PICU who support families with children in long term hospital care.

William was born with a serious heart defect and Downs Syndrome and spent 90% of his short two years in he paediatric intensive care ward at Southampton General fighting a serious battle. During this time he underwent 5 heart operations and 'died' twice, once remaining unresponsive for 40 minutes finally giving a sign of life on the FINAL chest compression they were going to give. Sadly he fought as hard as he could but he ran out of fight on July 10th 2016.

Friends of PICU is a registered charity that was set up in 2006 by parents of children who have been cared for on PICU and nursing staff from the PICU.   Friends of PICU aims to support the children and their families by providing vital equipment and services that are not always provided by the statutory authorities. The PICU really appreciates the amazing support received through the charity as it makes an important impact across the whole of the unit and the excellent level of care which can be provided to the children and their families.  Friends of PICU contribute to every part of the specialist care – no patient will pass through PICU without being helped in some way by equipment donated, or benefitting from the additional nursing training and education that the charity pays for.  All emergency patients that are retrieved by ambulance travel in a dedicated ambulance donated by FoPICU and any parent able to stay in on-site accommodation near to their child does so because FoPICU supports and maintains it.

His little boy had an incredible tenacity to cling on to life even in the darkest hour and the charity offered unwavering support to my family through these times and I think it deserves a massive donation to thank them for what they do. Our target is £10,000 pounds by the anniversary of his passing, currently we stand just short of £5,000.

Now you lot know how much I hate hills and also long distances (still never done a 100) so it's no easy task so I hope you'll all donate generously whilst I churn the pedals and suffer!

The link to donate is below,

uk.virginmoneygiving.com/RideForWilliam