College principal to lead five-strong team on Birmingham to Majorca cycling challenge
A five-strong team of super-fit cyclists led by South and City College principal Mike Hopkins is gearing up for the adventure of a lifetime – with a gruelling 1,000-mile trek from Birmingham to Majorca, writes Jon Griffin.
Mike (pictured) and four fellow members of V-Sprint Club in Bromsgrove have been training for months to prepare for a nine-day marathon from the headquarters of Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce (GBCC) on the Hagley Road to the sunshine Spanish island.
The trek – for which the intrepid cyclists will tackle up to 120 miles a day including steep mountainside pathways across the Pyrenees – is being undertaken in aid of Cure Leukaemia, the Chambers’ president Nasir Awan’s adopted charity for his current term of office.
Mike will be joined by his cycling club comrades Jackie Fowler, husband and wife team Lee and Lis Gardner and their daughter Olivia for the trip – from mid-April to around the 25 April – with a fund-raising target of approximately £20,000.
The college principal said: “We are starting at the Chamber on Sunday, April 14, and the trip should be approximately eight or nine days. We plan to go to the South Coast, across the Channel, down through France to Spain, across the Pyrenees and over to Barcelona, across on the ferry and then 100 miles across Majorca.
“We all ride as part of a cycling club and we will have put around 5,000 to 6,000 miles of training in before we set off. You have to be fit for this because of the nature of the ride, the distance involved and the terrain. Going over the Pyrenees will take another level of fitness again, it’s a monumental challenge.
“The mountains are long and steep, there is nothing in the UK which even resembles this. When you go up a mountain for a couple of hours some of the climbs are monumentally long – it might be 16 miles – you tend to be concentrating more on getting up there than admiring the scenery. There is probably going to be snow over the Pyrenees, we will have a support vehicle alongside.”
Mike has been involved with several charity rides and was part of a team which raised £1.1m for Cure Leukaemia in 2021, including former England footballer Geoff Thomas, prompting Nasir Awan to get involved with the Birmingham-based charity.
“We had conversations about this with Nasir before he became President and then in the latter part of last year, gearing up for him to launch formally at the annual awards dinner. Nasir has an affinity with what Cure Leukaemia is doing, it’s expanding nationally but the prime focus has always been Birmingham.”
Nasir will also be climbing aboard his bike for the first few miles of the venture, setting off from GBCC headquarters in Edgbaston.
“It’s difficult to gauge an exact target but we are hoping to get to £20,000. We have quite a lot of business people through the Chamber who Nasir and I know and who are going to support this,” added Mike.
Nasir said: “As the president, I have chosen Cure Leukaemia as my charity for the amazing groundbreaking work that they are doing in saving lives.
“I am grateful to Mike Hopkins in stepping forward to take up the challenge of the 1,000-mile bike ride with others to raise awareness and to raise much-needed funds for the charity.
“Mike helped raise over a million pounds when he took up the amateur Tour de France route previously for Cure leukaemia which I was happy to support.”
