“Recovery Graduation Fundraising Bike Ride”

We are attempting to cycle the length of the Leeds-Liverpool Canal. A distance of 128 miles with a climb of 840 metres over the top of the Pennines.

We’re doing this to raise funds for the annual Recovery Graduation that Forward Leeds holds. The graduation is an important event for many of the people that Forward Leeds has supported. It recognises their personal achievement in becoming abstinent from alcohol and other drugs. It also allows them to celebrate, with their fellow graduates, sustaining their recovery from addiction and beginning to build a better life for themselves.

Many of us who are cycling have faced our own issues with substance misuse. Some of us are even graduates, who came through Forward Leeds and are now wanting to put something back, for those who follow in our footsteps.

For most of us this is going to be a real test. We don’t cycle regularly. Many of us have borrowed or bought bikes just to do this ride. It’s the kind of challenge that we relish though, now that we are seeing things with fresh eyes and a real desire to make the most of our second chances at life.

So please do support us. Not for us, but for the people who will be coming to the end of one journey this year and starting a brand new exciting journey of hope and triumph when they graduate.