The Michelin cycling team are set to tackle the Mount Ventoux climb in July in a bid to raise funds for Staffordshire-based charity The Peter Pan Centre for children with special needs.
The team will ride up Mount Ventoux three times in 24 hours. To add to the challenge the riders will attempt the climb on vintage bicycles while wearing vintage clothes in honour of the British cyclist Tommy Simpson who died on the same route while riding the Tour de France fifty years ago.
All funds raised by the team will go to the The Peter Pan Centre, which provides specialist care to young children with special needs along with support for the children’s families.
Guy Heywood, commercial director of Michelin Europe North, said: “We have been planning this event for more than two years. We are riding up Mount Ventoux in France 50 years to the day after Tommy Simpson died while riding the tour de France with the Michelin Peugeot cycle team. He was the best British rider of his generation, an ex-World road champion and in the top 10 of the Tour at the time of his death.
He added: “We hope to raise a few thousand pounds to go to the £270,000 annual budget for Peter Pan. They are 100% funded by donations so they desperately need our help.”
Some of the keener members of the team will ride the Club des Cingles challenge the following day, which requires riders to cycle three times up and down the mountain in 24 hours, via three different routes.
Michelin has also signed up five riders for the Zambia 2018 Transaid Challenge next year.
Donations to the Team Michelin Peter Pan Challenges 2017 can be made at Michelin Man vs Mountain.
