Dragon Ride 2009

Rene Merideth from California in the USA took part in the Dragon Ride on Sunday 14th June 2009 in Bridgend, Wales on behalf of AICR.

The Dragon Ride cyclosportive is a circular, 130 or 190km non competitive road cycle challenge ride over the beautiful hills and valleys of South Wales. With around 3000m of climbing, the route takes in the classic Milk Race/Tour of Britain climbs of the Bwlch, Rhigos and Brecon Beacons mountain roads. The ride is based at Pencoed, just outside Cardiff and 2009 will be the sixth occasion this event has been held.

Unfortunately during the race Rene was involved in a crash and had to pull out of the race. She suffered two bruised ribs, a black eye and major road rash on her right side. She said shortly after the race on her twitter page that "even though this was an epic fail, definitely coming back next year. Wipe out could have been worse, Kev and Yvonne looking over me."

The main reason that Rene undertook this challenge was in memory of her friend Kevin Hatch. Kevin had been fighting Hodgkins Lymphoma for the last 3 years and one of his life long wishes was to visit the UK. Rene and her friends had decided to make his wish come true and at the same time raise money for AICR. By holding a silent auction and a "Dinner and A Show" fundraising night Rene and her friends had raised enough money to pay for 3 flights over to the UK. Unfortunately on Friday 24th April Kevin sadly passed away. Rene decided  to still take part in the Dragon Ride but she was sadly riding in memory of Kevin instead. Please help her to raise as much money as possible. You can still do this by donating here or at the Dragon Ride PayPal account. Our thoughts go out to Kevin's friends and family and we would like to give Rene a massive thank you for her effort and we hope that her injuries clear up soon!

You can read all the updates from Rene leading up to the race on her MySpace, Twitter and Bebo pages.

Here is a short video with pictures from the Dragon Ride.

 

Just Surrender are a rock band from NY and after Rene got in touch with their manager the band were nice enough to donate one of their original songs to Rene for her cause. You can listen to their song "Stronger Now" on the video above or on the music player below.

You can also read more about them on their MySpace page.

Kevin and Rene in April 2006.