– By Vinayak Barot
New Delhi: Wesley Hamnett from Glasgow, Scotland pedalled his daughter’s pink bike 200 miles for charity. He cycled his daughter’s bike from Glasgow, Scotland to Manchester, England.
Wesley Hamnett is a father of two daughters and he wanted to raise the fund for various charities and hospitals which were close to his heart after he lost his granddad to cancer last year. Wesley Hamnett has raised over £6,000.
First Wesley Hamnett had decided to cycle 1,250 miles from Russia to his home in Lancashire, but due to the pandemic, he was forced to abandon his plan and then Wesley Hamnett had decided that he would cycle from Glasgow to Manchester while riding a comically small bike his two young daughters learned to ride on “as a laugh.”
He wrote on Twitter that he would ride his daughter’s bike if he received 10,000 retweets and £1,000 in donations.
“I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it. Hell, I wasn’t sure if the bike was going to make it all the way. I felt like I was going to die during certain stretches, but it was all worth it,” Wesley Hamnett said. He endured gruelling pain and reached peaks as high as 1,350 feet at the Shap Summit in Cumbria, England which he says—with some understatement—the bike “wasn’t built for”.
Wesley Hamnett shared his experience of the journey and said “I kept pushing because any time there’s an uphill climb, there must be a downhill climb… I felt like a little kid going down. I couldn’t stop if I tried. It was scary, but amazingly fun. We’ve gotten so much incredible support on this journey and none of it would have been possible without the bike.”
Wesley Hamnett raised funds for many helping organisations, he raised funds for Macmillan Cancer Support, Christie Charitable Fund, British Heart Foundation and Wythenshawe Hospitals MFT Charity.
He has raised just over £8,300 ($10,730) so far and still hopes to make the track from Russia to Manchester next year.
37-year-old Wesley says, “I want to thank everyone who has donated—they’ve been absolutely amazing. I feel so overwhelmed but it’s been a real blessing.”