A director at Altrincham-based motorcycle insurance firm Carole Nash is set to ride 4,500 kilometres (2,800 miles) across unforgiving South American terrain to raise funds for BASIC – the Brain and Spinal Injuries Centre.
Commercial director Simon Jackson will join renowned around-the-world biking adventurer Nick Sanders for the gruelling journey, you can see Nick’s full blog here insidebikes.carolenash.com/nick-sanders-blog. The pair will ride mainly off-road and reach nearly 5,000 metres (16,000 feet) on their journey from the Argentinan city of Zapala to the Bolivian capital La Paz.
Sanders, who has circumnavigated the globe no fewer than five times, says the eleven day expedition will be a tough one. “It’ll be mostly off road across one of the bleakest, most desolate parts of the world. It’s no easy option.”
Simon, who leaves for Argentina early next month (Tuesday April 5th) will swap his usual BMW GS 1200 bike to ride a Yamaha XT 660 motorcycle, which is specially designed to tackle both on and off road biking. He’s familiar with the bike having ridden four years ago on another epic expedition to Timbuktu. He’s also acutely aware of the risks of the South American trip after discovering a Yamaha was written off last year when it collided with a cow on a Sanders’ led journey in the region.
“Whilst I know it’s not going to be an easy ride I’m really looking forward to it. It’s a great personal challenge and one which I hope will further boost Carole Nash’s ongoing efforts to raise much needed funds for BASIC.”
The company’s staff have so far raised over £13,000 towards the 15,000 BASIC needs to build a specialist gym to help people recover from serious spinal injuries. It will be built at the national charity’s Salford base and will be equipped with specialist equipment such as cardio-vascular apparatus to aid the swift recovery of patients. It will complement the charity’s existing counselling, therapy, outreach and advice services.
Carole Nash’s fundraising efforts have included marathon running, cycling from Manchester to Blackpool and chief executive David Newman undertaking an arctic trek to the North Pole.
“I’m hoping that people might be able to spare a few pennies or pounds to sponsor me so that we can reach that £15,000 target as quickly as possible,” said Simon.
You can sponsor Simon by visiting clicking here
