Mark’s story
Thanks for visiting this page, which is raising funds for Parkinsons UK. For obvious reasons I'm partly dedicating this to Ozzy, who famously suffered from the disease, but I'm also dedicating this to my schoolfriend Alex Flynn who did an enormous amount of fundraising for Parkinsons disease research, including ultra-marathons (and TV appearances), until his untimely death on Mount Everest while preparing for a fundraising event. Neither of you are forgotten.
So what is this all about? Well, on 3rd-5th October we're entering the 2025 'Round Britain Reliability Run' organised by Club Triumph, in aid of Parkinson’s UK.
The Club Triumph Round Britain Reliability Run (RBRR), in case you don't know (which of course you won't, unless you live in Triumph circles like I do), is a long-established event, originally started in the 1960s by the Triumph factory to test their new cars by trying to break them (and their drivers).
It's hard work: 2000 miles mostly non-stop over 48 hours, in a noisy, draughty, leaky, 55-year-old car. That's an AVERAGE of over 40mph for 2 days solid, usually battling through heavy wind and rain. Not a jolly, not a holiday, and no joke, although I will admit a certain perverse enjoyment in doing it.. Starting at Knebworth on Friday evening, driving overnight to John O'Groats for breakfast on Saturday morning, then turning round and driving down through Scotland and Wales then into Cornwall to Land's End for breakfast Sunday morning, then back to Knebworth for Sunday evening, regulated by 15 or so Control stops situated around the route. To achieve this, three of us (me, Andy Cook, and Glynn Davis) will be sharing the driving, one sleeping on the back seat while the other two sit up front. It's not a race, and we will be driving responsibly and taking rest appropriately. The car, over half a century old, my 1970 Triumph Vitesse (a Herald with a big engine) is, I hope, suitably prepared and ready for this, having been rescued from a barn about 8 years ago and restored/returned to the road after being parked-up in 1989. This team and this car managed to complete the event in 2021, and we're hoping we and the car will manage it again.
Since 1990 the RBRR has raised over £880,000 for charities including Guide Dogs and the Motor Neurone Disease Association, and last time in 2023 the event raised over £80,000 for the Huntingdon’s Disease Association. This time the charity is Parkinson's UK, and we're hoping that the total raised since 1990 can be pushed over the £1,000,000 mark.
We'd be honoured if you would support Parkinson's UK using the ‘Wonderful’ platform which sends all donations directly to the charity. To be clear, all of the costs of running the event are borne by the entrants - petrol, event entry fees, car preparation time/labour/parts etc. are all paid for by us, the team entrants, so NOT A SINGLE PENNY of your donation is taken by either Club Triumph or the team entrants - 100% goes to the charity (and we're donating to it ourselves too).
Thank you for reading, and if you'd like to follow us in October then we'll be posting updates on our facebook pages as we go around the country.
Mark, Glynn, Andy, and Club Triumph.
Fundraising Targets
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