RIDING FOR RICK

In 1989 Ian Toulson, a mathematics teacher at Thurston Upper School, decided to undertake a bike ride to see his mother, who at the time lived in Somerset. To bolster his determination to ride from East to West  coast he turned the ride into a charity event, raising money for the Rick Keeling Memorial Trust, set up following the untimely death of a fellow teacher.

So began a series of fund raising rides taking in mainland Britain, France, America and Australia, as well as having a ruinous flirtation with a unicycle. At the start he was supported by his wife Mary Jane, but in the end she sensibly decided to let him get o with his pedalling madness whilst she enjoyed the peace and quiet of home life.

His rides have also raisd money for a variety of other charities, notably Friends of the Earth.

This book is a collection of the diaries that he kept whilst following various long winding roads, and has been put together in the hope that further funds can be raised for the Rick Keeling Memorial Trust and so help fund projects being underaken by individual students attending, what has now become, Thurston Community College.

The book is 247 pages long and contains 112 pictures (56 in colour) as well details of daily distances covered in each ride.