Plucky duo take to bike for Harry

For Wendy Hartwig and Mark Owen will be dressed as chickens on their long pedal ride from Weston Rhyn, near Oswestry to Snowdon, while two of their supporters will be dressed as eggs.

The pair will be saddling up on their trusty tandem bike on Saturday morning to raise money for Harry Banks, the 10-year-old who needs lifesaving therapy in a bid to cure his cancer.

Harry, whose mother Nina is also from Shrewsbury and now lives in Milton Keynes, has twice beaten a rare form of cancer known as Neuroblastoma in the last four years, undergoing gruelling chemotherapy, radiotherapy and major surgery.

But doctors now say that the risk of his aggressive cancer cells returning is extremely high, and current treatment methods in the UK are unlikely to be effective.

He has known Wendy and Mark, who are both from Nesscliffe, near Shrewsbury for all of his life and when they told him they wanted to do something to help his £500,000 fund to take him overseas for treatment, he asked them to ride their bike while wearing chicken costumes.

It will not be the first time the pair have put in the miles for Harry. When he was first diagnosed, they cycled from Chester to Manchester Children's Hospital and raised £6,000.

Wendy said: "The countdown is definitely on now. Although I’m no stranger to endurance - I’ve summited Kilimanjaro for charity and trekked to Everest Base Camp -this will still be a mighty challenge.

"I’m hoping the weather is anything but icy...that’s my worst fear on a bike. When we did our first tandem ride when Harry was first diagnosed we hit ice and had a good slide into the hedge so ice is the enemy.

"We’ve got some great support joining us for the Snowdon trek including two sisters dressed as eggs plus two friends who I met trekking to Everest Base Camp.

"The recent weather meant Snowdon up until recently had a very low snow line so we had to face the likelihood of not being able to summit but the recent warmer weather has worked in our favour so we are crossing everything that we will be able to summit and at a good pace before heading back to Shropshire on the tandem."

Wendy and Mark will be setting off at 9am and will stop off at the Rhug estate in Corwwen at around 11.30am before aiming to make it to Conway Falls just outside Betws-y-Coed about 2pm.

They will stay overnight at the hostel at Capel Curig with an early start on the Pyg Track on Sunday morning and back on the tandem by 1pm Shropshire bound.

Wendy added: "We have family and friends meeting us at the coffee points plus a support vehicle within phone reach carrying emergency jelly babies. We’ve both known Harry since he was born and we know that he and his family are facing their challenges head on so we mustn’t grumble about the size of our challenge this weekend."

To donate go to www.gofundme.com/madaboutharry