ORGANISERS of a charity bike ride are ‘overwhelmed’ with the amount of support they have received after their planned efforts for Macmilllan Cancer Support has already raised more than £4,595.

Lucie Terry, from Helmshore, and her best friend Jenni Ringland, from Stacksteads, ran the Manchester 10k last year to raise money for charity and this year decided to do something different.

Lucie, 26, said: “We had a thought about what we could do and decided to do the coast to coast cycle.

“We’ve both done some cycling before but not like this and so we’ve been practicing since January. In February, Jenny had a bit of an accident on a practice run and ended up flipping over the handlebars and knocking her front teeth out!

“It was quite scary and kind of put us off for a while but so many people got behind it. We just couldn’t back out.”

The team now consists of 11 cyclists who will saddle up on Morecambe Bay, on May, 3 to complete the gruelling 170 mile cross country ride over three days, completing the challenge at the Bridlington coast on May 5. Lucie, who works in costs department at Smith Jones Solicitors in Burnley, said: “We found that lots of our friends wanted to get involved.

“As they had family members or friends that had had cancer at some point so it’s a cause close to all of our hearts.

“My grandma had breast cancer but is fully recovered now.

“And two of the lads that are riding, Stephen and Chris, are father and son who had a family member of theirs suffered from pancreatic cancer.

“They were keen to raise awareness and chose Macmillan as our charity.”

The team set up a justgiving page to enable their supporters to sponsor their efforts online.

And they said that they were suprised to see their total donations smash the £4,000 mark.

Lucie went on: “It is just fantastic to see.

“We are just so overwhelmed with it, really.

“We held a quiz night in February to kick start the donations.

“And we raised £600 but to see the amount we’ve reached now for the charity is unbelievable.”

To find out more about Macmillan Cancer Support the or to sponsor the group, visit the website www.justgiving.com/rosesandthorns.