HVV Cycle Ride
Thursday 11th May 2017
The countdown is on to our cycle ride from London to the EuroPCR conference in Paris, less than a week to go! So before we depart we wanted to take some time to reflect on how everything has come together to get us to this point.
One of the first things that we have found in preparation for this cycle tour is that we have some amazing volunteers and stakeholders involved in the charity. The first group we need to acknowledge are our cycle team, made up of clinicians, patient ambassadors and representatives and volunteers. We have a great team assembled who have been instrumental in helping to get us ready for the event and we are looking forward to setting out with them on our journey. You can meet our team here and read more about why they are riding with us next week here.
In addition to our cyclists we will also have a team from Bicycle Buddy, the mobile bike mechanic who will be on hand to help us navigate our journey, fix any issues that might crop up along the way and keep our team safe. As an extra bonus, one of our cyclists, Jonathan Carrol who will be riding in honour of his grandmother Lydia, will be putting his physiotherapy expertise to work and will look after our cyclists’s aching muscles.
We also have some really great support from our sponsors. Our sponsors are the reason we are able to make this cycle tour happen. Big thanks goes to LivaNova, Edwards Life Sciences, GE Healthcare, Rinicare, The British and Irish Society for Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery, British Heart Valve Society, Cyclism and Arragon Cycles for sponsoring our cycle ride and for providing your support on social media and online. Also thanks to the Silversurfers for writing about the tour and sharing our story on social media.
Online and social media support is a big element of a tour like this. We have been so excited to see how many of our patients, stakeholders and friends have been sharing our posts and sending us their best wishes on social media. We have also received some excellent encouragement and support from the hospitals of some of our clinicians on the tour. They have written articles and posted their well wishes on their social media sites to help us spread the word.
One of the highlights of our upcoming tour will be cycling up to the main stage at the EuroPCR conference. This conference is one of the largest global forums bringing together over 12,000 experts, innovators and leaders in cardiovascular medicine and is a world-leading Course in Interventional Cardiovascular Medicine. Not to mention an excellent venue for us to share our messages about increasing awareness of heart valve disease and improving diagnosis and treatment.
With only a few days left, the Heart Valve Voice cycle team will be getting on their bikes to get in some last minute training. They will need all of the encouragement they can get so get online and show your support on our Twitter and Facebook feeds and stay tuned for regular updates and photos. If you wish to further lend your support to the Heart Valve Voice cycle team or to any of the other work that Heart Valve Voice does please visit our Crowdfunding page here.