From San Francisco to New York, British & Irish Lions Peter Winterbottom and Mike Teague have cycled across the United States of America in memory of their late friend and fellow Lion Doddie Weir.
Winterbottom, Lion #588, and Teague, Lion #620, embarked on the 30-day, 5150km journey with a number of former rugby players and friends to raise money for My Name’5 Doddie Foundation and Motor Neurone Disease New Zealand.
The My Name’5 Doddie Foundation was set up in response to Lion #670 Doddie Weir’s diagnosis with motor neurone disease in 2017 and has since raised millions of pounds to help fund research into the disease.
Winterbottom, who was a member of the 1983 and 1993 Tours, struck up a friendship with Weir through the foundation’s fundraising efforts and came to deeply admire his fellow Lion.
Doddie’5 Ride USA is the latest challenge Winterbottom has taken on to raise both money and awareness and admitted it has been an honour to ride in Weir’s name.
Donate to the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation here
“We organised these events through a thing I set up a few years ago called Ride of the Legends and our motto is the spirit of rugby on a bike,” he said.
“I think that really shows through in events like this and other cycling events that rugby guys do. You need to have a big team spirit and everybody pull in the same direction to make it work.
“This trip has been a real example of the camaraderie and teamwork that you need in a rugby team and we have got it on the road.
“Doddie had a great sense of humour, highly amusing guy. I couldn’t speak highly enough about Doddie, he was an absolute diamond. It was a pleasure to have really got to know him properly before he passed away.”
The month-long challenge has taken Winterbottom, Teague and the rest of the team through the very heart of America, from the hills of Utah and Colorado to the plains of the Midwest.
They also paid a visit to the home of Speedway in Indianapolis and will end their journey in New York’s Central Park alongside the NYPD Rugby Club.
After 30 days in the saddle with just two rest days, Winterbottom revealed he can’t wait for his alarm to be set for later than six o’clock in the morning.
He added: “It has been a real slog, as you can imagine. The first couple of weeks we were going through California, Nevada, Utah and then Colorado and there is not a lot there, just hills.
“It’s beautiful countryside, absolutely stunning, we got up to 10,500 feet.
“We had a rest day in Denver and then headed into the Midwest which is a lot flatter but it is just vast. The whole place is just vast.
“We did about 1200 miles across the Midwest and got to Indianapolis. The last push is 10 days from Indianapolis to New York.
“We had a great stop in a place called Duchesne in Utah, it’s a cowboy town. We ended up watching a bit of a rodeo, they call it barrel racing. That was quite good.
“In Indianapolis, we stopped right next to the Speedway track. The day we left, they started up at 7.30am in the morning and I’ve never heard anything like it.
“We have been to some beautiful places, we have met so many nice people; the Americans have just been so welcoming. We can’t fault their generosity, people have given money on the side of the road, they’ve given us free stays in RV parks.
“We are living in these RVs, three or four people in an RV, and it has been very difficult at times. I think we will all be very glad to sleep in a decent bed.
“We are looking forward to not having to get up at six o’clock in the morning. It has been a long 30 days now and we will be happy when it finishes.”
Donate to the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation here
Above all, by the time Winterbottom and his team finish in Central Park on Saturday 22 June, he hopes to have raised a lot of money and plenty of awareness for a disease that has affected far too many people, particularly in the rugby community.
“We’ve lost a few friends now to MND, Paul Brennan his brother Simon died in 2020 with the disease,” he said.
“We’ve lost Paul Rendall, Rob Burrow, Ed Slater has it at the moment. It’s a nasty disease and we can come out here and have a lot of fun but we want to raise as much money as possible and hopefully people will donate and support the cause.
“The one thing about Doddie is that when you are diagnosed with something like motor neurone disease, it is a death warrant, you are going to die, and it’s a question of how you approach it. Doddie just went full on to try and raise as much money and awareness as possible.
“He knew they wouldn’t find a cure before he died but ultimately we want to find a cure so that present sufferers but especially future sufferers have a glimmer of hope, which the guys at the moment don’t.”
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