Two Dorset brothers are counting down to the race of their lives, one of the world’s most gruelling cycling challenges, to raise money to help stroke patients.
Raised in a military family, Jack and Alex Forster from Poole are just weeks away from competing as a two-man relay team in the ultra-endurance Race Across America.
Funds raised by the pair will go towards new state-of-the-art tilt-tables which will help physiotherapists provide safe and effective early rehabilitation to some of the most unwell patients at University Hospitals Dorset.
Together, Jack and Alex will cycle 3,175 miles from California to Maryland.
Covering 400 miles a day, they will cross 12 states while climbing more than five times the height of Everest – and all within an official time limit of nine days and 12 hours.
The pair will dip their bike wheels in the waters of the Pacific before heading east through the Mojave Desert and across Death Valley into Nevada, Utah and the Rocky Mountains.
The route them takes them through Kansas, across the Mississippi River, into the Appalachians and finally to Maryland where they reach the Atlantic.
Once the clock starts, they will take turnabout sessions – one cycling, the other resting – until the race is done.
Jack, 33, co-owner of the E-motion Fitness Hub in Poole, said: “The first two to three days will be extremely challenging as we climb through the desert to the Rockies in intense heat. Temperatures could be up to 40 or 50C. We’ve never experienced that before. But, after we are through the Rockies, we have a 1,500-mile descent.”
Travelling in a van with the pair is a support team of friends including a mechanic, driver, navigator, videographer, cook and ‘dogsbody’. Everyone will sleep in the van including each brother when they are resting.
For more information on Race Across America and to sponsor Jack and Alex, visit https://gofund.me/df30a360.