Two-wheel champions back special school’s charity cycle
WORLD champion superbike rider Jonathan Rea and Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas urged pupils at a Belfast special school to “keep ‘er lit” as they took on an epic cycling challenge.
Raising money for the Belfast Health Trust, the pupils and staff at Clarawood Special School began the fundraising effort yesterday, using cycling to power a lightbulb non-stop for 24 hours.
In a video message to the school, six-time world Superbike champ Rea, who is from Ballyclare, said: “Hey guys, it’s Jonathan Rea from the Kawasaki racing team.
“I want to say a massive good luck to all the students and the teachers of the Clarawood School for the ‘Keep ‘er Lit’ challenge next week.” With a thumbs up, he added: “Keep peddling.”
In another clip, and with a stunning backdrop of snowcapped mountains, Welsh cycling star Thomas said: “Hey everyone at Clarawood School, I heard from your teacher Mr Bradley that you’re all taking part in a 24-hour cycling challenge, which is a massive ask, but all raising money for Belfast NHS Trust so just wanted to say massive good luck and enjoy.”
Shortly after the challenge started, Clarawood vice principal Drew Bradley said he was delighted when the sporting heroes gave their endorsement.
“We managed to show the children this morning and it meant an awful lot to them, they were already very excited about getting to spend the day cycling instead of the normal school work,” he said. The challenge will work in a relay system with the different classes doing their bit and staff keeping the peddling going during the small hours.
“I think after the year we’ve had, with being very apart, it’s just a small way of keeping people together,” he added.
Looking back on the challenges of caring for Clarawood’s pupils during the pandemic, Mr Bradley said the school had felt some of the frustrations surrounding vaccines and measures in place for special schools.
“Really we’ve just had to keep in mind that we can only control certain things,” he said. “So we made it very paramount from the very start that we keep the staff and pupils as safe as possible, so we were up to scratch with the PPE really early and every measure we could take.
“There was some comfort in having done everything we can, and were fortunate in that we didn’t have too many cases.
“The general anxiety has obviously been difficult for the pupils, not being able to go, play or mix the way they normally would.”
He added: “The pupils really have been outstanding though and deserve all the credit in the world with how they’ve coped with his last year.”
Mr Bradley said the idea for raising money for the Belfast Health Trust came from pupils.
He added: “We thought it was very special that the idea came from them, and despite their own challenges and stuff they still wanted to help which we thought was just brilliant.”
For more information on the fundraising campaign, visit Justgiving.com and search ‘Clarawood 24 Hour Keep ‘er Lit Challenge’.