WHEEL DO OUR BEST
Dowes and Co on their bikes to boost Burrow
EWAN DOWES has more reason than most to push his body to its limits this weekend to raise funds for the Motor Neurone Disease Association.
Dowes is a former team-mate of Rob Burrow, who has inspired a world record attempt of 25 people spending 30 consecutive hours on a static bike, and Adam Maher, who died of the devastating condition earlier this year.
The former Leeds and Hull FC prop, 39, was also coached by Doddie Weir – who suffers from the devastating disease – as a promising union player.
So when a group that includes fellow former Super League stars Keith Senior, Garreth Carvell, Chev Walker, Wayne Godwin and Carl Forster got together after other planned cycling events were cancelled, Dowes had no hesitation.
He said: “I remember meeting Joost van der Westhuizen when I was about 18 in South Africa and it was so sad and shocking to see how he deteriorated.
“Doddie Weir coached me a bit as a lad, there was Adam passing away in February and Rob getting his diagnosis at the back end of last year.
“It’s frightening and close to all our hearts and we all want to do our bit for Rob. We want to generate some awareness of the disease and raise some funds to ultimately help find a cure – I couldn’t believe how little information or treatment there still is for it.
“I do a lot of work with the Joining
Jack charity for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, which is another horrible degenerative disease. The clock is ticking for everybody that suffers and the sooner we have a breakthrough or slow them down, the better.”
Dowes’ support for Joining Jack – the charity set up by former Wigan player Andy Johnson and his wife Alex to help their son – saw him, Paul Sculthorpe and Jamie Jones-buchanan complete 26 hours on watt bikes as their take on the 2.6 Challenge last month and now he will go even further.
He added: “You can’t train for sitting on a bike for that long.
“You’re going to go through some pain and it’s a mental battle, more than anything. If you can get through that, then you’re going to complete it.”
But the competitive nature of former Super League players remains – and talk of trying to cover one million metres has been raised.
Dowes, who also chairs the Yorkshire region of the St James’s Place Charitable Foundation, added: “We did 806,000 metres in the last one, so a million is achievable. We’ll have to see how it goes and make a judgement call, but everybody is super competitive.”
■ To donate to the team’s fundraising cause go to: https://www. justgiving.com/team/teamride29