Inspiring cyclists to embark on 300km route between seven hospitals for Sophie's Legacy

The challenge will be waving the flag for Sophie’s Legacy to try and raise as much awareness for the charity as possible. Taking place on Thursday, June 20, the 300km route will bet between seven hospitals that the charity has been working with and the journey will spell out an ‘s’ to honour Sophie Fairall.

Sophie’s Legacy was established following the death of Sophie in 2021 after she was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare type of cancer. Sophie was only ten years old and had to spend a lot of time in hospital whist undergoing treatment. During this time, she came to the conclusion that there were many ways that hospitals and cancer treatment could be improved. One of the improvements includes parents not receiving food when their child stays overnight in hospital. Charlotte Fairall, Sophie’s mum, set up Sophie’s Legacy to try and make all of the improvements Sophie wished for. The upcoming cycle challenge is part of the mission to raise awareness and the money which will go towards helping parents with poorly children. The route will start at Guildford at 4:30am in the morning and cyclists will continue to Basingstoke, Salisbury, Winchester, Chichester, Portsmouth and Southampton.

Charlotte said: “It is incredible to see the change because of one little girl’s wish for parents to be able to access food up and down the country and we have now managed to change 30 hospitals.

“We are really emphasising the push to get food in hospitals for parents so we have got a lot of people fundraising - We are trying to raise a bit of awareness and get some more media attention and raise the profile that only 30 per cent of hospitals in the country provide any food to parents that stay overnight with their children, that means 70 per cent don’t.

“There are parenst or guardians that are staying overnight in hospital with their children and the only facilities they have are a kettle and microwave but you have to bring your own food in - but you don’t exactly turn up to the hospital with a weekly shop.”

As well as the cycling challenge taking place on June 20, there will also be numerous virtual bike rides taking place across the area with businesses getting involved and raising money for the charity.

Charlotte added: “We are really nervous. There is a week to go and we are just trying to mitigate any possible problems. It is amazing and we are just really really excited that this is going to happen and hopefully we are going to gain more awareness - you can’t miss us with our bright yellow Sophie’s Legacy t-shirts.”

For more information about Sophie’s Legacy, click here.