Case diggers form guard of honour for the Lifton Bikers

by Nick Drew | Mon 26 Sep 2016

Case diggers form guard of honour for the Lifton Bikers

Two Case mini excavators formed an arch to welcome home a charity bike ride team in Devon on the penultimate stage of an epic 1000 mile journey from John O’ Groats to Lands End.

Describing themselves as 8 middle aged men in Lycra, the Lifton Bikers arrived back in their home village of Lifton in Devon on Thursday evening on day 12 of their 14 day charity bike ride from John O’ Groats to Lands End. The initial plan was, like many of these things, dreamt up in a pub while enjoying a few pints after a long week at work. Since then the lads along with their wives and families have gone on to raise a staggering £28,000 + for the Motor Neurone Disease Association having initially set a conservative target of just £10,000.

The ride itself kicked off on September 10^th with team members Mike Wood, Martin Vanstone, Paul Davies, Malcolm Bird, Luke Harris, Alastair Batten, Paul Arscott and Adam Pengelly attempting to tackle the 1,000 mile bike challenge, raising money and awareness for the Motor Neurone Disease Association, on behalf of their close friend, Jeremy Durrant, who has suffered from the disease for three years.

It’s often said that the JOGLE bike ride marathon is a life changing event, both physically and emotionally, but I don’t think anything could have prepared the lads for the welcome they received when arriving back in the small village of Lifton on Thursday afternoon, as the small but passionate community turned out to see the lads arrive home for a one night stop over.

One member of the team is life-long plant operator turned salesman Luke Harris who works for the local Case dealership M&M Plant Sales, asked how he felt on his return with the lads to the village Luke said, “Well what can I say, I’m feeling pretty emotional right now, 13 years of living in Lifton and I’ve never seen anything quite like this, I’d just like to say, thanks to all who turned out to welcome us home today, we are all totally blown away”.

Luke was instrumental in gaining some of the sponsorship from a number of plant and machinery related companies whose names were emblazoned on the backs of the lads shirts.

Regular readers of this blog may recall our two posts featuring Luke during his early days in the plant game, but if you missed them you can check them out by clicking on the following links, part one here and part two here.

You can still donate to this worthy cause and support the Lifton Bikers fundraising by visiting their Just Giving page here. The last time the Digger Man Blog reported on a JOGLE attempt it was being carried out in special edition black backhoe loader, but these lads have done it the hard way, with muscle power on pushbikes and for that we salute you all!

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