Our brains send instructions to the different parts of out bodies as electrical impulses along nerve cells called motor neurones to muscles that control voluntary movement, such as walking and swallowing.

Motor Neurone Disease is a disease that gradually destroys these nerve cells and this leads to weakness and wasting of your muscles and eventually, death.

You can find out more about Motor Neurone Disease by clicking HERE.

    The Motor Neurone Disease Association is a charity that funds Global research into MND through charitable donations.

    The MNDA also provides valuable support to victims of the disease and their families.

    You can visit the MND's own website to find out more by clicking HERE

     In late 2007, my mum & dad came to visit us in Norwich. Only seeing her once or twice each year, we noticed straight away that mum's speech was slightly slurred - as though she had suffered some sort of minor stroke. She had also been having choking attacks where her larynx would spasm and close off her windpipe. This, I can only imagine must have been terrifying - to be unable to breathe until the point of almost passing out, when the larynx would then relax and allow her to breathe again. Things were definitely not right.

Mum felt that her speech problem was down to a poorly fitting dental plate. When this was re-fitted, in early 2008 it didn't solve the problem and I think she was devastated. She had been a nurse all of her working life and probably knew something else was going on. She saw ENT specialists and eventually a friend of my sister's who is a speech therapist suggested she seek attention from a speech therapist. When a therapist checked in mum's mouth, she saw straight away that her tongue had greatly reduced in size. Without saying what she suspected, she recommended my mum see a neurologist.

In late September 2008 dad took my mum to see the specialist for some test results. It was confirmed that mum had Motor Neurone Disease. To say we were all shocked was an understatement, but within days, mum in her usual style was saying how there were many people much worse off than her and that the time we are given on this earth is a gift.

She was put in touch with the local MND Association in Northern Ireland. They provided her with information and supported her and encouraged her throughout. Without this, I am sure she would not have been so upbeat. My dad was also able to get answers to the many questions that must have been going through his mind too. I can't imagine how he coped knowing that his wife of nearly 50 years was going to die, but at least there were people there with experience of the disease that were able to support him.

Mum and dad visited us again in Norwich in early December 2008 and we went to see them both over New Year that year. She was doing well and was upbeat about her future. However, by late January 2009 she developed complications and was taken into hospital. We went to N. Ireland to see her in her ward where she reminded me of how she lost her mum when she was in her teens. She knew exactly what was happening. Her condition deteriorated and she came home from hospital in mid March 2009 after having had a tube put into her stomach through which she was fed by a little pump.

On a regular basis she was visited by someone from the local MND association. In her final days, she was also tended to by the Marie Curie nurses who were excellent in every way and provided so much help for my father and all of us as a family.

On 30th March 2009, my mum, Joan Duff passed away. She was 70 years old.

To be honest, it's about the only sport I was ever any good at! I was a racing cyclist when I lived in Newtownards in my teens. Although I gave up cycling in 1987, last year, at 44 years of age, I bought myself my first new bike in nearly 30 years and started training again.

Since the death of my mum, I have learned about how poorly understood MND actually is and how relatively poorly funded research into the disease is. So I set about trying to figure out what I could do to help in some small way. I wanted to do something that would challenge me - if it was easy, it probably wouldn't raise much cash. I wanted to do something that would push me.

I thought about riding London to Paris, but neither city bore any relevance to me or my mum. So I thought, 'How about I ride from my house to her house?' Sounds simple, but when you consider the two addresses are about 470 miles apart, you begin to see that this could indeed be a challenge.

So anyway - Wednesday 13th July it is. I'll leave at about 8am. Here's the plan:

Day 1: Norwich to Lincoln. (Caenby crossroads, about 12 miles North of Lincoln to be exact)

Day 2: Lincoln to Leyburn - on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales.

Day 3: Leyburn to Gretna

Day 4: Gretna to Cairnryan via the Galloway Forest Park - nice views!

Day5: Get the boat to Larne and finish the ride to Newtownards.

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