When the average middle aged lady has a major health scare, I'm guessing that she takes it very easy for a while, re-evaluates what really matters in life and perhaps settles down to spend more time with her family. Obviously I'm guessing as I've never been a middle aged lady, Nor am I ever likely to be unless something seriously radical happens in the next couple of years.

Anyhow, when Sally Ann Holmes suffered a sub-arachnoid brain haemmorrage five years ago she took what I guess you'd call the alternative logical path. She threw herself into life with gusto. Having started her restaurant just six months before she fell ill, obviously getting that back up and running was a priority. But it seems she's not content with just getting better. No, Sally Ann is one of those people who believe they should try to give something back. Who don't just see getting better as sufficient reward to the medical staff who looked after them, but actually feel that they owe more than that. God knows there are few enough of these people around, and we really need to help them.

Sally Ann carried on getting better, carried on throwing herself into life and doing all the things that fifty year old professional women do. Like learning to ride a motorbike, for example. She's not exactly an amazon, so dealing with the occasional memory loss that tends to follow brain surgery as well as finding the physical strength to handle a bike was an extra little hurdle for her to tackle. Needless to say, she tackled it very well indeed. Starting off on the seemingly inevitable Virago she rapidly decided that the riding experience would outweigh the potential height problem and so she moved up to a 600 Bandit and never looked back.

Time for a little diversion, I think. Sally Ann received her life saving treatment at Hurstwood Park, just outside Brighton. Conveniently, it's quite local for her. Rather less conveniently, it's the only operating Neurological unit in the South East of England. That's right - the most overcrowded and congested part of our green and pleasant land has just one facility where they can operate on a person's brain without a huge wait. While that may be a bit of a surprise, I'm sure it will be rather less of one to hear that they are chronically underfunded. There's one particular piece of kit, a Neuronavigation System (sometimes called a 3D scanner) which quite simply could mean the difference between someone with brain trauma, either through accident or illness, surviving and going on to lead a normal life or not. It's not even particularly expensive. At £40,000 it probably comes in at less than some of you have paid for your cars. So it's an achievable amount, and one that Sally Ann has set out to raise.

Now with her new love of biking and her urge to give something back to the place that saved her life, Sally Ann saw that there was an obvious fundraising opportunity. Ride a long way and get sponsored for doing it. Then give the money to the hospital. Easy peasy. Choosing the route was dead easy too. Land's End to John O'Groats. Obvious - it's a well known challenge and it sort of rolls off the tongue. Turns out that it's a bit too obvious, though, as the route has been rather done to death and failed to raise any excitment when people weretold about it. So Sally Ann and her biking buddy Richard decided to go around the coast of Britain instead, and told everyone they could find. This got a lot more interest, and a plan was born.

Then they found out how far it is.

Now I must confess to being a little surprised as well. 3500 miles is quite a lot further than I expected, even knowing that the end to end trip is 900 miles. So they committed to doing four times the distance. OK, so they're being as sensible as anyone taking on an enterprise like this can be and doing it over a reasonable period of time but it's still going to be hard work.

This is how it works. Sally Ann and Richard will leave Madeira Drive, Brighton, on Saturday 28th June and head up the East coast. They are aiming to cover between 200 and 350 miles a day, which is a fair distance to do every day for two weeks without a break. Especially as, until now, the furthest that Sally Ann has ever ridden is to Exmoor and back. Once.

Sally Ann is nothing if not resourceful. She's also got a fair amount of pluck. As a result, she's done quite well on the corporate sponsorship side of things. Dobles Motorcycles in Croydon are loaning her a new CBF 600 for the journey, while Autocom are dealing with intercoms, Bennetts are insuring them for the trip and Fowlers are doing the clothing side of things, for example. Their accomodation is being provided by well wishers and the occasional commercial sponsor. But the bottom line is that Sally Ann is taking nothing herself - all her costs (apart from petrol) are covered so everything that gets donated goes straight to the hospital. Which, of course, is the object of the exercise.

So here we go. Sally Ann's site is www.biking4brainray.org.uk and there's a link for "JustGiving" at the top left. This is a cause which could easily have a direct impact on your life or that of someone you know. We shouldn't have to raise funds for essential surgical equipment oursleves but hey ho - that's the way it is.

Sally Ann is brave and she's taking on a big challenge. It's for a great cause. And if you all give a pound we can buy that scanner and a host of other good things as well. Just one pound. Even better to make it two, of course. But let's help someone who is trying to make a difference.

SB