Fresh Potato Specialist Tackles Tack-Tarnished Biking Etape
Charlotte Manwaring of Greenvale AP raises over £200 for Macmillan Cancer Support in sabotaged bike race – despite being a victim of the vandals
It’s one thing to raise money for charity by going on a 130km bike ride. It’s another to do it over a course that climbs nearly 2,000 metres, even if it does travel through some of Scotland’s most beautiful countryside. But when you throw in sabotage, with angry locals placing tacks on the road to burst unwary bikers’ tyres, then you’re really stepping up a gear.
That’s exactly what happened to Charlotte Manwaring who works for Greenvale AP, the UK’s leading supplier of fresh potatoes, as key account manager at the company’s Market Drayton, Shropshire site. She took part in the Etape Caledonia, an endurance cycle challenge on the steep gradients of the Perthshire Highlands.
This year’s event, on 17th May, was marred when vandals succeeded in disrupting the event for over an hour by covering sections of the course with carpet tacks.
They were protesting at the closure of the roads to motor traffic, which is done to allow the bikes to compete safely, and their antics brought national media attention to this successful charity fundraiser.
“Yes, I got ‘tack-led,” says Charlotte ruefully. “I was half way up a long climb when my tyre burst. It was very disheartening but at least it wasn’t half way down a hill, going fast! I had to wait with the other riders for about 90 minutes while the course was checked.
“It could have spoiled the day – when you are competing in this type of event the last thing you want is to have your confidence undermined by worrying unnecessarily about your safety. But actually it created a great team spirit and we all mucked in and looked out for each other.”
This year’s Etape Caledonia attracted more than 3,500 cyclists, of whom around 1,000 were actively raising funds for Macmillan Cancer Support. Charlotte raised just over £200 and managed to complete the course in five hours fifteen minutes. The whole event raised £250,000 for the charity.
For more information on the Etape Caledonia visit www.etapecaledonia.co.uk
For more information visit the Greenvale AP website at www.greenvale.co.uk
Editor’s notes
Greenvale AP is the UK’s leading supplier of fresh potatoes and was awarded the Queens Award for Innovation in 2006. Greenvale AP now supplies the UK’s premier retailers, caterers and processing outlets with quality potatoes, meeting the high standards demanded by the UK market.
Greenvale AP has developed sites in the major potato growing areas across the UK, resulting in three state of the art potato-packing operations situated in Shropshire, Berwickshire and Cambridgeshire. The company also has sales and marketing offices across the UK, including in Norfolk, Suffolk, Somerset, Hereford and Yorkshire. Greenvale AP’s Seed Potato operation is managed from a specialist office at Burrelton, near Perth in Scotland.