How The Clash are helping are helping raise money for older people

by Simon Bottery, Director of Policy and Communications for Independent Age

Clash lead singer Joe Strummer may have died young but he is helping me complete a sponsored ‘virtual’ bike ride to Paris to raise money for Independent Age. The deal is that all five members of the management team here take turns on an exercise bike to clock up the 213 miles needed to get us to Paris. That means around 10 miles a day each. For those of us not used to cycling (that’s me) this is fairly hard work but I have discovered that the best way of putting in the miles is to listen to something stimulating on an iPod. I’ve experimented with various types of music and can exclusively reveal that loud and fast music from the late 70s and early 80s is easily the best to cycle to. I may however switch over as we get closer to our destination. Somewhere on my iPod I have a compilation of French songs from the 40s and 50s so I will give up punk for Piaf as I ‘reach’ the outskirts of Paris at the end of the week. You can support me at www.justgiving.com/simon-bottery