It's this time of the year again ... as every year, I'm asking you to make a donation to the Langdon Foundation. Langdon is a fantastic charity that supports people with mild to medium learning difficulties and helps them to live independently, find and hold down a job, and enables them to live their lives with pride and enjoyment.  Langdon offers both education and supported living facilities to over 100 young people and it is growing year on year.

This year’s Langdon Charity Bike Challenge starts on the 7th of June and takes us to the Italian Alps. A couple of the Langdon residents and caregivers will be joining the three dozen or so MAMILs on this ride, and they usually have a whale of a time. That alone makes it worth it.

I pay the full costs of participating in the event. Every penny you donate will go to the charity. Your donation will make a difference to someone's life.

The route will take us from the shores of Lake Garda through Lombardia and Trentino Alto Adige - featuring some of the most majestic mountain scenery that the Italian Alps and Brenta Dolomites have to offer - to the mighty Passo dello Stelvio, one of the most famous and notorious ascents of the Giro d’Italia. This is where the official ride ends, but some of us will go the extra mile for your donations and plan on doing the Gavia and the Mortirolo the next day. Lance Armstrong once described the 12km, 10.5 per cent average gradient Mortirolo as the toughest hill he’d ever climbed. Unlike Lance's, my ascent will be not be fuelled by EPO, only by the hope that your donation will make it worth the effort.

• £500 a month provides specialist voice recognition software for three Langdon college students
  
• £250 a month funds Langdon's Live-It! social programme - reducing isolation for so many
  
• £100 covers monthly travel costs supporting a resident to travel to their job
  
• £25 helps fund arts and crafts equipment
  

Let's blow that fundraising target. It would be so cool to get to £2,757, the height of the Stelvio in meters. Many thanks.