The Manchester office of leading national law firm Shoosmiths has raised more than £3,500 for national charity Brain Tumour Research, in support of a colleague who is seeking to raise awareness of the condition.

The money was raised as a result of a grueling ‘Tour de Shoos’ cycle challenge, held over two days and involving participants from across all practice groups. Clients of the firm were amongst those who made donations to the cause, helping to surpass the fundraising target.

Associate Solicitor, Neil Bradley inspired colleagues to get on their bikes and raise funds for Brain Tumour Research. Neil is seeking to raise awareness of brain tumours, after being diagnosed with the condition himself and discovering that just 1% of the national spend on cancer research is allocated to brain cancer research.

Funds raised by the Tour de Shoos event will help the Brain Tumour Research charity in its bid to fund a network of seven dedicated research centres whilst challenging the government and larger cancer charities to invest more in brain tumour research.

More than 70 members of staff s embarked on the fund-raising Tour de Shoos ‘spin-a-thon’, cycling an incredible 1,174 miles in just 18 hours, on three spin bikes donated by Pure Gym.

Having exceeded the original aim of cycling the distance from Shoosmiths’ northern-most office in Edinburgh to its southern-most in Southampton on the first day of the endurance test, the Shoosmiths volunteers set themselves a second challenge to cycle the distance from Le Havre in France to Amsterdam on day two.

Adding a competitive edge to the challenge, the firm also awarded medals to the top male and female cyclists who had covered the most distance and cycled the fastest.

Solicitor Alice Casey covered 18.9 kilometres in her allotted time slot, senior associate Neil Armstrong reached a commendable 226 revs per minute in the ‘Do You Even Spin’ category and personal assistant Sonia Gadsby cycled an impressive 130.2 kilometres across the entire duration of the challenge.

Reflecting on the two-day event, Neil Bradley said, “The goodwill demonstrated by everyone in the office has been tremendous and people put in a huge amount of effort to help raise funds for Brain Tumour Research. Being diagnosed with a brain tumour completely turns your life around but I am one of the lucky ones, my tumour should be slow growing and I hope the prognosis is no intervention for years. Others are not so lucky and I’ve heard of many more people, though my contacts at work, who have had friends and loved ones affected by brain tumours. This is why I feel it is so important that brain tumour research receives more funding: it’s the largest cancer killer of people under 40 and yet receives a tiny fraction of research spend.”

Vaqas Farooq,  Head of Shoosmiths Manchester, added, “We’re very proud to support the Brain Tumour Research charity and to help support research into a form of cancer that is woefully underfunded given its prevalence in people under 40.

“Our initial target was to raise £2,000, but we comfortably surpassed that and the total now stands at £3,589 – a highly commendable effort and I’d like to thank everyone involved.”

The Tour de Shoos challenge took place at Shoosmiths’ current premises in The Old Granada Studios Building. The Manchester office will move into its new, state-of-the-art workspace at the XYZ building in early 2017.