"I love you, and this is for you": Cammy cycles over 1,000 miles in memory of his Dad

This year, Cammy Jones has taken on two long-distance cycling challenges for My Name’5 Doddie Foundation: Doddie’s Triple Crown, which saw him ride from Melrose to Dublin in March, as well the TransAlba in June - a 1,020-mile self-supported cycling race around Scotland.

Both challenges pushed Cammy further than ever before, but his motivation to complete them stretches back to his childhood, and the devastating impact motor neuron disease (MND) had on his family.

“I had already signed up for the TransAlba and I wanted to do it for My Name’5 Doddie because of my Dad,” Cammy explained. “Then when the opportunity came up to take part in Doddie’s Triple Crown as well, straight away I jumped in and said absolutely, I’m 100% in. It was a no-brainer for me.”

Cammy was nine years old when his Dad, Alfie, was diagnosed with MND. Alfie lived for four years with the disease and died when Cammy was then only 13-years-old.

Alfie was diagnosed in the 1980s, at a time when awareness of MND was extremely limited. Cammy vividly remembers his Mum reading a newspaper article about former English football player and manager Don Revie, who had MND, and recognising the same symptoms in Alfie.

“She said, ‘That’s what Alfie’s got, that’s what your Dad’s got,’” Cammy recalled. “So she phoned the doctor and very quickly they came back and confirmed that’s exactly what it was.”

Even with a diagnosis confirmed, neither Cammy nor the rest of his family truly understood what lay ahead.

“Nobody knew what was actually going to happen and how it would evolve, and as a child, you’re not equipped with the tools to cope with something like that,” said Cammy. “But even my Mum wasn’t, none of us had any idea what was coming up.”

Alfie had served in the Navy before later working as an electrician at Rosyth Dockyard. He was an active, hard-working and family-orientated man, and before MND took hold, he loved to walk and cook.

“I don’t think people realise how absolutely destroying of a life MND is,” Cammy stated. “It takes everything. I watched my Dad literally melt away, he was trapped in a body that couldn’t do what he wanted it to do. Then the frustration that comes off the back of that is heartbreaking.”

Alfie’s diagnosis and death forced Cammy and his brother to grow up very quickly.

“You felt like you couldn’t have your friends round," Cammy said. "It wasn’t that you were embarrassed, it was the questions you’d get asked but couldn’t answer. You struggled to answer because you didn’t have the words.

“Then you look into your friends’ lives, and you think ‘Why me?’ At the time I thought, ‘Why am I dealing with this? Why is this happening to my Dad and not yours?’” he admitted.

Over three decades later, the impact that MND had on his family remains with Cammy, and it’s what has driven him to complete these two cycle rides for MND research.

“I’d never done anything on this scale before. But taking on big challenges like this, you need a purpose to keep you going,” he declared.

The first challenge, Doddie’s Triple Crown, was organised by Foundation ambassadors Rob Wainwright and Mark Beaumont, and saw hundreds of participants ride from Melrose to Dublin ahead of the Scotland vs Ireland match at the Men’s Six Nations Championship. Together, the participating teams helped raise over £1 million for My Name’5 Doddie Foundation.

The ride itself was far from easy and was made all the more difficult by lashings of rain and relentless headwinds.

“The weather was horrendous,” Cammy explained, “the headwind made it so much more difficult heading south - it was on us the whole way, we were fighting into it all the time and burning energy we wouldn’t have otherwise if the wind wasn’t there.

“Then when we were going over some moorland and the elevation was quite high, the wind was so strong that you were holding on with everything you’ve got and trying to fight forward - you were very much in danger of coming off your bike.”

After four demanding days pushing the pedals, arriving at the finish line in Dublin made every mile in the wind worthwhile.

“We were all absolutely buzzing. Suddenly, as we came into Dublin, everybody got that second wind and you felt like your legs were all fresh again,” Cammy described. “Everybody was so euphoric. We had a Guinness and a laugh and knowing we had achieved it was amazing. The whole thing was just a big adventure.”

Doddie’s Triple Crown also gave Cammy valuable experience ahead of his next cycling challenge: “It really boded well and helped me for what I did with the TransAlba, it gave me a little bit of foresight into big day rides and the logistics.”

So in June, Cammy took on the TransAlba. The self-supported race takes participants on a 1,020-mile loop around Scotland, with 67,000 feet of elevation.

“TransAlba was absolutely relentless. It’s an ultra event and it’s known as one of the hardest ones, because of the climbing,” he explained. “Scotland’s got a lot of hills, and the race director was determined to make us ride up what felt like every single one. Every day it was masses of climbing.”

On the fifth day, after reaching Lairg in the Highlands, Cammy decided to give one last, long push to get home. He rode on through the night and crossed the finish line in South Queensferry at 8am the next morning.

“I remember getting to Dundee and thinking, how am I going to do this? How am I going to get to a finish now? It felt so far away, it felt absolutely miles away,” he remarked.

But along the way, small acts of kindness and support from strangers helped keep Cammy going.

On that fifth day, when Cammy rode through the Cairngorms and headed towards Cairn o’ Mount - another notoriously steep section of the race - a couple who had been watching the race online stood at the top of the hill. They called out to Cammy, gave him a cup of tea and some biscuits, and even offered him their spare room if he needed somewhere to sleep for the night.

“I was so tempted to go and sleep,” Cammy recounted. “But I got it into my mind that I wanted to be done that night. So that’s what I did. I thanked them, carried on, and was able to get past a group of five other riders in the race.”

Later on, near Kinross, another supporter spotted Cammy wearing Doddie tartan and gave him a £20 donation on the spot.

“When I went all night, I was expecting to come across a garage or somewhere I could get something to eat, but there was absolutely nothing open! What I’d had on me had been consumed long ago and I was running out of fuel,” Cammy described. “But when I got to Kinross I found a little shop, bought a banana milkshake and a pack of Maltesers. I stood at the side of the road, downed the milkshake, the Maltesers were getting poured in, then I heard this voice.

“I looked around, there was a guy in a car with his window down, waving to me, and he calls out: ‘Are you riding for Doddie Weir?’ I replied ‘Aye I’m riding for Doddie, I’ve cycled all night!’ And he told me ‘We need more people like you, that’s amazing! Well done mate, here you go, here’s 20 quid.’

“Those moments really do put strength back into your legs,” Cammy said. “It’s another moment that makes you feel proud and gives you that push to go on and finish.”

After covering hundreds of miles in a single day, Cammy reached the TransAlba finish line in South Queensferry.

“The last 50 miles were probably the hardest 50 miles I’ve ever done on the bike,” he admitted. “But I remember seeing the Forth Road Bridge flashing in the distance, and at that moment there was a rush of adrenaline because I could see my finish line. I got this ‘I’m going to do this, I’m going to get to the end’ feeling.”

Waiting at the finish line for Cammy was his partner Sonia, a close friend, and Chris the race director, all ready and waiting with hugs and congratulations.

“Before I started the race, I wondered how am I going to do this? Is this possible for me?” Cammy remarked. “But it’s your mind that will hold you back with these things. There's a massive difference between having a can’t-do and a can-do attitude. And now I’ve done it, my expectations of what I can achieve are so much higher, the bar has been reset.”

Whilst the physical achievement is something Cammy is immensely proud of, the emotional significance of both the TransAlba and Doddie’s Triple Crown goes even further.

During both challenges, Cammy often found himself thinking about his Dad.

Cammy added: “If we’d had a charity like My Name’5 Doddie Foundation when Dad was in the last stage of his life, it potentially could have felt a little easier for him. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case at the time, but I just hope that he is proud of me.”

Reminiscing on the year which has so far included some of the biggest rides of his life, Cammy hopes his story will encourage and inspire others to challenge themselves too, and challenge the limits they put on themselves.

“I hope that if people can see me doing this, it encourages them to also want to get involved and push themselves out of their own comfort zones,” he said. “There’s probably a lot of people who have ideas about things they want to do, but again it’s their mind saying ‘You can’t do that’ or ‘You’re not strong enough to do that.’ But if I’m able to do this, then hopefully they can push themselves to also do something.”

He went on: “This year I’ve tried to say yes to anything that’s come my way. ‘No’ is not part of it. Everything is a ‘yes’ - let’s do it and see where it takes me, and it’s been amazing.”

For Cammy, saying yes to taking on these two cycling challenges has given him a way to support vital MND research, honour the Dad he lost far too young, and prove to himself just how much is possible when you put your mind to something.

To see how you can challenge yourself whilst also raising funds for MND research, see our Join a Challenge page here.