On their bikes!

9:23am Tuesday 13th March 2007

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A GROUP of cricketers will be swapping their whites for cycling shorts this St Patrick's Day, biking over 50 miles from Blackpool to Sale.

The 11 members of Sale Cricket Club, ranging in age from 17 to 34, will begin the ambitious journey on March 17, at 9am and hope, with enough pedal power, to reach Sale by 2pm.

Mike Halkon, the Sale 1XI captain said: "We were looking for an interesting idea to raise funds for our junior team, a few of the lads are regular bike riders and we decided this would be a good day and an interesting achievement."

The team has managed to raise in excess of £2,000 for both the junior development at Sale Cricket Club and Christie's Cancer Research Hospital.

Mike continued: "About seven years ago the junior team disbanded, in the past few years we have been trying to build up a new junior side. Thanks to the hard work of a lot of people, it is going really well."

Preparing for such a journey doesn't just involve dusting off your old bicycle clips - for the less practiced cyclists, training has been an important part of preparation: "Some of the less fit in the group have had to put in a lot of hard work, I, myself have been going to the gym two or three times a week."

The group is hoping to arrive home to a great fanfare, coinciding with the club's St. Patrick Day celebrations, organised to raise further sponsorship money.