Whitehaven cyclist takes on charity bike ride in memory of wife

Gerard McCarten, 85, is to cycle a total height of 10,205 metres throughout October, while raising money for national sight loss charity, the Macular Society.

Gerard is raising awareness of the condition Sorsby Fundus Dystrophy, a form of macular disease, which affected his late wife Margaret at the time of her passing one year ago.

He will begin his gruelling challenge on October 1, taking to Balmoral Road where he has mapped out the elevation for each lap, meaning it will take him 1,700 street circuits to complete the goal.

On the first day of his challenge, he will be spurred on by his champion cycling friends Ged Brear and Olympian Mike Cowley, who competed for Team GB at the Tokyo games in 1964.

Gerard said: “I hope to attain a target height of 10,205 metres by riding a total of 1,737 circuits on Balmoral Road and going no further than 50 metres from his front door. On each circuit I will attain a height of 5.875 metres.

“I’m undeterred by this daunting challenge,” said Gerard, who only recently completed his challenge of cycling the equivalent of the UK and Ireland’s highest peaks – 4,436 metres, in just three days.

“I’m now hoping to bring awareness of Sorsby Fundus Dystrophy, which Margaret became aware of in her forties. She worked in the accounts department at Smith Brothers in Hensingham. It was a job she loved.

Gerard McCarten and his late wife, Margaret (Image: Submitted)

“Blessed with the hand/eye coordination of a typist and piano player figures would fly off the page and into the calculator without a glance at the machine. A perfectly balance page of accounts was the result in rapid time.

“Then, after 17 faultless years, the page failed to balance. The audit was stopped while the team looked for the missing figures. It was then Margaret noticed that the row of figures, once perfectly horizontal and in apple-pie order, had become a wavy line.

“It was a job she could no longer do. Smiths were a model employer and sent Margaret to the private eye consultants at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle where, in spite of the best treatment, and the stage of research at that time, no more could be done.”

Sorsby Fundus Dystrophy is an incurable, inherited eye disease which causes sight loss. Symptoms are caused by one of several mutations in a gene called TIMP3, or chromosome 22q, with the mutation causing cells to make a harmful version of the TIMP3 protein.

Gerard’s latest cycling challenge will match the height of Mauna Kea – a dormant volcano in Hawaii. It is the world’s tallest mountain, higher than Mount Everest from summit to base, although half of Mauna Kea itself is under water.

To donate to Gerard’s fundraiser, visit https://www.justgiving.com/page/gerard-mccarten-macular-society

Nearly 1.5 million people are currently affected by macular disease and many more are at risk. The disease can have a devastating effect on people’s lives, leaving them unable to drive, read or see faces. Many people affected describe losing their sight as being similar to bereavement.

There is still no cure and most types of the disease are not treatable. Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the most common form of macular disease, affecting more than 700,000 people, usually over the age of 50.

For more information on macular disease, call the Macular Society on 0300 3030 111 or email help@macularsociety.org