A WOMAN who was left devastated after thieves stole a mountain bike she intended to use for a charity cycle ride is now three quarters of the way towards her fund raising target.

Mother-of-three Michelle Carr is to take part in a coast-to-coast cycle ride as a tribute to her late husband, former firefighter Russ Carr, who died in January 2012 from non-Hodgkin lymphoma disease.

But she suffered a setback last month when thieves stole her £600 Cannondale trail bike after breaking into her garage at her home in Ingleby Barwick, Stockton.

As of Wednesday, the mother-of-three was almost three quarters of the way to her £1,000 fundraising target on the website justgiving.com having received donations amounting to £738.

This included a £100 donation made the day after The Northern Echo publicised her plight and a number of anonymous donations.

Mrs Carr has now replaced the stolen bike after successfully making a claim on her house insurance policy.

She said the excess on the claim was paid for by another anonymous benefactor who passed the money to an old neighbour.

She said: “There has been no news on the [stolen] bike, nothing from the police. But there has still been a lot of positives that have come out of this. People have been good, really supportive of me.”

A local cycling club, Stockton Wheelers, has extended an invitation to the 43-year-old to go and train with them and also offered to loan her eldest daughter Jessica a bike to she can take part in the charity ride from Whitehaven, Cumbria to Sunderland in May.

Mrs Carr has helped raise almost £20,000 for research into leukaemia and lymphoma since husband Russ died.

He was a firefighter based at Thornaby station who had previously cycled the coast-to-coast route with colleagues.