TWO men who have witnessed close friends develop Parkinson’s have raised more than £4,000 for research into the disease.

David Trousdale of York and his father-in-law Ken Brown, from Pickering, cycled from London to Paris with a group of other riders to raise funds for the charity Parkinson’s UK.

Mr Trousdale said: “Over the past few years many of those close to either myself or Ken have had the saddening experience of developing this illness.

“Neither of us want to see this terrible disease affect our family in the future, so we decided that raising money towards Parkinson’s UK’s brain bank programme to find a cure would be a worthy cause to cycle 280 miles for.”

Their route took them from London to Paris via Dover, Calais, Arras and Compiegne.

Mr Trousdale said: “We really enjoyed the challenge. Although the traffic in Paris was a nightmare and cycling into a headwind on the third day made 80 miles feel like 180, we reminded ourselves that we were doing this for a great cause.”

David’s fundraising page can be found at justgiving.com/fundraising/david-trousdale