Man riding Tour route on Raleigh Chopper receives support from Chris Froome and Team Sky

Chris Froome has sent a message of support to Dave Sims, the man attempting to ride the full route of this year’s Tour de France on a Raleigh Chopper, reports the Liverpool Echo. Sims, who is raising funds for the Help for Heroes charity, has also received treatment from a Team Sky physio, while Sir Dave Brailsford has given the Chopper a test ride.

Shortly after Sims finished stage 18, he received a video message from Froome, who said: “Just wanted to wish you luck in reaching Paris. Team Chop has done a fantastic job up until now. I’m pretty impressed you made it this far, but you’ve still got to get up Alpe d’Huez. Hope to see you in Paris.”

- Interview: Dave Sims, a man training to ride the Tour de France on a Raleigh Chopper

Sims is riding two days ahead of the race and therefore has first-hand experience of what’s to come for Froome and the other riders. Expressed via Twitter, his view of stage 19 was simply: “Ouch.”

But then Sims has been tackling the Alps on a rather different bike to the pros – a 15.9kg Mark 3 Raleigh Chopper with a single chain ring, two pointless tennis balls and 38 reflective spokey dokeys. He has however modified it to give himself a choice of eight gears, rather than the standard three.

You can follow Sims’ impressive efforts on Strava, but you’ll see that it hasn’t all been plain sailing. Stage 14 had to be aborted due to Achilles problems (an injury he’d picked up before he left, cycling into town for a pizza while wearing trainers with SPD pedals). Fortunately, Team gave him an appointment with one of their physios and soon enough he was strapped up and back on the road, but not before Sir Dave Brailsford took a test ride of his bike.

Great to see Sir Dave supporting Team Chop's @MPCdave by sampling the Chopper he's riding the FULL #TDF2015 route on! pic.twitter.com/0kzZpJ5zhM

— Team Sky (@TeamSky) July 18, 2015

At the time of writing, Sims and the rest of Team Chop (sports masseur Mo; bus driver, chef and psychologist, Jonathan; and mechanic, Chris) have raised £3,270. If you’d like to donate, click here.