A SPONSORED bike ride will help raise cash for Keighley horse riders due to compete in the Special Olympics World Games.

Two women will ride along a route near the Giants Causeway in Northern Ireland next month to help with the cost of sending teenagers T-Jay Wilson and James Reed-Griffiths to Abu Dhabi.

Bradford Disability Sports and Leisure (BDSL) has to raise at least £17,000 to send five disabled athletes to the Games in March next year.

Karla Burton, from BDSL, and fellow cyclist Rachel Clayton volunteered to raise cash by riding 85 miles in Northern Ireland on September 8.

T-Jay and James, who both ride with Haworth Riding for the Disabled, are part of the 129-strong Team GB who are due to take on rival athletes with learning disabilities across the world.

The seven-day competition will also involve, from Bradford district, basketball player Neil Hartley, cyclist Ella Curtis and golfer Mark Rhodes. Tim Curtis, from Bradford, will be a coach with the GB cycling squad.

The five athletes were chosen last year following the success of athletes from Keighley and Bradford in last summer’s National Games in Sheffield.

Visit justgiving.com/KarlaRachWorldGamesBradford to sponsor Karla and Rachel.

Fundraising for the quintet began in earnest this summer, with a fundraising car wash on the forecourt of Keighley Fire Station this month donating half the proceeds to help T-Jay and James compete.

In the spring, T-Jay’s grandmother Carol, who lives in Guard House, raised £500 for the appeal by baking cakes.

Earlier this year both Keighley MP John Grogan and the then Lord Mayor of Bradford, Keighley councillor Abid Hussain, expressed support for the appeal during separate visits to see the two horse riders at Haworth Riding for the Disabled’s stables in Cross Roads.