Amateur cyclist set to ride women's Tour de France

"Up until a couple of years ago I was very much a recreational cyclist," says a woman from Oxfordshire who is preparing to take on the female version of the Tour de France.

Angela Mills-Bannon, from Wallingford, will ride the 724 mile (1,165km) Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift to raise money for people with cancer.

She told BBC Radio Oxford she was inspired to fundraise in 2022 after her friend's son was diagnosed with a rare type of leukaemia.

"We did all we could to support the family... but it just didn't really feel like it was enough," she said.

The event has been organised by cancer charity Cure Leukaemia, and is called The Route.

Ms Mills-Bannon will take on the gruelling nine stages between July and August 2025, riding the day before the professionals at each stage.

She completed her first cycling challenge for the charity in 2022.

Alongside eight other female riders she pedalled from London to Paris and raised £23,000.

Ahead of the new task she admitted she is nervous about cycling for nine days in a row, as this is a first for her.

"I always get worried whether my body is up for it," she said.

Ms Mills-Bannon juggles her training along with coaching the Blewbury Amazons Under 12s, an all girls football club, where her daughter plays.

She admitted she has kept the challenge quiet from her football team but when she told her father about it she found out that cycling runs in the family.

He said: "You do realise your great uncle was an international cyclist."

She said that her relative also made a name for himself as an editor for a cycling newspaper in the 1930s.

Her father showed her some of the old articles and Ms Mills-Bannon said she was inspired to read about the "female heroines of cycling" who regularly popped up in articles in the inter-war years.

"They did amazing things like cycle from Lands End to John o' Groats and I just can't imagine that," she said.

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