It isn’t every day someone has the opportunity to mark two great causes in one event but that is what a team of window industry leaders did with the GM Fundraising Poppy Ride.

“It really was an unforgettable experience,” said Quickslide Chairman Adrian Barraclough, who made the incredible journey along with 20 other cycle riders and support crew. “Not only riding as a part of GM Fundraising but concluding the journey at such an evocative memorial site was really something else.”

The group pedaled all the way from the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire to the memorial among the battlefields of the Somme – scene of some of the bloodiest battles in military history – to mark the Centenary of the beginning of The Great War. Along the way, they also stopped at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, then over the Channel and on to a 55-mile loop around the battlefields of the Somme including observing two minutes silence at the Arras Memorial.

GM Fundraising has now raised more than £1.2 million for children’s charities and The Poppy Ride was the group’s first expedition in support of another good cause, with all funds raised going to the Royal British Legion.

Quickslide is best-known for its acclaimed sliding sash windows, and the company has been instrumental in bringing this former niche product into the mainstream of the retrofit and new-build markets, but it also manufactures a wide range of other styles of windows and doors for trade, commercial and domestic customers.

There’s more about the Poppy Ride on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD1W2OafQ-Y