Super League stars get on their bikes to help Rob Burrow and set new world record

Ewan Dowes has more reason than most to push his body to its limits this weekend and raise funds for the Motor Neurone Disease Association.

Dowes is a former team-mate of Rob Burrow - who has inspired a world record attempt of 25 people spending 30 consecutive hours on a static bike - and Adam Maher, who died of the devastating condition earlier this year.

The former Leeds and Hull FC prop was also coached by Doddie Weir as a promising rugby union player.

So when a group that includes fellow former Super League stars Keith Senior, Chev Walker, Wayne Godwin, Carl Forster and Garreth Carvell got together after other planned cycling events were cancelled this summer, Dowes had no hesitation.

He explained: “I remember meeting Joost van der Westhuizen when I was about 18 years old in South Africa and it was so sad and shocking to see how he deteriorated.

“Doddie Weir coached me a bit when I was a young lad, there was Adam passing away in February and Rob getting his diagnosis at the back end of last year.

“It’s frightening and close to all our hearts, and we all want to do our bit for Rob. We want to generate some awareness of the disease, and raise some funds to ultimately help find a cure for it.

“When I looked into it further I couldn’t believe how little information or treatment there still is for it.

“I do a lot of work with the Joining Jack charity for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, which is another horrible degenerative disease.

“The clock is ticking for everybody that suffers and the sooner we have a breakthrough or slow them down the better.”

Dowes’ support for Joining Jack - the charity set up former Wigan player Andy Johnson and his wife Alex to help their son - saw him take on a similar test of endurance last month.

Dowes, Paul Sculthorpe and Jamie Jones-Buchanan completed 26 hours on watt bikes as their take on the 2.6 challenge - now he will go even further in a bid to set a group world record.

He explained: “I’ve been saying to everyone that’s doing it, you can’t train for sitting on a bike for that long.

“You’re going to go through some pain and it’s a mental battle more than anything. If you can get through that then you’re going to complete it.”

But the competitive nature of former Super League players remains - and talk of trying to cover one million metres has been raised.

Dowes - who also chairs the Yorkshire region of the St James’s Place Charitable Foundation - added: “We did 806,000 metres in the last one so we’ve spoken about that and had a look a the maths and it is achievable.

“We’ll have to see how it goes and make a judgement call but everybody is super competitive.”

* To donate to the team’s fund-raising cause see: https://www.justgiving.com/team/teamride29 or Dowes' own page at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/ewandowes26