Disabled cyclist completes a 714-mile ride

An advertising director left severely disabled after a road crash has completed a cycle ride from Aberdeen to London.

Max Burt, 45, has been paralysed on his left side since 1999, when his car and a fire engine on a 999 call collided in north London.

He is also deaf in his left ear, has damaged vision and speech and uses a wheelchair. After completing the 714-mile trip in 26 days, Mr Burt said: "My journey highlights the positive experience disabled people share in overcoming obstacles, celebrates the often ingenious abilities that disabled people have, and demonstrates that everything is possible."

Riding a recumbent tricycle, he passed through Dundee, Newcastle, Scunthorpe and Cambridge, accompanied by wife Justine O'Brien and PA and carer Filipe Roldao. Disabled cyclists and athletes also joined him.

They included Paralympic triathlete Alan Rayment; Graham Hicks and Alan Tibble, who are blind, on tandem bikes; and Nigel Wesson, whose arm was bitten off by a tiger in a circus.

Mr Burt added: "What I'm aiming to do goes hand-in-hand with the efforts the Government is making to mainstream disability, I wanted to educate people into the reality of the fact that people with disabilities taken together as a whole are everyday, three-dimensional characters."

Mr Burt, of Notting Hill, was a key figure in the "It's good to talk" advertising campaign for BT. He is now a consultant on disability, advising major firms, and is involved in organisations such as the Employers Forum on Disability, and the government-backed Images of Disability group.