MORE than 100 cyclists will arrive at Edinburgh Castle on Saturday as part of a 700-mile cycle to mark the 30th anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing.
The Cycle to Syracuse event will see participants complete the journey from Scotland to the US on behalf of the victims of Pan Am flight 103, which was bound for the US when it exploded over the Scots town in December 1988.
The atrocity killed the 259 passengers and crew, as well as 11 Lockerbie residents.
The cycle also seeks to honour the work of the emergency services and response of the community to the incident, which remains the deadliest terror attack ever committed in the UK.
A core group of five men will be amongst participants, including David Whalley, who led the RAF search and rescue team on the fatal night.
He will be joined by Colin Dorrance, who, at 18-years-old, was the country’s youngest police officer and who joined the operation just three months into his career.
Fellow cyclist Paul Rae was also 18 at the time and volunteered to help search the hills, while David Walpole was a local bank manager and has now become a paramedic in the Lockerbie area.
The fifth man, Brian Asher, is the head teacher at Lockerbie Academy and is responsible for building the school’s links with Syracuse, in New York State.
These include a scholarship which has been in place since 1990, allowing 58 young people from the Dumfries and Galloway town to study at Syracuse University.
The men will represent the institutions they serve and, alongside other riders, will be welcomed at Edinburgh Castle by Scottish Secretary David Mundell before heading travelling to America to begin the next leg to Syracuse University.
Once there, they will present the institution’s president with a book of commemoration and a specially-crafted shepherd’s crook made from wood from the Tundergarth area, just outside Lockerbie.
The US leg will begin from the Lockerbie memorial cairn in Arlington National Cemetery, Washington.
And the feat will also raise money for Dumfriesshire youth mental health charity Soul Soup to employ a dedicated worker within the high school.
The cycle began last month, when the five toured schools in the Lockerbie area.
Colin said: “Our journey to Syracuse started in the primary schools around Lockerbie. We have had the opportunity to tell the children about the bombing, but also about the wonderful opportunity that they may have to study at Syracuse in the future.
“It has encouraged them to speak to their parents about the bombing, learning something of how it affected the older generation in 1988. We are all reminded of just how selfless and heroic so many people were, and how widely it is still talked about today.
“Of course, for some, the journey will never end.
“My teammates and I are looking forward to being joined by our friends, neighbours and colleagues on the Lockerbie-Edinburgh leg this weekend. And then we focus on the 600 miles we will cycle in the USA to Syracuse University.
“The prospect is exciting, humbling and moving all in one.”
Mundell, who was raised in Lockerbie, said: “I know how deeply the air disaster has impacted on the town.
“It is fitting that five local men are making the journey to Syracuse to remember those lost, and to raise money for a local youth mental health charity. I wish them good luck.”
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