A north-east cycling group has raised £5,000 to help fight stomach and gullet cancer in a special “Tour de Banffshire” event.
More than 30 riders from the Deveron Cycling Club and other groups took part in the 80-mile fundraising ride earlier this summer.
The cyclists set out from Banff Rugby Club and headed to Dufftown and back.
Now the group has presented a final cheque of £5,000 to Aberdeen-based gastro-oesophageal cancer charity Gastrocan.
Deveron Cycling Club chairman David Innes said: “It was more successful than we expected – we raised a total of £5,000.
“Gastrocan is a recently set up Aberdeen-based charity for research into gastric and gullet cancer and we wanted to support that. It was about supporting a local cause. And we were lucky with the weather.”
Half of the funds raised came from the Cnooc Nexen charitable donations committee, who agreed to match the club’s fundraising efforts pound for pound.
Cases of stomach and gullet cancers are rising rapidly in Scotland, and are among the highest in the world. While advances have been made in treating the diseases cure rates remain low.
According to research released by Gastrocan, a patient diagnosed with gastro-oesophageal cancer has only a one in 10 chance of completely beating the disease. In contrast, eight out of 10 breast cancer suffers beat the disease.