BURNING yet more rubber, the Mad Rider, Stuart Morrissey, took to the tarmac once again atop his motorbike for a charity ride to raise money for a cancer research charity.

Dubbed ‘Bikers 4 Brains’, Stuart and Paul Brady, who are part of the charity riding team ‘The Crazy Bunch’, rode across the south of England in a bid to raise funds for Brain Tumour Research, visiting several motor vehicle museums on the way.

With support from fellow members of the ‘The Crazy Bunch’, Martin Horrel, Mike Herron and Shaun Harley, the duo began their journey in Plymouth, departing the ocean city at 7am on August 4 for their first museum: Haynes Motor Museum.

In the days that followed Stuart, riding a 125cc bike,  and Paul, atop a 650cc bike, visited to a number of motor vehicle museums, including the National Motorbike Museum.

Of the journey, Stuart said: ‘I started doing charity rides in 2004 and I have had a few years off because of injuries.

‘A lot of people don’t realise  that I ride with slipped discs, three of them, hence they call me the mad rider!

‘It is not how I ride, it is the rides I undertake with the disabilities I have.

The Brain Tumour Research charity is, it is safe to say, a cause close to Stuart’s heart.

‘I lost a cousin to a brain tumour, believe it or not he went into hospital with headaches, he went for a CT scan to see if there was anything else happening.

‘Things happened rather quickly after that and he actually didn’t come out of hospital  - he was 32 years old.

‘When we were on the ride we met four people who had suffered a brain tumour.

‘One lady told us of somebody she knew who had a brain tumour before finding out she was pregnant.

‘They had to do an operation and to do the operation would mean terminating the baby.

‘She decided to have the baby and now she was been told she has weeks to live.

‘When we heard that, you just have to sit back and think, well, this is what we are doing lads, this is why we are doing it and tomorrow we carry on.

At present, Stuart has raised just under £1,000 for Brain Tumour Research, a charity which funds research to find a cure for brain tumours.

The final museum on the itinerary was the Moretonhampstead Motor Museum, which Stuart and Paul arrived at on August 7.

Housed in a newly refurbished bus depot, the museum, which is run by local motoring enthusiasts, Frank Loft and Pete Lofts, is home to more than 150 vintage vehicles.

Frank Loft said: ‘We are so happy to have supported Stuart in all his fundraising attempts and we are so glad to exhibit one of his machines that has done so much towards raising thousands and thousdand of pounds for charity.’