INSPIRATIONAL London 2012 torch bearer Dan Eley is celebrating hitting the halfway mark on his latest charity challenge.

The Witley-based former aid worker, who was paralysed in a diving accident in South America two years ago, is cycling the equivalent of 550 miles on a specially adapted bike to raise £10,000 for Surrey-based charity Spinal Research.

As he cannot move his legs voluntarily, he is using a Functional Electrical Stimulation bike and a hand cycle at Hydon Hill Cheshire Home.

The FES uses electric stimulation to contract the major muscle groups in the legs in a sequence that creates a cycling motion and a computer on the bike calculates the distance covered.

The mileage he will cycle is the distance from Spinal Research's headquarters near Guildford, to the Queen Elizabeth Spinal Injury Centre, in Glasgow, and should take Dan around four months to complete at an average of seven miles per day.

For full story, see this week's Haslemere Herald.