Dan McIntyre tackles Alps on disability tricycle
A West Yorkshire man is attempting to cross the Swiss Alps on a tricycle manufactured in 1932.
Wheelchair user Dan McIntyre from Liversedge will be the main driver recreating a 1,500-mile (2,400km) journey made on the trike, a forerunner of modern mobility scooters, in 1947.
Visiting Paris, Basel and Geneva and back to London via three alpine climbs will test the machine's reliability.
But Mr McIntyre, 32, said: "It's a cracking machine."
The ride is a tribute to Oswald Arthur Denly who, after contracting polio while in the navy, was invalided out of the service, paralysed from the waist down.
Having not yet realised his dream of seeing the Alps he set out alone on his 1930s Argoson 147cc tricycle, reaching heights of almost 8,000ft (2,900m).
Mr Denly also founded the charity that has now become Disabled Motoring UK.
He was made an MBE in 1959 for services to disabled people and died in 2010.
Mr McIntyre, a writer from Dewsbury, will be following as closely as possible the original journey.
The trip will start from Greenwich, London, on Saturday and finish back in the city at the Houses of Parliament on Thursday, 16 June 2011.
He added: "Having learnt to drive the trike I have a lot of confidence, with a few spare parts I am very confident it can finish the challenge."
His trip will have two support vehicles and accommodation will be sorted out en-route with no fixed daily mileage target.
Two members of the Royal Light Dragoons have restored the original trike for the challenge.
Along the way Mr McIntyre will meet disability campaigners and lobby government officials.
Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson, racing driver Nicolas Hamilton and television presenter and wheelchair basketball star Ade Adepitan will join Mr McIntyre at times on the route.