FUND-raiser Alan Hilton will next month get on his bike for charity -- in a country more than 6,000 miles from home.

Alan, 33, from Atherton, will saddle-up to ride 300 miles across Laos, which borders Thailand and Cambodia.

He will join about 40 other bikers from across the Britain, all riding in aid of NCH, the National Children's Home charity.

The trip is expected to take Alan, a kitchen component manufacturer, 10 days. He hopes to raise £2,200.

Alan said: "I am really looking forward to it and can't wait to go out there. I have had eight injections and loads of tablets but it will all be worth it.

"To try to raise that much money and go that far was a bit daunting at first but now I am looking forward to it.

"Some of the journey will be on roads and some of it is on tracks across countryside.

"It will be quite hard but I will be able to cope with it."

Alan is now training hard for his gruelling journey, both on his mountain bike -- and in the lounge on his exercise bike. He will fly from Heathrow on February 11. Alan's fiancee Angela Wadsworth said the charity was a cause both felt strongly about. "This is the first fund-raising trip he has done and is training a lot -- about 30 miles every other day."