A YATE cafe is asking its customers to swap their beverages fro bikes to raise money for a charity close to the company’s heart.

Anyone who takes up the spinathon challenge to cycle on the spot for 15 minutes at Boswells cafe, in Yate Shopping Centre, on Saturday, August 16 will be rewarded with a free drink.

The all-day event is taking place at the same time as others in Boswells branches across the country and aims to raise funds for the Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund in memory of Jeremy Burn, father of company directors Nick, Matthew and Tim, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2012.

The brothers are doing their own bit for the charity cycle challenge, by pedalling 400 miles in just four days stopping in at all 15 Boswells branches along the way.

They will start at Newport on Wednesday, August 20 when they will make a stop in Yate before travelling via the south coast and finishing in Gloucester on August 23.

Matthew Burn said: “Dad was proud of us.

“He’d drilled us to take over on his retirement and he was gearing up to stepping down.

“He was a great mentor with lots of experience and wisdom to share. He was also great fun to be around and we all miss him enormously.”

He added: “Family was really important to him and he should have had much more time to enjoy retirement, to enjoy the grandchildren – he deserved to take things easy after so many years of working so hard for us.”

Keen cyclists are also welcome to join the group on the different legs of the cycle ride.

Each cafe along the route will be holding a spinathon competition and the top five customers who add the most miles overall to the challenge will also receive free coffee for a month.

Each year 8,800 people in the UK are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It is a difficult cancer to diagnose and treat because it is unusually aggressive, symptoms are often vague and generally appear at an advanced stage of the disease. Around three per cent of those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer will survive for five years or more.

To make a donation to the challenge visit www.justgiving.com/LeTourdeBoswells or text the code LTDB99 with your amount to 70070