Puddles is a magic road in honour of Eileidh Paterson, a wee girl from Forres in Scotland who lost her battle with neuroblastoma on July 1st 2017. Eileidh is #ForeverFive.
When the Daily Mail ran with the story “Brave five year old who touched the hearts of people across the world when she “married” her best friend, is laid to rest with a funeral fit for a princess” they were not wrong. Princess Puddles, as she became affectionately known across the globe, touched more than hearts: she was an inspiration to thousands who followed her fight against neuroblastoma through her family’s epic blog Eileidh’s Journey on Facebook.
Eileidh gained the title of Princess Puddles when at a press photoshoot outside Celtic Park in Glasgow in May 2015, she was more interested in jumping in puddles from a sharp hailstorm than standing and posing for the press pack. That’s the girl she was: always adventurous, always on the go, always with something to say or do, and always in the hearts and minds of folk across the world who came into contact with her story.
One such person is Amelie Bottrill aka Frank Loves Joan. Amelie is a highly talented singer/songwriter in Adelaide, Australia, and along with her soundmeister Benjamin Abercrombie, they came up with the haunting Puddles track which accompanies the video of the magic road. Puddles was the feature track on Frank Loves Joan’s second album, aptly named “About A Girl”: that girl was Eileidh.
Eileidh’s family asked for her magic road to be located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, because in their words “Grand Rapids was where it all started really, with her DFMO trial. Plus, it was the best times we had as a family”. The road sits on the site of the Helen De Vos Children’s Hospital where Eiliedh was accepted onto the DFMO clinical trial in 2015 and where she returned regularly for checkups. Puddles was loved as much in North America as she was back home and thousands of miles away in Australia.
Puddles the road is as big a tease as Eileidh was herself. The route is a bit of a riot as it winds its way through the letters that spell her name. It looks easy because it’s relatively flat (Ha, you just wait….) but this course will test your legs just like all the others in the Ride2Cure series.
So take yourself across to RGT Cycling and import the magic road code into your personal library then challenge yourself.
RGT Magic Road code: zXtRjE1atT6n
Max elevation: 377 ft
Min elevation: 305 ft
Total climbing: 236 ft
Total descent: -236 ft
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