Get on your bike and get pedalling for a good cause that's the message from the British Heart Foundation, which has launched its Oxford to Cambridge bike ride The charity is staging the event for the second year running after last year's 85-mile ride proved to be a great success.

This year's ride, which is due to take place on Sunday, September 24, will start in Broad Street, Oxford, before heading out towards Bicester to Marsh Gibbon, through Buckinghamshire and on to the fenlands of Cambridgeshire.

Money raised from the ride will help the British Heart Foundation continue to fund its research into the causes and treatment of heart disease, which is the nation's biggest killer. It accounts for four in 10 deaths.

Oxford United footballers Stuart Gray and Bradie Clarke joined 23-year-old Mike Streule, an Oxford student who was born with a heart condition, at Thursday's launch.

Mr Streule, a postgraduate geology student, who is running the London Marathon on Sunday for the charity, said: "When I was only a few days old I was rushed into hospital for cardiac surgery. I survived, but many people do not.

"It is thanks to cardiologists and research carried out by organisations like the British Heart Foundation that I am here today.

"I live an entirely normal life now but I would not have been able to do so without the operations I had."

Mr Streule was born with a faulty aorta, the artery which pumps blood out of the heart to the body, and had to undergo surgery when he was just seven days old and again at 17.

He said: "People tend to associate heart disease with older people, but in fact it can affect anyone at any age.

"With the great work of all the cardiologists and nurses I have been able to live a healthy life and my physical ability has not been compromised."

Last year, he ran the London Marathon for the foundation in a time of four hours 23 minutes, and this year he hopes to break the four-hour barrier.

He is one of more than 300 people running the marathon for the charity.

Bike ride organiser Louise McCathie said: "We would like to hear from everyone interested in this year's ride, which offers people the chance to cycle between these two great university cities.

"It will be great fun and the atmosphere is brilliant. All funds raised make a huge difference to our fight against heart disease."

More than 900 people took part last year raising about £100,000.

For more information or to register for the foundation's Oxford to Cambridge bike ride, call freephone 0800 1693672, email westevents@bhf.org.uk or visit the website at www.bhf.org.uk/oxcambike