A woman with biking in her blood was braving sub-zero temperatures last weekend in an all-out effort to raise cash for Katharine House Hospice at Adderbury.

Liz Angel, 31, was taking part in a sponsored ride to a world-famous bikers' rally at an Alpine village in Bavaria, southern Germany. Liz, whose husband David runs F2 Motorcycles, based at Burgess Farm, Middleton Cheney, near Banbury, said before her departure: "I will fund the trip myself so all sponsorship cash will go to the charity.

"I'm meeting friends and we'll ride to Dover to catch a ferry to Dunkirk. From there we'll head for Thermansbang in the Bavarian Alps."

Liz added: "It's a 2,000-mile round trip and we'll ride through snow, ice and temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees Centigrade."

She will ride her motorcycle and sidecar combination and the group will make an overnight stop with friends in mid-Germany. But at the rally organised by the German Motorcycling Federation they will camp in the cold with up to 15,000 other bikers.

The event is known as the Elephant Rally. At the first 45 years ago riders travelled on grey BMWs which local people dubbed "elephants".