Forget the yellow jersey... York barista Louise Murray will be donning a pink top as she cycles around China for cancer charities. MAXINE GORDON reports.

LOUISE MURRAY is a determined lady. It is this sheer grit that saw her complete the 13-mile Great North Run with minimum training and finish a 350km bike ride through India.

Now she's focussing her mind on a charity challenge to China, where she will cycle 450km through Beijing Provence, completing rides of 60 miles a day.

Louise has undertaken a range of sporting challenges since her mum Barbara died from secondary breast cancer in 2006 at the age of 58. In doing so, Louise has raising thousands of pounds for good causes.

She began with a Ribbon Walk - a ten mile trek around Bleinhem Palace in Oxfordshire - in 2007 before progressing on to a half-marathon at the Great North Run in Newcastle in 2010.

"I did it in three hours," says Louise, who is the store manager at Costa Coffee on the bridge at York Railway Station. It was quite an achievement, considering the furthest she'd run before the event was just four miles. "It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be," admits Louise, aged 38. "I'm quite a determined person. When I set my mind to something I'd rather do anything but fail."

She needed that determination to see her through a cycling adventure in India in 2012, which raised just over £4,000 for Women V Cancer, a charity that organising cycle challenges in aid of three good causes: Breast Cancer Care; Ovarian Cancer Action and Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust.

"We did 52 miles a day, with 30 miles on the last day," said Louise. "Part of the route was on motorway but most of it was off the beaten track. You had to avoid potholes, cows in the road and bales of hay – I passed a man carrying a sheath of hay on his head, he turned around suddenly and nearly knocked me off my bike!"

Louise had to contend with 38C heat and slept in tents en route as the all-female group of 106 cyclists made their way from Rajasthan to Jaipur. Travelling on a mountain bike, surprisingly, Louise only suffered two punctures on the journey.

"It was amazing, although some of it was very hard," said Louise. "We saw lots of beggars and we cycled through places you would never see on holiday. You really saw how people lived - families with nothing, but still with cell phones."

This September, she is heading for China, this time hoping to raise at least £3,000 for Women V Cancer. The going will be a bit tougher, with 60 miles a day to cover.

To prepare, Louise took part in a 100-mile night ride in a loop from Windsor to Central London a few weeks ago. Starting at 10.15pm, she rode through the night, finishing at 4.15am.

She also plans to join some Sky rides to get more miles in her legs and more experience of riding in a group.

As a fundraising boost, her employer, Costa Coffee, matches the first £750 of her efforts.

And the icing on the cake is a new road bike that Louise has treated herself too after her old one was pinched last month.

She said: "I feel like a proper cyclist now."

* If you would like to support Louise, visit her fundraising page at Just Giving - justgiving.com/louise-murray13