Just a few weeks after Richard Branson had a nasty cycling accident, his son Sam was also injured falling off his bike while taking part in the Virgin Strive Challenge.
The 30-year-old was one of six cyclists to come off their bikes following a particularly difficult and slippery blind corner while taking part in a 100km ride to Gaeta. With no one seriously hurt, the group were treated for their injuries with Sam suffering from a large scrap on his upper thigh, before bravely carrying on with their journey.
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Richard spoke about the crash in a statement, saying: "Unfortunately, yet again, the Branson family have shown biking is dangerous! In the space of a few fateful hours today, we had one person straight into a car and five people off their bikes, suffering nasty cuts.
"In this instance it looks like Sam and the guys hit oil on the road and all three went off at the same time - like dominoes they slid down the road…It makes me sick to my stomach to think of what could have happened but yet again everyone was extraordinarily lucky. I have never expected or encouraged my son to copy my life - he has always followed his own path - I just wish that included bike accidents!"
The group were in good spirits after their accident
Sam has been sharing snaps of his trip with his 31.2k followers on Instagram, and opened up about the crash in a video for the challenge, saying: "Our bikes were sprawled out everywhere, really a blind corner on a very fast road.
"The adrenaline is wearing off and it's getting more and more painful. I'm just so grateful that there wasn't a car coming otherwise that would have been a very different story."
Richard was in a cycling accident in late August
Richard, his daughter Holly and Sam are all taking part in the challenge at the moment to raise money for Big Change, and the group chatted to HELLO! online about their trip, and why the businessman's bike crash didn't stop them from taking on the challenge, which includes swimming to Sicily, mountain biking to Mount Edna, and a trail run to the summit of the active volcano.
Holly said: "It's amazing how just two weeks later, or actually ten days later, he was starting the hike looking pretty much fit as a fiddle, having a bit of physio on his knee, but the actual doctors told him that he shouldn’t, the MRI was too bad and he shouldn't be going on it, but it's incredible how he's now here."
"There's no way we would have said no, we've seen how much training he's put into it and we were training together. It's just brilliant that he's with us."