Tuesday 28 August 2012

Day 4


Telford to Bolton le sands, just a short day today at 120 miles

Our wives and children gave us a nice surprise by turning up at Telford overnight and happily waved us on our way in the morning.

Today was a rubbish day of cycling, just a case of getting through the busy northern towns in the pouring rain and out the other side.

Nice campsite on the coast, shame about the howling wind...!

Overnight location = Bolton le sands

Sunday 26 August 2012

Day 3

Cheddar to Telford via bristol and into Wales, another 127 miles.

Actual sunshine this morning surprisingly, via nice cycling up cheddar gorge with no traffic.

Over the Clifton suspension bridge, then the old Severn bridge followed and we were into Wales. Up and down some hills we then reached our glamorous premier inn hotel.

Sore legs, necks and hands for both of us, starting to feel the burn the following mornings now!

Overnight location = Telford

Day 2

Day two, lostwithiel to cheddar, via Dartmoor. 127 miles of seriously tough hills through some of that typical Dartmoor weather.

By that we mean rain, cold and mist! Very pleased to complete this day, as on paper it is our toughest.




Overnight location = cheddar

Day 1!

Right, now that we have finally located some wifi signal here is a quick update.

Day 1 has been done dispatched, 60 odd miles up and down some of cornwalls finest hills.






Lands end was hardly visible, day for the raincoats and soggy feet.

Oh and a dragonfly crashed into my mouth and 5 mind later I looked down to find it on my coat!

Overnight location = lostwithiel

We'll post a full write up when we have some more energy and signal!

Friday 10 August 2012

Two weeks to go!

So, its been a few weeks (ok, more than a few) since our last update, now we have just over two weeks to go until we depart from Lands End! So what have Dangerous Dazza and myself been up to over the past few months – well quite a lot actually!


The training has on the whole been going very well. It’s been very difficult at times to squeeze in training amongst normal family life, therefore myself and Dangerous have not made it out on our bikes together for half as many training rides as we would have liked. However, individually we’ve both clocked up an impressive amount of miles in the saddle this year.

Dangerous has often cycled to the New Forest and back at weekends as well as increasing his commuting mileage, plus many a time has he been seen sweating away in the gym at work. And that was just because of walking the 200 yds to get there…! He’s experienced lots of punctures lately so fingers crossed he has got them all out of the way before the big one.

I’ve done a few long rides at the weekend, increased my commuting mileage and have done some gym work as well. One positive for me is that I’ve used my winter commuting bike for most of my training as my decent bike does not come out unless zero rain is forecast (which as you will know is not very often). I’m hoping all of my training on this heavy bike (around 12kg) will serve me well when I switch to my decent bike (about 7.5kg) for LEJOG.

What we both didn’t realise was the amount of planning involved in organising this type of ride, we have both put in so many hours of planning, way higher than either of us can count. So many different aspects required thought; bikes and set up, what spare parts to take, clothing for on and off bikes, camping gear, food/drink, route planning, accommodation booking, sponsorship (holding a raffle & other things), custom t-shirts, blog/facebook updating, contacting local media, contacting various companies for freebies/sponsorship etc etc – the list is almost endless!

But we are nearly there, with just over two weeks to go all we need is to finalise the small details of our plans and make sure our legs are ready for action. At this point I’d like to say a massive thank you to everyone who has sponsored us so far, thanks to your generosity we have already raised in excess of £1500 (online & offline) and are well positioned to reach our target of £2k.

All of your support will really spur us on and please keep the sponsorship coming in! If you are reading this and haven’t yet sponsored us please do so now. And if you have already sponsored us please free to do so again as all money raised will go straight to our two grateful charities!

Hopefully once the Long Good Ride is underway we will post regular updates to let you all know how we are getting on (i.e. how many times Dangerous Dazza has stacked it), until then please wish us luck!

Two weeks today and we shall be hitting the road in Lands End....!

PLEASE SPONSOR US!!!:

 




My chief mechanic making sure I am doing things correctly!