And so the start draws near…

One week from now, we will start our long ride from under the Eiffel Tower!

With over 500km (320 miles) under the belt in May alone, the legs should be strong enough – will my backside!?

Everything has been collected together, bags are packed, bike will be getting a service tonight, the excitement is building!

I’ll try to blog a bit each day after the ride, post some piccies, etc. to show you what it’s been like.

Fundraising stands at £1,875 of the £2,500 target – thanks so much to all who have contributed, there is still plenty of time to donate if you’d like to.

April Training & Fundraising Update

April has been a busy month for training especially, plus a bit of fundraising, and much organising of more fundraising…

The fundraising is now above £1,600, and well on the way to hitting the £2,500 target – thanks to all who’ve donated so far! I collected at Cambridge railway station to boost the total by nearly £130. I’ll be at Morrisons in Stanground, Peterborough on Friday 10th May too, so drop by and say hello if you are nearby!

On the training front, the distance for this year is now at 1,956km (1,213 miles), with about 660km (409 miles) of that in April alone, thanks to a couple of 100 mile sportive rides (the Wiggle Newmarket Saddle 100 [photo is of me and two buddies (Bob and Martyn) at the finish of the Newmarket ride after around 6 hours on the road!] and the Bike Events Cambridge 100). That’s 3,187 kms (1,976 miles) of training so far!

With four weeks to go to the start in Paris, it’s time to start thinking about what to pack, making sure I’ve got everything I need, and planning for further fundraising in May, June and July to hit target.

Not long now!

[You can donate here - thanks!]

Who Needs John Boyd Dunlop…!

It’s snowing. I’ve ridden 89km. I have 20km to go to finish the Sportive. I can’t see any other riders.

I’ve just stopped for my 3rd front tyre puncture – after 3 back tyre punctures. “Why me, why now?”

10 Weeks To Go!

Unbelievable! I realised at the weekend that there are only 10 weeks to go until me and the bike head on down to London and onwards to France…

Thanks to everyone’s generosity, the first target of £1,200 was hit before the end of February, so now we’re into the home straight to raise a further £1,300 to reach my £2,500 target.

Fundraising currently stands at £1,478.70 – thanks again to all who’ve donated.

Training miles (kilometres) now stand at a grand total of 2,216km over 63 rides, since September 2012 (around 6 months). I’ve also lost a stone and got massive thighs now!

Recent rides have been pretty tough with the beautiful Spring weather bringing us snow, rain and hail… However, great to get out on the bike and train for a brilliant cause!

(And there is some more on an “interesting” recent ride in a later post…!)

Action Stations

As you can see, RAF Bear was delighted to help Peter (my H4H ride team-mate) and I raise nearly £600 on a bucket collection at Huntingdon and St. Neots railway stations.

Even on cold and slightly miserable Friday evenings, we were humbled by how many people were willing to dig deep to give a few quid for Help for Heroes as they passed.

Special thanks to the two ladies who popped a tenner and a twenty into the buckets.

Link

Write-up in The Villager Magazine

The publishers of The Villager Magazine were kind enough to do a write-up of my fundraising in their January edition – thanks folks!!

Collecting Tins and Training Update

First up, I want to say a big thank you to The White Hart, The Royal Oak, Wards Chemists and Davies Newsagents – all in Warboys – for “hosting” collection tins for Help for Heroes – pay them a visit if you are in the village, to say hi, buy something and donate…

After raising around £200 in December, I’m targeting £500 in January and February – planning some bucket collections at various venues in the county.

In training terms, it’s going fairly well. The total training miles done so far amount to 1,250 km (775 miles) since the end of August. I’ll be ramping up the miles over the next three months, and have a couple of 80 mile sportives (cycling endurance events) booked in March.

I used the Christmas break to strip down, clean, oil and reassemble my (25 year old!) winter bike, which was very therapeutic! It’s running very sweetly now, just in time for the snow we’ve had forecast!