Alright then and here we go...stage one of a.n.other Gran Tour! As is always the way, you can expect at least one Gran Ffaf per diem. Them's the rules, and today's took the form of me forgetting my European Health Card which is a bit of a necessity given the destination, like. I f**king hope it remains unused, mind...
Just about the finest music. Bloke ain't toast either...lives in Knutsford. Close enough though...
The Cycling Gods showed compassion and provided me with at least four (4) free miles into Preston courtesy of a tractor. 'A' not 'The'. This one one was more fuel efficient by the looks of it!
20mph. Zero effort. My kind of cycling.
After that freebie it was the usual trawl with the added bonus of Friday traffic, but amazingly no real weapons out there and I did get a couple of horn-beeps in relation to my Heath Robinson 'mission statement' on the back of my saddle bag. At least I hope that's what they were beeping about. "Shift it you fat bast*rd" accompanied these well wishes. Ah, Wigan...
Gonna make it...full gaz!
From there it was attritional which you can take to mean as bloody slow and awful: anyone would think the Cycling Gods were taking a little retribution for not training hard enough. Erm, is it warm in here or is that just me?
Loved spotting this shop in Knutsford...
Would have been cool if Arthur had retired to K'ford though.
One other desperate and superbly clumsy reference took my fancy on the crawl into Stoke. I had to turn around and waste 3 minutes to secure this entertainment for you. Ungrateful shower of b**tards, as Gary might have said...
McKinley Morganfield er, Stoke Delta.
The last 10 miles were that tiring I actually had my first moment of doubt and pain (cheers Jags): if this is how I am after only an 80 mile stage then wtf state am I going to be in when the real miles happen? Well, in such an event there can only realistically be one course of action...a few jars, a big old steak abd hope for a better day tomorrow!
Almost forgot: my stats...best not to look at the HR...
After three posts and over fifteen hundred visits to this blog, I think it might be an idea to shed a bit of light on what each of the three charities that you either are or hopefully will be supporting in the very near future actually do with our money.
Some of the following stuff isn't exactly comedy material, but if you've read the blog so far you are well used to that by now.
In alphabetical order then...
Marie Curie Cancer Care has 2,000 nurses in the UK and last year they worked for over 1,200,000 hours caring for terminally ill patients, including half of all cancer patients who die at home.
They also have nine hospices and are the biggest provider of hospice beds outside the NHS. In total, Marie Curie spends over £80 million a year on its charitable activities of providing care as well as on research and development. That figure is massive but so is the comfort that our money provides.
Next up we have...
The Royal British Legion has been providing support to both past and serving members of the British Armed Forces for 92 years. What did that mean in 1921 and how does it differ now?
The main purpose of the Legion was straightforward: to care for those who had suffered as a result of service in the Armed Forces in the Great War, whether through their own service or through that of a husband, father or son. The suffering took many forms: the effect of a war wound on a man's ability to earn a living and support his family; or a war widow's struggle to give her children an education.
The Legion still fulfils that task but has expanded to champion the case of veterans and serving personnel and their families, provide practical advice with benefits and/or compensation, care homes, a free handy van service, rehabilitation centres, loans and of course the remembrance of past conflicts and those who gave everything. No matter what your political leanings are, it is difficult to argue against supporting such a cause.
And finally there is the...
This charity may not quite as familiar to you as the other two but that is changing. It's premise is so simple yet so worthwhile. Around seven young people aged between 13 and 24 are diagnosed with cancer every day in the UK, and over 21 years Teenage Cancer Trust has learnt a lot about what it’s like to be a young person with cancer - their unique emotional, physical and practical needs. Because Teenage Cancer Trust understands, they can provide better care, better services and hopefully a more positive outcome for young people.
It's fair to say that there’s never a good time to get cancer, but for a teenager the timing seems particularly cruel. Young people can get some of the most rare and aggressive forms of cancer, and their rapidly changing bodies can work against them, enabling the cancer to grow faster. The emotional upheaval of adolescence can make a cancer diagnosis even harder to cope with.
Without the work of Teenage Cancer Trust, young people with cancer would be treated alongside children or elderly patients at the end of their lives. Being away from your normal life, friends and environment at such a vulnerable time is the last thing they need. And this is where our money comes in: it enables the TCT to build and sustain specialist wards and units within NHS hospitals that care for young people. It is that simple!
Ok folks, if you have managed to sit through that little lot then you deserve some of the usual nonsense. Bring on some Tommy Cooper...make sure you read these shockers in your best T.C. impersonation...just like that!
"I went into a shop and I said, 'Can someone sell me a kettle?' The bloke said 'Kenwood'. I said, 'OK, where is he then?'"
No? Alright how about...
"Man goes to the doctors, with a strawberry growing out of his head. The doctor says, 'I'll give you some cream to put on it.'"
Hmm, difficult crowd in tonight- best go for the 'A' material...
"A friend of mine always wanted to be run over by a steam train. When it happened, he was chuffed to bits."
There's no pleasing some people...
All packed and ready for the off on Friday lunchtime...right around when the rain should arrive, d'oh! Was gonna weigh that set-up but decided against as I'd only obsess and complain about it for 8 days solid. So that means I'll just obsess and complain about how much I *think* it weighs instead, hah-hah! Suffice to say it ain't featherweight. #racelightmyarse Thanks to some extraordinarily generous people the totals are building, with Marie Curie at £1500, the Teenage Cancer Trust at £900 plus change and the Royal British Legion lagging at £650 or so. I know there is more to come. There'll certainly be more ramblings from this end, hah-hah!
Looks more like Hammer doing the 'running man', hah-hah!
If you want to help then please click on the links below or top right. Thank you!
Ok, we'll do it slightly different this time around: if you play the vid below then that'll give you almost four minutes to read this drivel, hah-hah!
You better not mess with Merv The Swerve...
Every day I get people stopping to ask me just what my route out to Italy will be, just how long each stage is, how much climbing is involved: you get the picture. Alright, hardly anyone is asking me but that ain't gonna stop me telling you anyway, hah-hah!
So here we go with varying degrees of awfulness...please no rain or headwinds or mechanicals, thanks all the same!
Friday 30th August, stage 1. Warton to Stoke: 80 miles and 1500'
Saturday 31st August, stage 2. Stoke to Fenstanton: 130 miles and 3000'. The 'carrot' is that Palace v Sunderland is on Sky at 5.30pm, so let's get this done. Or not, hah-hah!
Sunday 1st September, stage 3. Fenstanton to Harwich: 90 miles and 2000'
Monday 2nd September, stage 4. The Hook to Venlo: 135 miles and 1000'
Tuesday 3rd September, stage 5. Venlo to Westerburg: 120 miles and 3500'
Wednesday 4th September, stage 6. Westerburg to Marktheidenfeld: 115 miles and 6500'
Thursday 5th September, stage 7. Marktheidenfeld to Eichstatt: 120 miles and 5000'
Friday 6th September, stage 8. Eichstatt to Bad Aibling: 100 miles and 3000'
Saturday 7th September, stage 9. Bad Aibling to Jochberg: 60 miles and 3000'
At this point I was going to have a quiet rest day...perhaps a couple of beers, just take the mudguards, rack and panniers off the bike in readiness for the proper mountain stages, and kick-back while the 20 or so other eejits are flown out in the lap of luxury to join me.
Then my cycling roomie had a brain-wave and suggested a warm-up climb once he and they had all arrived and got sorted. Regrettably the event organiser (take a bow Mr Ekless!) thought this was a Good Idea.
I can only offer up Team Sky rider Bernie Eisel's words: "It starts off bad and then gets worse and worse all the way up." Lord help us...
Sunday 8th September, stage 10. The profile of The Kitzbuhler Horn, just outside er, Kitzbuhel. 6 miles and 4000'. Take a bow, Il Tractore: already the most popular guy. I would check your brakes...
From there we crack on up the Southern Alps and into The Dolomites, which is pretty much a continuation of last year's Alpine and Pyrenean lunacy. Have I learnt absolutely nothing? Apparently not.
Monday 9th September, stage 11. Jochberg to Oberdrauburg: 90 miles and 9000'
Tuesday 10th September, stage 12. Oberdrauburg to Auronzo: 80 miles and 12000'
Wednesday 11th September, stage 13. Auronzo to Bolzan Bozen: 85 miles and 10000'
Thursday 12th September, stage 14. Bolzan Bozen to Bormio: 80 miles and 9000'...STOP PRESS...my ex-mate has had another bright idea and apparently we're also going up The Gavia so that'll be 110 miles and over 13000'. Oh good.
Friday 13th September, stage 15. Bormio to Bagolino: 80 miles and 10000'
I have been assured (although I'll believe it when I see it) that the following stage on Saturday 14th September is really a bit of a cake-walk to the shores of Lake Garda, followed by a few light ales and much lounging.
Cake-walk, you said. Stats say...50 miles and 4500'. Alright, if means a Birra Moretti then we'll do it!
On the Sunday all the sensible people pack up their shiny carbon fibre bikes and clear-off home to the UK, whereas myself and Il Tractore will accompany our colleagues to Verona Airport but only to collect a hire car and then drive back up to the Alta Badia region. Hang on, didn't we just cycle through there a few days ago?
Yes. Yes we did and evidently we liked it so much that we want to sample it's outrageous gradients one more time. The plan is to tack on three bonus days of misery during which we will tackle one of the worst one day sportives going: Maratona des Dolomites.
Maratona des Dolomites: 85 miles and almost 14000'. Nice.
Once that nonsense is accounted for then I'm all done. End of. It's time to head for Verona and some more light ales, sight-seeing and maybe some opera. Well, we'll see about the opera...
Oh, just one more thing- congratulations to the England cricket team for winning the home Ashes series: in reality it was a lot closer than most people thought it would be between two pretty ordinary (at times) sides.
That said, both teams produced some moments of magic out in the square and during one of my planned 'lulls' in training I was lucky enough to see a couple of day's play at Old Trafford.
I also got to briefly meet one of the giants of recent Australian Ashes teams, Mr Merv Hughes. Intimidating looking still, 'tache and all...but an absolute gent!
Merv's on the left.
Jimmy Anderson gives it some 'Crouching Tiger...'.
Actually, before I close I'll just say THANK YOU to everyone who has sponsored/donated so far. The totals are coming along, with Marie Curie almost at £1200, Teenage Cancer almost £800 and the Royal British Legion lagging at almost £300. Hopefully we're going to change all that.
If you want to help then please click on the links below or top right. Nice one.
Fail to prepare and prepare to sweat cobs, as some smart alec said once, sort of...
There is no way that I could do that with my jalopy!
With those words in mind I have been able to kill three birds with a bike-shaped stone thanks to a week in Ireland, North and South.
View from hotel onto Upper Loch Erne. You really must go...
Before you sit there and think that it was all drinking Guinness, going to Bruce Springsteen shows and generally acting the goat I am here to tell you that you know me a bit too well, hah-hah! Yes, all that did happen and the rest of the time I frittered away aimlessly.
Nah, I managed three century rides thankfully, two which were back-to-back and fully laden...lugging 35lbs or the equivalent of two bicycles isn't really that much fun once the novelty has worn off. Like after a mile or so!
No matter, it was important to see at least if I could stomach it, as this is exactly what is on the menu for eight days from the end of August. In about 35 days. Merde!
Going over a bridge in the loveliest village whose name I cannot remember.
Cashel Castle. Try that after a couple, hah-hah!
And no, I'm not shaving my legs before you start!
The sponsorship is moving north in a genteel fashion so here is where the serious harassment of people starts: I really cannot thank enough those who have chosen to donate, so in lieu of that here is something that I nicked off t'internet instead!
This is in stark contrast to my otherwise excellent employers, whose 'Charity Challenge' committee have seen fit to refuse my challenge any financial assistance. Again. If that sounds like sour grapes then bravo- there ain't anything wrong with your hearing. Whinge over, hah-hah!
As is often the way there was an element of serendipity of just plain coincidence on the first ride from Bangor to Enniskillen when I passed two of the beneficiaries of your donations:
Yep, they do great work in Norn Iron too...
Basic but valued.
And from Enniskillen it was down to Cork over two days to catch the first of a brace of Brooooooooce shows: he and his band are defying the showbiz convention so far in that they are getting better with age!
That's close enough, thanks!
And then it was an almost hometown show in Belfast- you wouldn't believe how fine the atmosphere and anticipation around the city was with so many visitors from many different countries all there for one reason.
And no, he didn't disappoint and neither did the people of Belfast.
Ok, that's enough blog-blah for now: more heavy miles needed to be banked. Bacon er, wagon roll!
If you're able to spare a couple of shekels then please click on the links below or top right. Thank you.
Hello, good evening and welcome- here we go again! Okay, before I bombard you with all the exciting and mesmerising details of this year's two-wheeled challenge just let me say a great BIG THANK YOU to everyone who sponsored my Alpine and Pyrenean adventure last year. We raised just about £5000 which helped both the Air Ambulance and Lymphoma & Leukaemia Research, so a big pat on the back etc.! This time out the challenge is not only to try and come back with the same bike, but to combine what has been done before separately, i.e... - distances covered, and - mountains climbed ...so let's put those two things together and add a third and thoroughly disagreeable element to the mix: cycling solo and unsupported for the first 1000 miles. What does that mean in reality? It means me carrying at least 30lbs extra weight (and no, that ain't as a result of my revolutionary doughnut diet), having no mechanical support and having no wheel to sit behind and draft! That doesn't sound like much but let me assure you that even the gentlest inclines hurt when you carry any extra weight. Please pray with me for no headwinds...
If they've got raspberry jam in them then that's 1 of your 5-a-day.
Must fit those 'Caution: Wide Load!' chevrons...
I start pedalling after an early shift on Friday 30th August (eh, do you still need the 'B'?), and I hope that you can see that I will be going through it a little as I ride from the sunny North West and across to Harwich and out through Holland, Germany and into Austria.
Just missing a few "Dad's Army" style arrows...
At Kitzbuhel I have a rest day (slacker) and meet up with 20 other eejits (including my regular partner in cycling crime, Andy 'Tractor' Wickham, whose bright idea the second bit of this was...) and we then take on the Southern Alps and Dolomites as we wheeze into Italy.
What was wrong with going direct?
Believe it or not but the Southern Alps and Dolomites are the awkward sods used in the Tour Of Italy...and are steeper, narrower and longer than the mere speed-bumps used in the Tour de France! Names like the Kitzbuhler Horn, Gross Glockner, Zoncolan, Stelvio and Motirolo strike fear into any cyclist. The joking just stopped...
The totals read something like this: 1800 miles forward...140,000+ feet vertical...over 16 days. Why am I telling you this? Well, it would be tremendous if together we could raise some money for three charities: two are 'new entrants', Marie Curie Cancer Care and Teenage Cancer Trust with an 'old favourite' The Royal British Legion making up the trio of deserving causes. As with previous challenges I will donate £100 for every £500 raised, so let's see what we can do.
