Story
<p>Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.</p>
<p>F<span style="font-family: Arial; color: black; font-size: 12.5pt;">or some strange reason I thought it would be great idea to use the London to Brighton ride as an incentive to get fit. So here I am 6 days after our team has been accepted into the ride setting up my page for donations for the BHF. I have passed through the denial phase, and have started sleeping again at night, but there are a couple of minor obstacles in the way – </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; color: black; font-size: 12.5pt;">firstly my bike is 15 years old - and when I took it to be looked at a year ago there was lots of tutting and shaking of heads. Luckily a great bloke has offered to work out what sort of bike would be best for me for the amount of money I'm prepared to pay for a bike that will be used for one major event! </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; color: black; font-size: 12.5pt;">Then there is the fact that they don’t allow bikes on the trains on the day – what am I meant to do – fly (or wake up poor 4 year old, 6 year old and husband at 4:30 in the morning to drive me and bike up to Clapham?) Cue brother and girl friend of brother who are flying over from Switzerland (with own bike) for the weekend to do the ride for the fun of it – giving me the opportunity to just have a grumpy brother (who will fly back the next day) to get up early. Am I lucky or what.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; color: black; font-size: 12.5pt;">In addition there is of course the fact that I have not cycled for more than two miles for the last 15 years – and that is on the downhill route into town. So I have taken up spinning at the gym, since luckily a friend also wanted to do spinning and she had a car to drive me in at 6:50 in the morning for a quick 45 minutes of torture. However having got back on to the old bike I realised that the handlebars wobble when you take your hands off them to try and use your arms to give you the extra umph to work your way up the hill – well it works in spinning! Obviously as soon as there was any obstacle to going spinning (like my friend not being able to give me a lift) I gave up. However new resolve has hit (the rest of the team are busily building up their stamina) and twice last week I walked/ran the 2 miles to the gym, and then went spinning! On the Wednesday I was also planning to do a run at lunch time, but meetings got in the way – Shame!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; color: black; font-size: 12.5pt;">My next problem is that I work, and can only train properly on a bike in the evenings, or at the weekend, and really did not want to do it on my own. The rest of the team are doing regular 10 mile training sessions (arghh), and it’s a long lonely walk back if you fall off your bike. In steps the next great guy<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>who offered to help me with my training. So promptly at 17:00 on Saturday I was there on my dubious bike, water in a bum bag, mobile phone (in case of emergencies), first edition cycle helmet on head waiting to set off. Bloke (with cool helmet, gloves, cycle shoes etc..) gets bike out (water bottle in carrier, disk brakes, special place for pump etc..) and says<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>what sounds like to a very nervous beginner cyclist– “I thought we’d go to Guildford, but we’ll have to go on the Ranmore Road” On the outside hopefully I show an unconcerned “ok” – (it may have been a bit squeaky). Guildford! – that’s 12 miles away, and we’re going to go one mile in the wrong direction – and what’s more it’s up a huge hill. We got on bikes and headed down our road. Well I don’t really know how much to say. The walk up The Hill was pleasant (I did do at least 70% of it on the bike). In the distance was a green dot, which would patiently stop at key points and wait for me to catch up, and then set off again. Needless to say we got nowhere near Guildford. I had no speed – lack of leg power on the upward bits, and to be frank scared that my bike would fall apart, or that my brakes would fail to go to fast on the way down the hills. But what about the flat bits – well there was one, and during that time I discovered that the gears did not work and I couldn’t upshift to my top gears– my 27 gear mountain bike is currently only a 18 gear bike. Still I did have a great time, and could get off my bike creditably after almost 9 miles without my legs buckling. Having reminded him at the beginning that he would be twice as fast as me, it was clear that actually he is at least ten times faster than me - I wonder if he’ll go with me again?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: Arial; color: black; font-size: 12.5pt;">Well I’m doing my best to try and make sure that I make the full 50 odd miles, so please sponsor me, and help raise money for the BHF.</span></p>
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<p>So please dig deep and donate now.</p>
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