On the 25 September John and Charles will set off for Marseille on their bikes. It is a plan which they have been harbouring for five years. A plan which started with London to Paris and snowballed out of control in the pub one evening:
This isn’t something either of us have come close to doing before. John hadn’t ridden a bike for 10 years, and the furthest I’d ever ridden was to work and back during a tube strike. Our route runs from Dieppe, down to the West of Paris to Briare and on to Roanne. Then we climb up through the Massif Central to St Etienne, and on down to Avignon before making it to the coast. We’ve printed out a photo of the bar we’re aiming for on the Med, but somehow that isn’t quite enough. Some of the numbers are really scaring us:
Dieppe to Marseille in two weeks: 1,000km, 14 Days, 5,000m of climbing (the equivalent of riding up Mount Kenya) and 50,000 calories (each)
The route is set, the retro cycling jerseys chosen and the hardest part of the project (being regularly persecuted by the staff of Evans Cycles) is over. Now all we have to do is get there in one piece: This is where our different approaches to training will come to the fore. John has chosen the ‘All the gear and no idea’ method favoured by the Sky team in this years Tour de France whilst Charles has done a great deal of training, cycled to work everyday and learnt about hydration and nutrition. To even things up, Charles will be riding a French bike made out of iron which was forged sometime in the 80’s.
We are doing this to raise money for the charity Odyssey(www.odyssey.org.uk/). They organise exciting outdoor activities for people with cancer. They take patients on five day journeys spanning a wide range of activities. Working in groups of 8 to 10 participants build confidence in sufferers about what they can achieve. Participants report that the programmes help to boost energy levels, they help them to handle some of the uncertainty in their life, help them to grasp and enjoy their lives, to undertake new experiences and boost their optimism about the future.
The charity believe that enhancing the quality of life for people with cancer is vitally important. We love the fact that their activities can give people living with cancer goals to look forward to and help families to enjoy time together. This is something that chimes very well with us given our experiences of the last few years.
Unfortunately for many, loss of income (either directly or for their carers) means that they can’t afford to take part in these out of the ordinary activities. Often cancer sufferers are excluded from many activities on medical or insurance grounds, or just because they need a little more assistance. This is where the charity comes in.
I hope you can support us in reaching our target of £1,000 by the time we reach Marseille. They are a small charity, offering only about 150 places per year so anything that we can raise really will make a big difference!
If you needed anything else to persuade you; imagine sitting on the saddle pictured above for a fortnight.
There can be no cheating because the French are all on strike!
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