Thanks very much for all your donations I know St Oswalds will put the money to good use – and if you haven’t got round to donating yet then you can still do so.

Well I finally made it after 9 long days on the bike and 11 even longer nights in a tent – not my idea of how to get a good nights sleep.

The first 2 days were really tough with rain for good portions of the day and a strong headwind on day 1 as we headed west before turning south and heading to and the banks of Loch Ness, ending day 2 under the shadow of . I had a bit of a fall on the second day on a long descent which saw me leaving a little of my skin in (and it is still sore now 10 days later) and left me feeling a little down.

 

But day 3 saw the sun shining and it carried on shining for the rest of the journey which cheered us all up. We climbed past Glen Coe ski resort before passing Loch Lomond and arriving just south of 129 miles later and 10,000ft of climbing later.

 

Day 4 took us from via Gretna Green into and finally to the shores of Ullswater a further 130 miles south and the Lakes were looking lovely on a sunny clear warm day.

 

Day 5 kicked off with a 1600ft climb up (which is very steep and seemingly never ending!) before passing through Lancashire and finishing the day at sunny .

 

Day 6 started with a flat 80 miles through Cheshire before hitting a monster climb of The Long Mynd with a 25% gradient, followed by a scary descent into Ludlow to the west of Birmingham.

 

Day 7 saw an undulating ride following the River Wye close to the Welsh border before a final Welsh excursion into Chepstow, crossing the original Severn Bridge and then into Bristol and crossing Brunel’s Clifton Suspension Bridge over the River Avon. Finally we had another monster climb in Cheddar up a steep natural gorge in the Mendip Hills.

 

Day 8 and 9 were very similar with a constant series of hills through Devon and which seemed never ending, but finally I made it to Lands End feeling quite proud and pretty tired.

 

650 started and only around 320 finished the ride so I felt suitably like an athlete!!

 

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

As you may be aware I am competing in the inaugural Ride Across Britain www.rideacrossbritain.com this is a cycle “race” from John O’Groats to Lands End organised by James Cracknell – so you know it will be a bit mad.

We begin at dawn on Saturday 12^th June and ride for 9 days, reaching Lands End on Sunday 20^th June for a well deserved party. We are cycling 1,000 miles on the route and we average more than 110 miles a day for 9 days in a row. Yep there are no rest days to allow any recovery. However the astute among you will have noticed that we are clearly doing the downhill route (top to bottom) but I have since discovered it is against the prevailing wind so I am hoping for cold northerly winds for all 9 days (I know you will all be hoping for that too).

Another frightening statistic is that over the 9 days we will be climbing more than 73,000ft / 22,300m which is two and a half times the height of Everest. All of this means I will not be racing Mr Cracknell or indeed anyone else and a finish would do very nicely.

I signed up for this last autumn while having a glass of wine or two and not having done much cycling at all of any note (but I had watched the Tour de France a few times) and thought that it sounded like a good adventure (or mid life crisis) and how hard could 110 miles be once I got a nice new bike. Well the nice new bike arrived and I soon discovered I had an awful lot of training to do.

Training has been interrupted frequently by work, the awful winter weather and an embarrassing fall of my bike (toe clip incident) which has left me with a dodgy knee may need an op when I return, but that will hopefully not impede my riding too much.

After some testing weeks with injuries I am now confident of making the start line and of limping to the end (good positive thoughts I know).

I am therefore after your cash to spur me on to the end and I am raising funds for St Oswalds Hospice, I’m sure not many people need a reminder what they do but in case you do...

St Oswald's provides hospice care for adults and children.  Situated in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, St Oswald’s purpose-built facilities offer a range of flexible services to North East families.

St Oswald's follows a holistic approach that aims to address not just physical symptoms, but also spiritual and emotional needs too. Families from across the region - Northumberland and Tyne & Wear – can benefit from their services.

They are a registered charity with annual running costs in excess of £8 million – of which over £6 million must be raised through voluntary giving.

They make no charge for any of their services, ensuring hospice care is available to everyone.

So please give what you can and gift aid it as it will all be put to good use.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

So please dig deep and donate now.