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Dan's Holland-Belgium-France-London Right To Play ride
Event: Right To Play's 2012 Ride between 30/06/2012 and 03/07/2012
£1,228.05 raised of £1,000.00 target
174 donations
My Target:
£1,000.00
£1,228.05 raised so far
How to make a donation
Donate online at - www.justgiving.com/dan-levene
By mobile internet Scan this code on your smartphone to go straight to Dan Levene's page.
By text message to donate £10 Text BLUE97 £10
to 70070
My story
Sat on the starting line of the 2012 Right To Play bike ride, I was on the receiving-end of a few funny looks.
“You're riding 300miles – on that?” said one fellow rider, pointing at my wheels.
Amid a field of 130, there were some pretty impressive road bikes.
My cycle know-how could be written on the back of a puncture-repair blister, but my attention was drawn to a bike from last year's Tour de France valued at £10k+; and dozens of carbon-framed offerings that could be lifted with one finger.
Then there was my bike: a £200 hybrid with fat tyres and flat pedals.
I'd taken a similarly high tec approach to my kit. While almost everyone else had cycling shoes with cleats to improve their pedal-lift-efficiency (eh?), I was in trainers.
Top of the range gel shorts, aerodynamic crash helmets, triathlon handlebars: most people had spent a good £1,000 on accessories. No single piece of my kit came to over a tenner.
While others were powered along by energy gels formulated by NASA; my fuel was Caramel Wafers formulated by Tunnocks.
No point of principle: it was simply the case that this was my bike, and the manner in which I'd carried out my training. I'm no cyclist: just a bloke with a pushbike.
But, as three days riding progressed through four countries, the titters and knowing grins subsided.
We started in the beautiful Dutch city of Maastricht: going through chocolate box villages and along canal tow-paths.
A real highlight was our lunch stop in Ypres, after passing through the Mennin Gate memorial to 55,000 Commonwealth soldiers of The Great War - whose bodies still lay undiscovered on the battlefields of Flanders.
And we crossed the channel to Dover: experiencing the lovely country lanes, and unlovely weather and road surfaces of Kent and south London.
I'd done 3,000 miles of training for the ride: but still found it one of the most difficult things I've ever attempted (made 25% more difficult for me than anybody else, according to a sports scientist I rode with, due to my bike and lack of proper footwear).
But I didn't let the low-tec equipment hamper me. I rode up at the front with triathletes on super-bikes, and sped for miles with the peleton at 21mph through the Belgian countryside.
I lost count of the number of riders (including one Tour pro) who took their hats off to what I was achieving with a clearly unsuitable bike; or the number who called me 'an amazing rider'.
There were low points too: towards the end, with 275miles in my legs, I simply couldn't haul the thing up the steepest Kentish hills. But the encouragement of fellow riders kept me going.
I was elated to reach the finish-line in Greenwich – a fantastic experience I wouldn't have missed for the world.
I did all of this for a charity called Right To Play: which helps kids in poverty all over the world. It's a great cause, and if you think my efforts deserve a small reward, it would be great of you could make a donation to them.
You can do this by clicking the 'donate' button on this page, or by texting BLUE97 £3 to 70070. Thanks.
My gallery 2
My charity
Right To Play UK
Charity Registration No. 1112404
Right To Play is a global organisation that uses the transformative power of play- playing sport and playing games – to educate and empower children facing adversity.
Donations 174
Donation by Anonymous on 27/07/12
£10.00
+ £2.50 Gift Aid
Donation by Anonymous on 18/07/12
£2.00
+ £0.50 Gift Aid
Donation by Samuel Draper on 18/07/12
£3.00
+ £0.75 Gift Aid
Donation by Anonymous on 18/07/12
£40.00
+ £10.00 Gift Aid
Apologies for the shoddy time lapse in the donation. Well done! Hope to see you soon x
Donation by maie crumpton on 09/07/12
£22.00
Well done! Guess it's the Pole to Pole next ?! Claire x
Donation by Claire Mayoh on 04/07/12
£10.00
+ £2.50 Gift Aid
Donation by Anonymous on 04/07/12
£3.00
Well done, Dan! (And well done to the 'umble bicycle, too!)
Donation by Anonymous on 04/07/12
£5.00
+ £1.25 Gift Aid
well done Dan...next year Tour de France?
Donation by Simon Johnson on 04/07/12
£10.00
+ £2.50 Gift Aid
Well done Dan! Now locate the sofa, get a take away, watch some bad telly and embrace idleness. You're making the rest of us look bad!
Donation by Helen on 03/07/12
Congrats, Dan. Awesome effort.
Donation by Nick Thompson on 03/07/12
£5.00
+ £1.25 Gift Aid
Donation by Paul Walsh on 02/07/12
£3.00
+ £0.75 Gift Aid
Donation by Anonymous on 01/07/12
£3.00
Donation by John Pink on 01/07/12
£3.00
+ £0.75 Gift Aid
Donation by Anonymous on 01/07/12
£3.00
Donation by Anonymous on 01/07/12
£3.00
+ £0.75 Gift Aid
Only 100 miles left today! Enjoy! See you Tuesday xxx
Donation by Susan Edwards on 01/07/12
£40.00
+ £10.00 Gift Aid
Good luck Bruv stay safe
Donation by Adam Levene on 01/07/12
£10.00
+ £2.50 Gift Aid
Good luck on the bike, Dan!
Donation by Ross Mooring on 30/06/12
£10.00
+ £2.50 Gift Aid
Donation by Anonymous on 30/06/12
£3.00
Donation by Anonymous on 30/06/12
£3.00
Donation by Anonymous on 29/06/12
£2.00
Good luck Dan, after Applecross it will be a breeze! Take care, Dave, Kay,Carly & Reece
Donation by David Edwards on 29/06/12
£20.00
+ £5.00 Gift Aid
Good luck mate. KTBFFH
Donation by Dan Hoare on 29/06/12
£3.00
+ £0.75 Gift Aid
Donation by Anonymous on 29/06/12
£5.00
+ £1.25 Gift Aid
Donation summary
- * Online donations£945.05
- Offline donations£0.00
- Text donations£283.00
- Total raised£1,228.05
- Gift Aid£208.20
* Charities pay a small fee for our service. Find out how much it is and what we do for it.
