I am an idiot.
I am also approaching 40 years of age.

Combine the two and what do you get?
A stupidly ambitious challenge that's quite likely to break me.

As a bit of a mid-life challenge, I've decided to cycle from London to Paris.
Now, there are a number of organised rides that I could have picked to achieve this. Many of them would have allowed me to accomplish this over 3 or even 4 days.

As previously mentioned, I am an idiot.
I saw that the lovely people at Scope and Action Challenge have got together to organise a 24 hour bike ride to Paris from London, and without fully thinking this through I signed up.

Those of you that know me well enough, know that I love to cycle and regularly commute to work on my bike. On a really good week, I might manage 100 miles. In total.

I've checked the maps. Apparently, Paris is 280 miles from London. Who knew?

I signed up for this charity bike ride last year and have been slowly but steadily training over the dark winter months. Now that the days are getting longer I’m starting to increase the effort and mileage and I’m starting to see some real improvements. However, 280 miles is a long way. Frankly, it's the kind of distance that the internal combustion engine was invented for. It's not just the distance that’s scaring me though. In order to get to Paris in 24 hours I need to average over 14mph. That doesn’t sound all that fast, does it?
My current commute to work typically only averages out at about 16mph, but I don't have to stop to eat 24 hours’ worth of food. I also don't have to stop for whatever ill effects are produced by drinking energy drink and consuming mojito flavoured energy gel ( A real thing, honestly) constantly for 24 hours. My typical commute also doesn't leave me wanting to have a little lie down and a cry.

I might conceivably have bitten off a little bit more than I can chew with this one but I am determined to get to Paris in under 24 hours.

Scope is a fantastic charity and I know they would be grateful
for any form of donation no matter how small. Any money raised via this page goes directly to supporting their endeavours.

I’ll be motivated to get to Paris, knowing that the money is going to a fantastic charity to help the disabled.

You can find and follow me on Strava if you want to see how my training is coming along. Any and all messages of support gratefully appreciated.

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

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. So it’s the most efficient way to donate – saving time and cutting costs for the charity.