So why am I doing this with the last effort nearly killing me. Well I guess its a bit of a mixture of wanting to get fit, raising money for a really worthy charity and bit of doing something with all this free time I have on my hands now.

So what is it we're doing well it started with agreeing to do L'Etape,(the amateur ride on the blue ribbon mountain leg of the Tour de France) which this year is 110 kms over various "hills" including a 30 km slog up to 2500m and ending with a 14 km slog up Alp D'Uez ! Which apparently isn't as tough as Mont Ventoux, but still at the end of 100 kms and after a 2500m climb it all sounds pretty horrible really, but there you go.

Then we thought what we needed was a ride before this to get us really fit and somehow, don't ask me how, this has resulted in us signing up for a 9 day ride from John O'Groats to Lands End over 900 miles (100 miles a day !!). What we will be fit for at the end of it, I don't know that's where we've ended up committing to.

So what's it all for, well I'm raising money for a great charity called Smiletrain. It raises money to give surgery to rectify children's cleft palates. This probably sounds like a fairly incidental thing but they are really quite dreadful facial deformities and with so much emphasis in today's world being put on appearances and first impressions these children just don't get a chance to enter society in the truest sense. They will have an impossible time trying to make friends, succeed at school or further education or getting jobs/work, in any real sense having a normal life.

It's not a life threatening condition, but for £150 and two hours surgery( given free of charge by Doctors) a child's life is completely transformed, they can start living a life that of course we all take for granted and can smile again.

So please dig deep and think of me, whatever happens it's all going to be very sore.

Thanks

Sunil