It has been nearly 2 years in the planning, however from September 15th - 20th I will be cycling from West Bromwich to Land's End with a team of 6 people. It will be a bit of a special road trip as three of the team are real close friends from my school days, Don Johnson, Andy Burns and Robert Leadbeater, and we are joined by my Cornish friends Kev Mashembo and Mark Tripconey.
The crazy idea to do this ride was instigated over a couple of pints of Bank's Bitter where upon I challenged my brothers in arms and Black Country rock band of Helstonbury fame "Crazy Horses" to cycle down to Helston for a change. As you can imagine this was initially met with a lot of “how much have you had to drink”? Followed by” You must be crazy” but eventually thanks to Andy Burns who is our equivalent to Wiggo volunteered his logical and vast cycling background and persuaded the lads that it wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
The name “Teds” is the name we gave ourselves in our school days for our gang and I assure you there were no DA hair styles, bryl cream or blue suede shoes involved.
We are all from the same school year, (1981)and therefore we will all be celebrating our 50th birthdays over the next twelve months so to that end it was only right that we did something a little bit out of the ordinary to commemorate. So a week on the road it is and with it 300 miles worth of memories to take.
Each of us has chosen a Charity close to their heart and as always I will be raising money for Brain Tumour Research. The Cycle ride will take us five days to complete. We will be taking our acoustic guitars with us and with any luck and energy permitting will be doing some unplugged sessions with a bucket to fill. Our support team are Jolly and Janie who have been brilliant in sorting out our accommodation, and hopefully will have the camping stove flashed up for us when we are in need of a cuppa.
Each member has set up his online donation page for their chosen charity so if any of the charities are poignant then please take 5 minutes out to support our event. With that we will all have our own individual fund raising targets and at the end of the ride hopefully a “Teds for Charity” team total.
My page is still linked to the Simon Says page and as always will be in his memory, also with any luck I will be fortunate enough to be given a place to run the London Marathon next year on behalf of my chosen charity BTR, but to qualify I need to have raised £1600 by December, therefore this will be the launch of my fund raising.
I know charity cycle rides like this are quite common, however this one will be a momentous occasion as none of the other riders have ever cycled this kind of distance back to back so it will be a new challenge for all concerned.
So now you have a little bit of back ground please find the time to read our respective pages and maybe sponsor us.
Every penny helps and with every mile we cover we know that what money weraise will help others to help others.
Just to add there will be an “End of the Road” Charity night at the Blue Anchor on Saturday 20th September, with live music featuring an eclectic mix of Shabby Chic, Bobby’s Helmet and Crazy Horses all mixed up in the key of Spingo. So please come along and help us celebrate and raise more money for the cause.
Thank you for finding the time to read this blog and thank you for your kind support.Thanks for visiting our team fundraising page.
We've joined together to raise money for charity. You'll see our team fundraising target on the right. Your donation can really help us smash this goal
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