Thursday 8 March 2012

A Good Week

With fundraising now up and running for the 2012 London to Paris we have been ex-static with the response we have received this week. Since we opened the just giving page 2 weeks ago we have already collected £430 in sponsorship from just 11 donations. In fact if you include the gift aid on those donations I'm not far off the amount I raised for the last two years combined.

We have been really overwhelmed by the response to the challenge and look forward to that figure increasing. In fact we are aiming to post the first of our charity auctions on ebay in the near future with the signed London Irish ball soon to be up for grabs.

In other news the training is progressing every so slightly with some solid rides now under my belt I'm going to start ramping up the distances and remember to start my strava tracker in order to keep a track on these rides. I've also signed up for the 37 mile Wokingham Bikeathon in June as part of my training, so it'll be nice to be taking part in my local ride. There will however be more rides added to that schedule as the weeks pass.

Thanks for reading and if you'd like to make a donation then you can do so via Just Giving

Sunday 4 March 2012

Training Commences

As it was a nice day yesterday and I'd spent the morning servicing the bike, it seemed only right to take it out on a short training ride. 40 minutes and 10Km later and things feel good. It's nice to be back on the bike again and although I didn't quite cover the distance as quickly as I would have liked it was a solid start to my training regime.

At the moment it doesn't look like I'll get out today, due to the constant downpours of rain, however some basic fitness training on the Wii or PS3 look likely as a viable alternative. It's still 6 and a half months till the ride and fingers crossed I'll be in much better shape in the very near future

In other news we would really like to thank London Irish for donating a signed Rugby Ball (pictured below), which will be auctioned off very soon to raise additional donations for Cancer Research UK

Saturday 3 March 2012

London to Paris is a Go

So it would seem that last year my new work got in the way of keeping my blog up to date. I am pleased to report though that I completed the 26 mile route of the London Bikeathon in just over 2 hours, which was a very respectable time from a personal point of view. I also managed to raise £248.21 for Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research, which on a personal note was very pleasing.

Over the last 2 years I had hoped to be able to undertake London to Paris as my challenge for 2012 and having completed my registration last weekend, I am very pleased to announce that it is going to happen.

So come the 19th September 2012 I will be setting out with one of my work mates and a number of other participants to ride the 300 miles from London to the Champs Elysée in the heart of Paris. It's going to be my biggest challenge on a bike yet and the 4 days riding will be a great experience and one I'm really looking forward to.

I'll be doing the ride with one of the Site Managers from Berkeley First and together with the Berkeley Foundation we will be raising money for Cancer Research this time around. We've set a target at present of £5,000 with the aim to beat that as the Berkeley Foundation will match however much money we do manage to raise.

As a result of a much increased target expect me to be more active on twitter and this blog to keep everyone updated on how things are going and how much money we are managing to raise.

The Justgiving page currently has just £3 worth of donations, so please if your reading click Here and make a donation. Anything anyone can donate would be fantastic and great fully received.

Also keep an eye out here for special auctions and competitions to help us raise as much money as possible for this fantastic cause.

Wednesday 8 September 2010

What's Next

Now that the London to Windsor challenge has been done and whilst I am still trying to raise funds from it, I now need to be looking at my next challenge. I had originally set out a plan to ride the London to Paris route for the Geoff Thomas Foundation.

That however hit a slight snag yesterday as the website I had intended to register through seems to have removed GTF from their list of available charities. This leaves me with a slight dilemma as I await a reply from both the company that organises the particular ride I was looking into and the Geoff Thomas Foundation themselves to see if there is any alternative events.

The London to Paris is very much at the top of my ride targets for next year but having completed London to Windsor I have decided to re enter this ride again next year to improve on my time. Of course this is a slight change of heart from my original plan of doing one ride every year but I think it will not only be of benefit to myself to ride another event but also means I can carry on supporting the great work the British Heart Foundation do.

So next years plan has extend a little, well providing I can find a company to do the London to Paris on behalf of GTF with, but my return to London - Windsor with the British Heart Foundation is a certainty.

If anyone can help with my struggle to find a company to do London to Paris with it would be appreciated.

Tuesday 7 September 2010

London To Windsor 5th September

After months and months of preparation and fund raising the day finally came around on Sunday. I have to admit to waking up feeling a little bit nervy. Would I manage to complete the ride, what if I got a puncture or 5, surely I won't be the slowest. That was just a selection of the thoughts going through my head as I rode my first mile of the day from home to the station.

Having caught the first train from Wokingham to Richmond I was kind of relived to see about 15 other people all loading their bikes onto the train as well. The closer to Richmond we got, the more bikes that seemed to be filling the train until we reached Staines and the train was practically full of people with bikes.

The start of the ride was only a few hundred yards from Richmond station and having arrived just after 9, I joined the rather large queue waiting to go through the start gates. It took till 9.40 for me to actually get underway but the sense of relive that seemed to hit me as I rode under the start banner seemed to wipe away my earlier doubts.

This was my first event of this type and having decided to do it on my own rather than in a group it meant that from 9.40 till I crossed that finish line I would be on my own, listening to my Ipod and following in the tracks of numerous riders before me. It was a new experience but once I'd negotiated my way around the one way system in Richmond I set into a rythmn that would carry me through to the finish.

Apart from a couple of riders going down in front of me I didn't have any real drama's or wobbles and even with the threat of passing cars it all seemed to be a lot better than I had imagined. Of course there were a number of riders, all dressed in professional team kit that seemed to be passing me with relative ease, but I'm pleased to say that I was even managing a few overtaking manoeuvres of my own.

With the majority of the first 15 or so miles being relatively flat the first hill leaving Chertsey came as a bit of a shock but having taken a minute struggling to regroup and adjust my gears I managed to pull it back together.

It would be fair to say that after an hour and a 3/4 on the bike the sight of the 8 miles to go sign coming away from Virginia Water was really an uplifting moment. Looking back I realised that coming up the previous hill I had sagged a little but that sign lifted my spirits and whilst I can honestly say it was a struggle I managed to complete the whole course in just under 2 and a half hours.

The finish straight was a very welcome sight and if someone had told me I would reach it in a time just under 2 and a half hours I would have laughed at them. Despite my training since January/February time I still didn't feel confident but I can honestly say I was pleased with my time.

Of course the only thing left to do now is to take the experience from this year and register again next year to try and imrpove on my time.

At the time of writing the donations currently stand at £205, so any more anyone is willing to give would be fantastic, the just giving page is open until the 5th
December 2010 and can be found here

Thank you to all who have donated so far, now onto the next challenges, watch this space

Wednesday 21 April 2010

A quick update

Ok so I've not really updated much recently, mostly becasue I've just not had the time and to be honest I haven't had much to say. Well until now anyway.

Yesterday afternoon I saw a message from Jason Manford (The Comedian) on Twitter offering to Sponsor the first 10 people who sent him a sponsorship link. So even though I thought I'd missed my chance I sent my Just giving page link anyway.

To my surprise I'd actually made it through in time and Jason has very kindly made a donation of £50 in support of my London to Windsor Bike ride, you can read all about Jason's donations here.

So I'd like to once again say a huge Thank You to Jason Manford for his generous donation.

If you would like to make a donation you can do so on my Donation's Page

Thank you

Sunday 7 March 2010

Updating at Last

So firstly it seems like ages since my last blog update but in all honesty I've firstly not had the time on a computer and secondly not really had a lot to report.

The training for London to Windsor is still going well and I'm managing around 30 minutes a night on my bike, which given everything else that’s going on at the moment is quite an achievement.

One thing that has struck me over the last few weeks is just how difficult fundraising actually is. I've managed to get £65 raised so far for The British Heart Foundation but it seems to be quite hard to get that figure to keep increasing. I know I'm probably annoying everyone on twitter with my constant tweets about the British Heart Foundation but as well as raising funds I'd like to raise a bit of awareness about what they do.

Obviously I'm keen to try and raise as much money as possible and if anyone reading this could give some thoughts on ways to fundraise, approaches and ideas it would really be appreciated.

One thought, which I'm working on trying to make happen, is to have a raffle of some sort. Working on the basis that anyone who makes a £1 donation on Just Giving gets an entry into a raffle to win a DVD, Blu Ray, Cd or Computer Game. Obviously every subsequent pound would also count as a further entry. Once the donations reach a certain mark or date there is a prize draw and the winner will receive this prize. I'm obviously still working on this idea but does anyone think this will work?

I'd like to hear people’s opinions on this and while I'm at it I'd also like to know if anyone actually reads these updates, so please leave a comment either here or on twitter just saying I read them or something similar.

Donations still stand at £65 and if you'd like to increase that you can do so on Just Giving

Thanks for Reading