20 days touring from London to
Gibraltar, 1600 miles needing to scale an ascent 4 times the height of Everest
!!! How to prepare ? Our planning has required us to consider many
different aspects of the journey. You
start by thinking all it takes is a bike, comfy shorts and a drink but you soon
realise that there is more planning off the bike than on the bike.
Which route to take along the way –
staring at a map trying to decide can be daunting ! Take in the scenery, keep it flat as
possible, stay in hotels or camp or go for it and pack in as much action and
adventure??
We decided to try and incorporate all
of the above and spend some time doing it all.
The one aspect we were all agreed on from the start was that we could
only do it together – like the Musketeers – all for one and one for all !! After spending many miles together cycling
Lands End to John O’Groats in 2010 raising £25,000 for Help for Heroes, we knew
that with the support of each we could do it !
Being men,
the phrase ‘know your limits’ tends to invoke a challenge response rather than provide
a warning so having cycled LEJOG we were up for an adventure. We’d read about the ‘Clock to the Rock’ route
and decided that it posed a suitable challenge for fundraising for Great Ormond
Street. A lot of the children treated
there have long, hard, journeys with many ups and downs, crossing difficult personal
boundaries, needing the support of their families and friends – if they could
do it with smiles on their faces so could we.
Having
settled on the ‘Clock to the Rock’, we deviated slightly to be the ‘GOSH to the Rock’ – not so catchy but we wanted to start at Great Ormond.
Our itinerary
planning was left to the more organised in the group. We have tried to remain conservative about
the distances travelled each day – but we will be keeping an eye on each other,
that a sneaky glass of wine doesn’t slip in at lunch to slow us down – we don’t
want to arrive in the dark. Huge thanks
to Steve – our ‘man with a van’ to accompany us so that we don’t need to carry
the luggage, spares and much needed snacks and drinks.
We hope we have allowed time to enjoy
the scenery on the way and built in some flexibility. We plan to take lots of photos on the way and
to share the journey with the children at Great Ormond Street on our
return. The big risk for us is that we
haven’t allowed any days off the bike, let’s hope we can keep to that.
Argh – just
realised, cycling on the right, roundabouts on the right…and breathe… and
breathe. Steve – give us a ‘honk’ if we
go wrong !
Please join
us in our support of this great charity and donate – all the pennies add up:
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