Hello everyone!
We’re cycling the Ride London 100 on August 4th 2014, and we’ve set up this blog to keep a record of our training, preparations and fund raising progress. We’re keeping it as much for our benefit as anything, but hopefully others will find it interesting too. Do leave us a comment if there’s anything you’d like to hear more or less about, to ask any questions, or to take the mickey out of Mark’s continued inability to use clipped pedals. We’ve posted back-dated entries for the training rides we’ve already done, so have a read of those to get up to date on where we are up to. You can find links to all of those posts at the end of this one, so keep reading.
Friendship Works
We’re aiming to raise £2,000 for the great local charity Friendship Works. They provide long-term adult mentors to children struggling with a variety of problems such as social exclusion, troubled home lives, behavioural issues, or the responsibility for caring for a parent.
These amazing volunteer mentors commit to spending significant time with their assigned child 3 out of every 4 weekends for a minimum of two years. This is a huge commitment on the part of the volunteer, but one which allows the child to develop a long term trusting relationship with the mentor. Reaching our target would fund five new mentors through the vital training required before they can start to support their assigned child.
The volunteer mentor gives the child an important and stable adult relationship they can rely on, helping them to enjoy childhood experiences many would take for granted, and give them opportunities they may not otherwise have access to. If you’d like to learn more about Friendship Works and the excellent and effective work they do, please visit their website.
Your support will help Friendship Works achieve their goal of supporting over 200 children with their own friend and mentor this year – helping them to enjoy their childhoods, build their confidence and discover their potential in society.
Ride London-Surrey 100
This event, set up by the Mayor of London as part of the Olympic legacy, is a 100 mile cycle sportive* starting at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in east London then zooming out far into Surrey and back for the classic finish on The Mall in front of Buckingham Palace.
It follows a route similar to that used for the Olympic cycling road races, taking in many London sights and two major climbs – Box Hill, with its famous zig zag road, and Leith Hill, the highest peak in south-east England. Both of which we are dreading.
While technically there is a time limit of nine hours, the ignominy of finishing in a longer time than (Mayor of London) Boris Johnson took to haul his ample bulk around last year means that for all intents and purposes, there’s an 8h04m time limit. Our target, however, is to ride and finish together in six to seven hours.
* a sportive is, apparently, a non-race timed event where the target is to complete the course in a good time for yourself, rather than beat other people. So I’m told. I know little of such things, I just ride a bike to work sometimes.
About Us
We’re just a pair of sheep who use bikes to get around the place, neither of us have done any remotely sporty cycling before. Mark has cycled to work a good amount over the last couple of years, a ten mile or so distance, and Audrey has increasingly done so too once or twice a week. For both of us, stretching out to 100 miles and doing so in our target of six to seven hours or less is a major challenge, which will require lots of training. So, give us a boost and support us when our dodgy knees are giving out behind the Millennium Dome and chuck a few quid in for Friendship Works.
Thanks for reading!
Mark & Audrey
Appendix: The Story So Far
As we’re a bit late getting this blog up, here are links to the back-dated posts about our first few training rides: