Rock On

Hello again and thank you for finding your way here- even if you were probably coerced into doing so, hah-hah! So here's the thing: I've had a brainwave for this year's fundraiser...

• cycle out to Gibraltar, solo and unsupported,
• complete the 2300 miles in 21 stages without a rest day,
• er, that's about it!

The plan is to try and raise money for three Great Causes and they are all familiar to us:

• Last year we raised a decent sum for five charities, one of which was the Motor Neurone Disease Association. I had heard of people who had MND but never had any contact with it on a personal level. That changed at the start of this year when my mate Dave was diagnosed with MND. So it'd be great to help fund research into finding a cure...

Click here to help MNDA!

• Similarly until a couple of years ago, I had never known anyone who had been affected by blood cancer in any of its various types. However in 2016, my old work colleague Mike Fell passed away because of it. Also you might remember that it was on the last day of my ride from Seattle to San Diego that an old pal left me a phone message: Geoff had been diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. That was September. Well, to cut a long story short, Geoff is still in remission. Again, it's research that is paramount...

Click here to help Bloodwise!

• Blesma is the only national Armed Forces Charity that supports limbless veterans for the duration of their lives. They help all serving and ex-Service men and women who have lost limbs or eyes, to rebuild their lives by providing rehabilitation activities and welfare support.
  This gets my vote: your's too?

Click here to help Blesma!

The journey begins on Friday 20th September and will route out of the UK via Dover, and then from Calais it will take me via the D-Day beaches and on south through Cognac and across to The Pyrenees.

The indirect route to The Rock...

Once into Espana, it'll be a case of winding through Girona and Barcelona before following the coast and then cutting inland from Spaghetti Western territory to Granada, and then landing-up in Gibraltar on Thursday 10th October...all being well, of course.

Inevitable. At least it wasn't raining, hah-hah!

World's smallest violin time*: the daily mileage will average about 110 miles, with around 5,000 feet of vertical. All-in-all it's 2300 miles or the same distance as the Tour de France. So not quite a shoe-in or a cake-walk or anything else resembling a gimme. Which is exactly how we like it, right?

Anyway, now the time has come to get out here and reacquaint myself with my bike saddle and try to lose a bit of timberrrrrr!

Wafer thin etc...just a couple of lbs er, stone to go.

Finally, as is traditional by now, each blog post ends with a song of unusually high quality. Well, they're usually unusual at any rate, ahem...

A classic from Danny Baker's brother. Apparently.

(*Self-inflicted so hard lines, hah-hah!)

p.s. just one more thing- any chance you might share this around, please? Grazie mille!