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I am pleased (and rather relieved) to say that Andy and I successfully completed the 100 km nightrider event on my tandem. Thank you to all of you for the messages of encouragement (and the few cheeky comments!) and, of course,  for sponsorship. 

We started with the last group of cyclists around 11.45 pm. According to Andy's cycling app, we cycled for just under 6 hours and our average speed was 10.5 miles per hour, which isn't fast compared with a solo bike but is reasonable for a "classic" (ie very old) tandem and considering how much time we spent waiting at junctions and traffic lights. We certainly weren't the last people to finish and we managed to overtake a lot of cyclists on the hill climbs. I had no idea that there were so many hills in the outskirts of London. Other than that the most challenging parts were speed bumps, cobbles and cycling through central London's traffic. I didn't count them but we must have met up with over 70 speed bumps on the route, mostly in SE London and Docklands. Despite this, it was a great event to take part in. Thanks to Andy for cycling with me and for keeping us on course (most of the time…). 

I managed to stay awake by drinking coca cola so the lack of sleep only really began to catch up with me on the journey from Crystal Palace to my home. When we finished the ride there weren't any trains, so we ended up cycling the extra 13km back to my home, encountering at least another 15 speed bumps on route!  

World championship 2015

The IFDS World Blind Sailing Championship will be held at Chicago Yacht Club between 8 and 13 September 2015 in Sonar and Tom 28 keelboats. Other details of the event can be found at:

https://www.chicagoyachtclub.org/default.aspx?p=v35ArticleView&itemID=312080

The GB team was successful at the previous World Championship in Japan (May 2013), winning the overall country trophy, gold medals in 2 categories and silver medals in the third. So, it is important that there is a GB team attending the event to defend our title. To send a team from GB we need to raise funds to cover the costs of flights, accommodation, entry fees and other expenses for any team member who cannot fund their own place. 

This event is for teams made up of an equal number of sighted and visually impaired sailors. There are three series of races in this event each for sailors with different levels of vision. The crew for each boat is made up of 2 visually impaired sailors to helm and mainsheet, and 2 sighted sailors as foresail crew and tactician.  I helmed in the B1 category (i.e. least vision) at the previous fleet racing World Championship and I’m hoping to be selected for the team in this event.

Blind Sailing (the charity) is responsible for selecting the team and will arrange coaching and training weekends leading up to the event but does not receive any public funding to support the team going to Chicago. With this in mind, I want to raise funds to cover some of the costs of team members.  

My cycling challenge

I have decided to cycle my trusty, but very old, tandem in a 100 km “night rider” event around London starting at 11.30 pm on Saturday 6 June. OK, OK, I’m not worried by the idea of cycling in the dark but my front rider might do. He also tells me that negotiating a tandem around London streets at any time of day is a challenge and there aren’t very many gears on my bike to help us get up the hills. The more challenging aspects for me are the distance (obviously) and the sleep deprivation and doing anything active when I’m tired. Some of my friends know that I can fall asleep on the train, standing up, in mid conversation etc if I stay up later than midnight, so starting to cycle 100 km at 11.30 pm may seem a bit mad. Some people can sleep walk but I’m not sure that it’s possible to cycle whilst asleep – and Andy does tell me that he’ll know if I’m not pedalling.  

All donations are welcome, so please do sponsor me if you are able.

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