Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.  And huge thanks goes to my personal sponsors:

Arthur Ready at Ecoganix

Paul Richardson at TAP Security Systems

Please visit their websites to see what services they provide.

This charity is really important to me not just because of the impact on thousands of children each year but from personal experience within a friend's family.  I want to do my bit to reduce the pain and suffering that result from these awful blood cancers.

I'm well into my training now so do think of me out on the roads on these cold and wet winter days and please give generously.  Thanks!

                                      ---------------------------

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send 100% of your money directly to my charity, because I'm covering all of my costs. So it’s the most efficient way to donate – saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

MY BLOGS:

5 Months to go!  Despite the wet and windy winter weather, the last month’s cycling has been pretty good – well most of the time anyway…..

Sponsorship is going amazingly well with 2 major contributions from Ecoganix, which is a national company providing waste management solutions, and from Thorpe Arch Security which provides domestic and commercial Intruder Alarms, CCTV, Access Control & Security Lighting.  Many thanks go to Arthur and Paul for their generosity!  Sponsorship from individual friends is also doing very nicely; thanks to everyone so far for helping me along.  Overall, my sponsorship is closing on £2500 – fantastic!!  More to go though!

My training is coming along well, though last Sunday was cold enough to put most people off.  My feet were absolutely frozen.  Despite conditions not being brilliant, I’m doing around the 80 miles per week mark and have found some good hills courtesy of Wheel Easy in Harrogate who I ride with most Sundays.  When it’s too wet or icy, it’s time for the rollers which I’ve borrowed.  They are great fun, but it is a bit bizarre with the bike computer showing 25mph and the bike going nowhere.  I’m not sure which is the hardest part of using rollers; starting, which brings the odd wobble, or keeping a straight ‘line’ which is tricky because it is so sensitive to the slightest movement of the handlebars.  I’ve mastered these most of the time, but have had the occasional sideways fall, which is not pretty, but at least I have a nice, soft landing on a cheap lilo!

April:  It’s certainly proving to be an interesting time for me, and one that requires a lot of hard work!  I’m just back from my hols on La Gomera in the Canaries, where the roads only went 2 ways – up or down.  I rented a road bike for 8 days and while I only did 110 miles, I also climbed nearly 17,000 feet which is almost 5 times the height of Snowdon.  This was the training I was looking for, with an added bonus of very little traffic so, on the way up, I was free to enjoy the views while the sweat dripped off!  On the way down, the views were even better but it was chilly stuff.  And what do you do if your brakes fail, just before a hairpin bend??  Better not to think too much about that one….  Overall, it was good training, I feel a lot fitter and a longstanding knee problem did not reappear, so that is very good news.

Back home now, the cold winter rides are over.  While the odd day has brought numb hands and feet, the weather could have been a lot worse.  It is now time to up the ante by getting out for a ride most days come rain or shine, and continuing to increase the length of the rides and my weekly mileage.  And very soon it will be time to do 60 mile rides on consecutive days.  This should be ok, however the organisers have just advised us that we will do 80 miles on each of the first 3 days - another challenge to be beaten!

Well, only 48 hours to go to the start now and the last week's training has been a bit on the tough side, but enjoyable all the same.  It started with a long ride in the Dales around Pateley Bridge, Glasshouses and Brimham Rocks, with some long and some steep climbs.  Then several shorter rides nearer home, followed by a ride to Bolton Abbey, where I came across some other WheelEasy riders and joined them for the fun up to Appletreewick and Stump Cross Cavern, and back to Harrogate.  Later in the week there was another 80 miler covering part of Stage 1 of the Tour de France.  This went up to Greenhow, Grassington, Kettewell, Buckden, Kidstones Pass, Bishopdale, Kirkby Malzeard and Masham.  Quite hilly again, and a 20% gradient after about 70 miles was a real sting in the tail!

All training done now!  Let's see what Thursday brings!!