So, its time to update this front page! It was done very quickly to get it up and running initially but now the start of this trip / adventure / carbon footprint reduction scheme is nearly here its time to put some more effort in! (Plus John is nagging me relentlessly to change the picture of him)

John and I like an adventure and a challenge. I am good at dreaming stuff up (usually after a few glasses of red) and John is good at saying 'I'm in' without listening to the detail. So, about 9 months ago, when I saw a book about riding across France I thought that we should really give it a go. As is the norm John said 'I'm in' without bothering to listen past the 'I have had an idea.....' bit. So far so good. The route looked amazing but the minimum recommended time to do the full 1000 miles (10 days) was too long to reasonably expect a pass to do. So I did some really bad maths and some even worse route planning and managed to shoe-horn between 900 and 920 miles into just 7 days. John said 'I'm In' (as fully expected) and so it was Game On.

Essentially the route is the French equivalent of John O Groats to Lands End but with better food and weather and much quieter roads. We will be totally self supported (that is to say no following team cars or medics and everything we need will be strapped to the bike). With the exception of the first night we will be sleeping out under the stars whenever or wherever we run out of gas: be that in vineyards, beside rivers, behind pubs, bus shelters or 7/11 carparks. With only the clothes we stand in and limited spares we probably wouldn't be welcome in most establishments anyway! It is fair to say we will honk by the time we arrive in one of the most glamorous places on the Med!

Due to recent leaps in technology you will even be able to track us in real time (link to follow) and send us messages of support or poke fun at us as you see fit.

Now for the serious bit. John and I, like many of you out there, have been touched in some way by the scourge that is cancer: be it parents, family or friends, and whilst we will have a good time whilst riding through some stunning countryside (albeit probably in retrospect), we would really like it if our sweat, effort and sore undercarriages could in some way translate to cold hard cash to assist what we consider to be a truly worthy cause - Cancer Research.

We really would like to raise some serious money - our nominal target was £1 a mile but we believe that we can better that by a long way. So if you can, please sponsor us - giving what you can afford to. Be it £1 or £1000, we really don't mind!

Thank you all in advance.

Please keep liking the Facebook page (Pete and Johns St. Malo to Nice Self Supported Bike Ride) and keep posting messages as both the journey and we unravel!

Oh, and John..... I ain't changing that picture mate!