www.theride.org.uk

the fashion quest continues - just look at the tights

The next project 'The Ride'

The Ride

1000 miles

John O Groats to the Olympics, through 5 capitals

A bunch of cancer patients (past or present) on their bikes
    .... not your everyday journey

                               

                                www.theride.org.uk

lets start something new

Thank You – Mull To Hull - 500 miles, £2800 and a much perter bottom

Thank You – Mull To Hull

500 miles, £2800 and a much perter bottom

From the wideness of Scotland, down through the sparkling lakes, over the rolling dales and the homecoming moors…

For all the lovely people who supported me along the way - Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, with your help I managed to fundraise up to date £2800 (and money is still trickling in). £ 1400 is going to the Daisy Appeal which is a Castle Hill Hospital, Cottingham based research centre, the other half will be used to promote healthy eating, exercise and improved self – esteem. It will support an informed choice as to how people can help themselves after diagnosis to make life style changes. 

I had fantastic support from you, thank you ever so much again for the laughs, the tears, the cheers and for all the pennies.

I am doing well, the treatment is continuous, so are my plans. I will keep you posted.

  

Loads of love

Réka

I just would like to say how wonderful people were I feel really lucky. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you very much for the incredible people around me my fantastic family and my beautiful friends for all the cheering, laughing and crying. 


Also thanks Mr Hartley for the the cutting out and Dr Maraveyas for the pouring in.  

4th of September Selby to Hull

Got up and pedalled really really hard. On the way got a text from Lisa inviting me for a cup of water ( kind of a joke, I love water) when I get back. I said I would be about half an hour.  All my beautifuls were on the street with banner and party hats and very loud cheer. It was such a lovely surprise; It was worth the 500 miles and back again for that.

I went for the after party it was good to see the group again.

3rd of September Skipton to Selby

As the road was getting flatter my mood was playing like a roller coaster ride. I'm kind of thinking to push it a bit further to make it home today. My head is bit of a mess; I want to be somewhere where I feel safe... Tas is starting school, my dad is over here, the treatment starts again, the holiday ends... all just a bit too much. We arrive at the campsite and it's too late, only an hour all so of daylight left, even if I pedal hard it's not really an option. I am upset about it. I put up my tent. I decide I will go home early tomorrow and join the group at the after party. 

. 

2nd of September Windermere to Skipton 60-odd miles

After the vertical turned concave adventure I thought nothing could get to us, well the tiredness did. I had the best breakfast but the strangest start. People were deflated and a bit fed up; it is just that point of the journey when it is over half way but not close enough to home to get excited about. It was a bit hard bobbing up and down leaving the lakes to the dales. The rain was setting in and the edgy mood lingered on. 

After 60 something miles we lost our way too.We circled around Skipton in hope for a non-existent camp site, then the blaming game started. Blame but taking no responsibility, misunderstanding, talking talking talking ...  The whirlpool was pulling down but we surfaced in the end.

Find a camp site something to eat and then a pint ...the world seemed a much more reasonable place.

The little back dress day

For all the lovely people

Thank you very much for your lovely messages I do cherish them. really really really

For popular demand

Thank you very much your kind interest of the state of my bum. I would like to assure you it is OK. I think it is even got got a bit perter than was before. So all good.

1st of September Ullswater to Windermere

I really really really was not looking forward to this. Kirkstone pass the road between Ullswater and lake Windermere. Very high; a little bit too high for mortals like me. I have done it with the car ... gear 1 and seen cyclists and remember thinking, poor baggers, there is no need for that. Yes and there was, poor bagger me and so the motorists with they faces grinning with pity.
It started off ok steady climb and then turned nasty and was as it was not enough being vertical oh no it turned on itself and claimed to be concave. I managed to cycle till half a mile to the top with awful lot of huffing and puffing and cursing till the hill shaken me off from the bike and showed me who rules. So I got down and pushed ... then 200 yards from the top the road turned flat (thank you hill to saving my dignity) so I hoped back on and arrived in the car park fresh faced as it would have been a doddle. You would have been very impressed.
Downhill was fast and furious and around 40 miles an hour. I am getting a taste for this zumming buisness.

Kirkstone pass

30th September Glasgow to Dumfries

90 miles nine o I have never ever done that much in my life.

We set off by 8 am and it was raining a bit later it was heavy rain by 10 it was cats and dogs, by 11 the occasional cow thrown in. At this point my gortex gave up and I was dripping so were my clothes. It was all about positioning; try to get behind a thin wheeled bike with a mudgard so I do not end up with the whole road in my face, also the racer position was definitely out of the question
We stopped at 12 for lunch and then the sky opened and let the sun have a go too. After that everything was just hunky dory.

I feel I am getting stronger day by day I kind of started to enjoys the ups and today I was reasonably speedy too it does feel great.

Loch Lomond

29th Crianlarich to Loch Lomond (+Rest and be Thankful)

Easy downhill(ish) 40 mile day ... Well would have been ... If only. 5 years ago in our travels from Loch Awe we passed a place called Rest and be Thankful, we did not have time to stop but I wished we had. I really loved the name and was intrigued. so I thought I can do a slight (16 miles) detour. nobody volunteered so I set off an hour earlier in the hope I could catch the others up later.
So me and my trusty steed got on the road and galloped toward Tarbot. (I have stopped the place called the Drovers Inn what a find! A really quirky place. A stuffed bear and an armoured knight at the entrance room, small rooms with fascinating objects and roaring fire at 10am. - I would love to go back and stay sometime.
From Tarbot the road was winding towards my quest. A reasonably easy fivér miles and a back breaking vertical three with serious head wind. Át one point I had to get off and as I did it nearly blow me over. When I got there I felt incredibly pleased with the view and myself.
So yes I did and bloody well was.

I caught up the others and had a great ride on the side of beautiful Loch Lomond.

Another little thing which I get hacked off about; the mp3 player chooses and picks the songs which is fine because I put it on shuffle, but I am baffled and slightly annoyed that it has favourites and songs which blatantly ignores. Is it just my temperamental machine or yours as picky as mine?

Rest and be Thankful

Mull

28th Tobemory to Crianlarich

I haven't talked about food yet I do not know how I managed that, as eating is one of my favourite things. So here we go: breakfast I always feel I really had to behave wh.....
Grapefruit, cereal with lovely bits, shaky scrambled eggs with thick slices of beautiful smoked salmon, toast and honey ... that seems an awful lot compared with my usual two slices of toast. Mind you 60 miles is not my usual routine either.
The ride to the ferry took us less than half of the time than the day before. It seemed downhill nearly all the way which does not really make sense as we started and finished at the sea level, but I m not the one to complain about it. I managed to have some time on the front on my own singing to the music and pushing hard I really love the feeling the wilderness on my face with wind playing wild games with my hair it does give me freedom and mad thoughts at times.
I called Chris it just made me cry how beautiful it was ... I know I know he gently laughed at me.
Oban; lovely Prudence' gang waiting me at the port to waive me off doing the cheerleader thing with my name which makes me laugh endless. We will meet up for tea at cianlerich.
Route 78 vertical to start with breathtaking at both sense after that huge mountains everywhere and beyond.
60 miles done and I kind of feel alright although savlon close at hand.

Family coming tomorrow all of the boys,my sister rita her boyfriend and my dad in one campervan ...

Thank you lovely Prudence and Toddy.

27th

7.30 ferry from Oban. It was a taster of the magic of Mull. Ruined castle on the shore, lighthouses sail between to.
It was a bit of a suprise that we had to bike to Tobemory I thought it all kicked off tomorrow, but hey. I was a bit tired as I haven't slept much on the bus, but the excitement opened the heavy eyelids. The views were stunning and I can't stop smiling. The road was ok till three quarters of the way, then it turned from bearable uphill to struggle and beyond but we got there in the end. My lovely lovely friend Pru and Tody with her Spanish cousin Mariona came to meet me as they had to be in Glasgow by Tuesday and came a couple of days before so they can support me. It was great and surreal and very normal at the same time. The sun was out and our mood was high. Than I collapsed around 9 I was so dog tired.

The 26th

I know it is silly but I always get to a stage. I know it is coming but it always comes as an unwanted surprise and finds me whatever. The last couple of hours before setting off for holidays makes me run up and down the stairs maniacally looking for stuff that I dont really need. Let the the electrical devices look after the kids! I'm just being a bit flappy and not hugely pleasant. 

The send off was a bit touchy, the sky was weeping and then tuned into my manicness and was pouring buckets.  I really hope mull will put a braver face on.

We are late and Tas joins in with the sky, Zsoli is grinning supportively and Chris my stuff around.

In the mini bus I sit next to Steve who has run the Lyke wake walk...three times...which is forty odd miles. I have walked it once well bounced the beginning and crawled the end. So I am getting a bit scared now. 

The journey is long and a bit crowded which is fine,I m happy to arrive in Oban. It is still dark and the contour of the hills can just about be seen. Slowly the darkness is peeling off and is gorgeous. I do love Scotland. 

Away we go

Thank you very much Boden. 

All clothes on the picture donated by Boden and will be auctioned at the end of the ride.

It is the night before

Clothes piling up my bedroom floor still haven't quite decided anything yet. My head is just as messy. Excited ...yes. Scared … well a little bit, but I am not that easily scared … I still think it is going to be no bother. I might be completely utterly wrong.
So tomorrow with 12 others (who I have never met before) cram ourselves in the minibus and start the  journey to up-north to down below. Everybody is doing it for a charity, everybody for a different one . I am a bit unsure if I have to say something about my little  'hiccup' it does not really go well as a easy conversation piece. It is always a bit awkward when people do not know me quite well as I think (possibly I might be wrong on that). It is hard to go beyond that for a while and I am not one to be tiptoed around. Anyway we will see.

The bike is looking lovely though, the new yellow tape on the handle bar looking rather gorgeous I might rename her Rocinante; let's chase my ferocious giants.

We went to Cornwall

There was some tent to be pegged

Some rain to shoo away

Some fists to shake, when the shooing was not enough

Some smiles to put on when all the success was claimed by Tas’s Jedi power

There were some holes to dig ( it’s a pity that we can’t take home the kangaroos)

Some racing cars to build and driven away

Some waves to be tamed with blue lips and trembling limbs

There was some fun to be had

Family arguments and fall outs to smooth away

Catalogue of small desires to be negotiated (no you cannot have a giant fluffy bear from your £5 holiday money... bouncy ball...all right then)

There were some memories to be made

Some heavy hearted fear to be shooed away

And some Jedi’s power to believe in 

It is only 2 weeks and pedalling will start. 8 days which will take me through the west highlands, the lakes, the dales and the moors ... yee haa

I went for a practice weekend with my friends and Chris at the last weekend. Friday was lovely warm sunshine which followed us from Hull to Hayburn Wyke. http://www.cyclestreets.net/journey/1003284/.

Whitby to Jugger Howe

The second day was a bit trickier. The coastal path was absolutely stunningly beautiful from Hayburn Wyke to Whitby, then we ventured into Sleights, which was a bit of a hard push, and then it all went haywire. The rain was setting in fast and furious in a couple of miles into open moorland, which looked fine and reasonably bikeable on Google Earth (we really should know better) the thunder and lightning started. Chris was lying through his teeth about urban myths about lightning to keep me calm (something about the rubber wheels and contact and how lightning never going to hit us....), not as though I believed a word he said, but pretended to, which worked anyway. Then he had a puncture. We tried the foam and it did not work; we tried the patches but the foam was too slippery and the rain was too rainy so it did not work ...so we all pushed... after that things turned to hilarity and we could not stop laughing. So we pushed and occasionally attempted to cycle with Lisa ( who looked like a Harry Potter witch in her giant black poncho, just about to take off) but most of the time ended up falling into the mud and laughing unstoppably;  until we realized we got a bit lost and were doing one of the most gruesome parts of the Lyke Wake walk (which we had done a year earlier... if you know this , it is the up and downy step bit) and midges were out for our blood. Then we called for help which we got, silly buggers.

The pint felt brilliant

Raven scar to Pickering http://www.moortoseacycle.net/routemap.html

The 3^rd day was just Lis and me what a fantastic treat journey we had. The route was well signed, very exciting and rideable. We went through 3 forests on mostly single country lanes and dirt roads crossed over with woodland paths. It seemed like we had a lots of really good rolling downs and some ups which we pushed up, as they looked impossibly vertical. The route was a real find, bursting with rarely seen landscapes, fantastic earth smells and loads of smiles. Then at Dalby our grins turned wolfish and we ate up the whole canteen. At the final push to Pickering we stopped at Thornton le Dale where a young boy from Scarborough was playing rather well http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dyke6nxKdf4&feature=related.

How great wonderful it was, all 3 days in very different ways, loads of great memories of fantastic landscapes, hard pushing, smell of the rain and the earth and occasionally mud but most of all hilarious laughter.

Thank you all. 

I like to ride by bicycle

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