Target Reached

Hey to anyone (if there is anyone) who sees this. I have just been informed that we have reached our £3000 target, which is unimaginably awesome for WaterAid and us as a team, so here's a final thanks to anyone and everyone who has donated or given their support in any way, shape or form: THANKS!

Chances are this will be our last post on this blog, but if anyone is interested in seeing photos, vids etc. or getting any other info on the ride, email me at tomblakesurf@googlemail.com

We are looking into doing a second ride sometime in 2011, so watch this space!

For the final time; thanks,

Tom B

VICTORY!

We did it. Back to bed for me :)

Tom B

Collections Day One

George, Jamie and I did a couple of hours worth of collections in Emerson Park today, which was a great success, so a big thanks goes out to everyone who donated, and to those who promised to go online (the link to the sponsor page is just to the right). Special thanks go to the donors of the £20 and £10 notes, which really stunned us, as we only expected pennies, and pushed us up to grand total of £144.43 for day one of the collections; Emerson Park is obviously full of charitable people!

We are looking to finish off the rounds of Emerson in the next couple of days, and will be attending a church service on Sunday, where we are sure to find many more generous types. Once we have finished with collections, the total will be put into one of our bank accounts, and either sent to WaterAid as a cheque or donated onto the online account. Either way, you can be assured it will make it; we will document the sending, and in the case of the cheque, will get some sort of confirmation letter from our contact at WaterAid.

Thanks again all Emerson Park-ers,

Tom B

Some more Training stuff

Hi, Tom here,

Just wanted to update you guys on training stuff; Jamie has been away in Germany, so we haven't had use of his iPhone for the snazzy GPS stuff, so I won't bother using the training pages for this.

Three rides took place over the last three days, which is a step in the right direction for preparation. They were as follows.

Sunday 27th, Epping (50km) - Steve, George, Dan and I did this route for the first time since Jamie's bus incident (see previous posts), in about 3 hours. This was Steve's first time out on this route, but we were impressed with his performance.

Monday 28th, Southend (80-100km) - Dan dropped out of this ride due to the depression caused by England's dire performance against Germany. Yet again Steve impressed on his mountain bike compared to the road bikes ridden by George and I, even managing the ridiculous incline of Old Church Hill. Steve also set the bar for strangest order at a chippy, after he asked for a chocolate milkshake, a strawberry slush puppy and a portion of chips.

Tuesday 29th, Cold Norton (100km) - Steve was forced to pass up this ride, and George and I hardly relished it after 150km worth of sore bums. Despite this, we battled through the pain to set a new record for the run at 4 hours (not including the traditional stop at Brentwood's KFC!).

That should just about cover that.

Tom B

Overdue Update

Exams have been eating up all of our time recently, so we haven't had much of a chance to get any updates down on the blog. Here's a brief synopsis of our last month (semi-chronological order):

- George, Dan and Tom completed the ~100km Cold Norton route in under five hours despite horrendous weather.

- Friday afternoon bike ride came to a screeching halt. So did the bus but Jamie still managed to get in the way. Luckily he isn't quite as fragile as he looks and managed to get up with minimal injuries to argue with the driver, but we were all a bit shaken.

- Broke up from school. Started knuckling down for the exams.

- Meeting at Jamie's turned up a fundamental problem with our tickets; turns out we managed to get passes for Italy! Its been sorted out now though, thanks to some scathing phone calls :D.

- Also at Jamie's, we organised a date to get a photo for the Romford Recorder, and we sent out a few emails to try to get some more sponsorship. We are also looking into doing collections outside some local supermarkets, since tfl still haven't responded to our email.

- Jamie, George and Tom tackled to Southend route in blistering heat, resulting in some hilltop chunder and impressive tan lines. We covered the ~90km in about four hours on the road (we stopped the timer for lunch) and set a new record for the fastest kilometre at 1 minute 27 seconds.

Well, back to exams for another week. Plans are to rack up another 100km on Thursday or Friday and keep pressing for sponsors.

Tom B

What we've been up to!

The event has really picked up a lot of steam recently and we thought you would want to know what we have been getting up to.

Though it has been likely for a while now, it is now confirmed that we are going on the trip. Our tickets have been bought, the train times confirmed and our back pockets have been hammered. We bought our tickets in the Easter holidays from STA travel agents, and the tickets were sent through this week.

The route has been totally confirmed, from which roads we are doing down, which exits to take at roundabouts and where we are camping each night. The plan is to go from lighthouse to lighthouse and cover the 450km or so in between them in 5 days.

On the topic of camping we have now got tents. Dan did a bit of research and we found two 2 men tents on Amazon for £12.50. Bargain, they’re even waterproof.

We also had another little shopping trip to Decathlon. We bought all the equipment we needed from yellow Lycra tops, down to energy gels and drinks holders. Another dent in our back pockets.

As we said earlier George got the team’s first road bike and it was quickly followed by Dan’s and mine when we both bought them on the same night a week later. We had our first training session on them today with just the three road bikes. Our pace was drastically better, moving from average speeds of around 15 kmph (including pausing the timer when we had stops), up to 22 kmph without pausing the clock. The only thing to get used to now is the riding position and seats.

Finally we thought we would let you know about our assembly and fundraising. We presented our event this Monday in an assembly to the year 7s 8s and 9s in our school. It was widely received and following it, one of the teachers Mr Richards gave us our first donation from the school. We also have tot hank the school as they cut out the lids for the buckets I designed which we will be using to collect donations at Upminster Station in the up and coming future.

Road Bikes

The group has it's first proper bike! George shelled out £100.00 on eBay for a red Raleigh beauty, which accompanied us to London last Wednesday. Unfortunately, being second hand, this bike needs some work done to it before we depart for the land of Onions and Garlic, especially since one of the pedals has fallen off! However, for it's age, the bike is in fantastic condition, and we will hopefully be whacking up a photo or two shortly.

At the moment we are looking forward to the arrival of Dan's new bike, the Trek 1.2 triple 2010, as well as whatever Jamie has ordered. Both bikes should be here on Tuesday next week and will hopefully join the newly repaired Raleigh in adding a bit of spice to the training session planned for an evening after school.

Unfortunately for me the Ride2Work scheme under which both Jamie's and Dan's bikes are being bought doesn't start at my Dad's workplace until June, so I am looking at a bit of a wait before I join the ranks of dropped-down handlebars.

Tom B

WaterCycle around the World! (kind of)

Last Easter members of the WaterCycle took part in bike rides in three different countries! I went up to Liverpool to see family and, on an expedition to North Wales, was given the opportunity to ride up a legitimate mountain (the bit I rode was called the 'horseshoe pass'). This was a real eye opener, as it was easily the most intense ride I have done so far; hopefully our route in France will not manage to break the 1,000ft mark!

Tom Hindson, in the other hand, was keeping the WaterCycle spirit alive across the pond where, stuck due to the ash clouds from Iceland, he rented an old bike and did a few laps of New York's famous Central Park.

On top of this, there were of course some rides taking place on home turf, including the Level Three proficiency course completed by Dan, Steve, Joe and I. We are still awaiting the official certificates from the course, but, in honesty, it was the experience that really counted.

Tom B

The Route

Our route is now one step closer to being confirmed. We spent a few hours last Thursday with some maps and paper and have a general outline of the route we will be taking. A GoogleMaps version of this can be found on the 'Route' page. We have also decided with some certainty where we will be staying each night. Our first night will be spent on Il de Re, the second at Soulac sur Mer, then Lacanau-Ocean, Biscarrosse-Plage, Mimizan and finally Biarritz/Hossegor.

Tom B

Updates

- Training page; added the latest times for trainings
- Welcome bar; updated distance
- The Route page; sorted out a couple of typos

Cycling Proficiency

Just an update on recent activities; Joe, Tom H, Dan, Steve and I went for the cycling course today and, while there wasn't time for the complete level three content, we all got our levels one and two done and dusted (except for Steve, who had to go for a driving lesson during the level two section, but got his level one). Our instructor, Howard McAlpine (ask us for his details if you are interested in taking a maintenance or proficiency course) also really opened our eyes as to how much work our bikes needed, especially when Dan's was declared as unsafe for the road.

At the moment we are looking at setting up a second session to take the level three course, and Steve may get in touch with Howard to complete his level two. For the future, we are thinking of sending Mr. Puddefoot on a comprehensive maintenance course so he can act as our basic mechanic.

Tom B

No training

No training this weekend, I'm afraid. Jamie has his German exchange partner over this week and the rest of us (minus George) are going to be on our level three cycling proficiency course, which includes some maintenance training.

Next week we will resume as normal, although Tom H and I are considering doing a speed run of the Epping route while the others do a circuit session.

Tom B

Distance Change

Our training has been going really well at the moment and we are covering distances a lot quicker than we thought. We completed our last session, a 50km route, (what we intend to do each day) in 5 hours, including an hour for lunch.

Because of this we looked into expanding the route that we would take in France. Tom and I had originally looked at the possibility of travelling through La Rochelle or into San Sebastian (Spain). There was also a suggestion to travel into Nantes.

Tom did a bit of research into the routes, distances, what our average speeds would need to be, how long we would need to cycle for each day etc. We then had a group vote on the four new proposed routes and the verdict was to ride from La Rochelle to Biarritz. This will take us on a 400-450km journey, though our intentions are still to complete the bike ride in 5 days.

After taking a look at a map, it was then decided that rather than simply setting off straight from La Rochelle, stiff and sore after 10 hours or more of trains, we would travel to Il de Re from La Rochelle, then start our journey properly from the island's western tip the next day.

Depending on progress in training, there is the option of adding an extra stage to the end if this route, which would take us to San Sebastian and back to Biarritz. However, it is likely that the La Rochelle - Biarritz plan will suffice.

We feel that the new proposed journey is more of an adventure and a challenge and would result in less sitting on the beach doing nothing much other than getting cramp.

So the new proposed event is to ride from Il de Res (near La Rochelle) to Biarritz, a total close to 425km, and finish the adventure in 5 days.

We must stress that this is still subject to change depending on travel arrangements etc. We are only able to book 3 months in advance though as soon as we know the final arrangements, we will let you know.

Name Change

Following a democratic vote, the name of this event is being changed from the Big Bike to 'The WaterCycle' as we feel it more accurately represents our goal (and has less of a boast about it).

The necessary changes to the site and WaterAid page will be made within the next few days.

The Gang

The Ball is Rolling

I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who has sponsored us so far. It seemed the floodgates were opened today as we reeled in over £150. Special thanks go to Mrs. Puddefoot and her co-workers for rounding up a fantastic lump sum to get us going, but also deep gratitude to Andreas Doerfler, Ross Cheung, David Camp and Luciano Cenedese who also added to the account.

Keep 'em coming!

Tom B

Personnel Changes

Hi Guys,

We've had some changes to the Big Bike team; due to circumstances involving his YASS course and Africa trip this summer, Tom H will no longer be accompanying us on the trip in June. However he claims he will still participate in training and continue to assist with the organisation. Tom's 'replacement' is Joe Hasted, who happened to join the group just as Tom left. I will be updating the 'about us' page with this new information in due time.

Tom B

Waitrose Support?

We handed in our application for the Waitrose Charity scheme today. Hopefully Jamie will have some feedback on that A.S.A.P. For those that don't know, this scheme is a vote-based system of donating money to charity; each month three charities (or events such as ours) are selected and have labelled boxes near the store exit. Every person who buys something from the shop receives a green voting token and places it in the box of the appeal they wish to support. At the end of the month the votes are counted up and a 'prize fund' of £1000 is shared out in proportion to the number of votes received. Hopefully we will be able to procure a solid £200 from this, if we get the chance to be represented.

Tom B

Sponsorship Ideas

Hello,

Welcome to our blog; as you may already have gathered, we are cycling along France's southwest coast in order to raise money for WaterAid, and we need your support!

We are hoping that all of you will sponsor us through our Water aid account. The highest amount of money raised on the website so far is just over £2000, which is our initial target that we have set for ourselves to beat.

To get an idea of the cause we are working for, here are a few facts from WaterAid's website;
- an estimated 5,000 children die every day due to diseases caused by unsafe water
- approximately 40 billion working hours are spent collecting water annually in Africa
- the average European uses 200 litres of water every day. North Americans use 400 litres. A person in a developing nation uses a fraction of this; a mere 10 litres daily for all drinking, cooking and sanitation needs.

With your support we hope to make a difference, no matter how large or small; every penny counts.

Where will your money be going? Well, a mere £15 could provide a single person with clean water for life, while every £100 raised could be spent building a well in Nigeria. Naturally, we personally have no control over where our sponsorship is spent , but all of WaterAid's schemes are worth supporting as they are all potential life-savers for the beneficiaries.

By sponsoring us through our Just Giving page (link on right) you are not only making sure that the money goes directly to WaterAid (and not into Puddy's back pocket), but there are also no deductions that have to be made on the donation so it is preferable for all involved parties.

Currently we have a few ideas as to who to ask for sponsorship. Fingers crossed we can get into Waitrose charity scheme and have our own charity for you to put your green tokens into. We are also planning to write to large businesses to secure some sponsorship from them.

However, all and any donations are welcome and wanted so please sponsor us and help support WaterAid!!

Thanks for the support!