Big Boss Bike Ride Day 1 - 2nd installment....

We headed through Oxford in the traffic making modest progress and soon realised we should be on the pavement (which in Oxford is called the cycle lane). Once we were out of town we were cruising through the countryside - lovely. 10 miles in and everything was going well and then Chris had a front brake failure, which was a good excuse for an impromtu water stop.

While Dave, the ride leader, fixed Chris's bike, the rest of us took on fluids. Barbara, CEO of Children's Hospices UK, was having trouble with her clip-in pedals. These are devices that lock your feet to the bike. Since I had been using clip-ins for at least 2 months, I was the 'expert' on-hand to give advice. You will understand why Barbara was taking her life in her hands taking advice from me in a later installment. Basically, you have to clip out before you stop or you hit the deck with a big crash!!???? I'll tell you the whole story later.

Meanwhile, unbeknown to me, a team of Phoenix Traders (later to become the cheering crew) were helping Richard, one of the support team, set up the tent for the first official water stop at Cookley Green. They only parked right at the top of the hill... the one we all had to fight our way up to earn our banana, energy bar and water!!

Anyway, we all made it and at the top we were happy we had beaten what we were told was the biggest hill of the day! Banana please!

This is the wonderful cheering crew, Diana & Tony Corris, Liz Gordon and Jacky Barrett...thanks you guys for your wonderful support and encouragement (and for posting pictures of me in lycra on Facebook. Oh dear...its not a pretty sight!)!!

...16 miles down, 72 to go!

Big Boss Bike Ride Day 1 - 1st installment....

I'm a bit late with this post - had a few technical challenges over the weekend. Sorry!

Anyway, we've done the ride....how did it go? Did we finish? We're on the edge of our seats. Well you are...we're not, because we don't want to see our seats for quite a few days yet!!

We all reported at Helen & Douglas House in Oxford. Helen House is the world's first hospice dedicated to the care of life limited children. During the briefing we heard the moving story of how it all began, from the founder, Sister Frances Dominica. Helen House opened in November 1982 and sprang out from the friendship between Sister Frances and the parents of a seriously ill little girl called Helen who lived at home with her family but required 24 hour care. Douglas House provides hospice care for young adults and is on the same site in a different building. It really bought home the reason why all of us were there that day, hearing directly about the tremendous work done by all of the Children's Hospices around the UK. To have fun and do the ride...yes, but also to put much needed money into the ongoing support of this charity, so it can carry out its vital work for our countries' kids and their families.

I will try to post every day this week to give you the whole story of the ride. In the meantime, here's a short video and some photographs..

The Big Boss Bike Riders are (from left to right). At the back: Chris, Paul, Anthony, Julian, Andrew, Sister Frances Dominica (not riding!), Me and Andy. At the front: Bryan, Jean, Barbara and Viv. Picture taken in the garden of Helen House, Oxford.

Ready to go and with great anticipation. How will it be? Will we finish?

Tune in tomorrow for another installment of 'The Big Boss Bike Ride!'

Fundraising Update

I logged on to my fundraising site this evening and couldn't believe how much the total had gone up in just 24 hours since I left America. The fantastic staff and directors at Phoenix Trading had raised and donated nearly £1200 towards the campaign, in secret and without my knowledge! Brilliant! Thank you everyone at the office.

There's just 3 days to go before the 'Big Boss Bike Ride' and we have now raised £5698.66. This has all been donated through my JustGiving website: http://www.justgiving.com/phoenixbikeride. Thank you to everyone who has sponsored me so far (some of you more than once). Please feel free to click on the link if you want to support this great cause. I'm still hopeful that we can make the original target of £10,000 for Children's Hospices UK.

Half Marathons and that Eyjafjallajokull ash cloud again!

I ran the second of my half marathons for this week today. It took 2hrs:4mins:37secs. Still not under 2 hours, but an improvement on Wednesday. I have to conclude that 2 hours pedalling at 15.5 miles an hour is easier on the knees than 2 hours running at 6.5 mph!

I'm currently sitting in the lounge in Dulles airport, Washington DC, waiting to see if the ash cloud is going to let us come home. We live in hope!

Everyone needs to get out of their comfort zone every now and then!

I'm back in the USA again this week. Spent a couple of days in the Florida panhandle with Louisa and her team (thanks for the sponsorship money) and have now moved on to North Carolina. Of course I don't have my bike and it's less than 2 weeks away from the charity ride, so I need to keep up the training. Everyone needs a challenge that takes them out of their comfort zone......don't they? Well, yesterday, I decided I should live by that maxim, so I set myself the target of running a half marathon in the gym in under 2 hours. At half distance it had taken 1 hour and 3 minutes.....a bit behind, but everything to play for! The Florida heat and humidity got the better of me (or was that me getting the better of me?) and I finished the 13.1 miles in 2 hours and 10 minutes. I realise that running on a treadmill is probably easier than out on the roads, so anyone who finished the London Marathon a few weeks ago - you have my respect! I'm going to give it another go on Sunday morning, when I would otherwise be out with the cycle club and before I fly home......I'll keep you posted.

There's always something else to aim at!

I went out with Horsham Cycling Club again on Sunday. It was my 4th ride with the intermediate group. I have trained pretty consistently for the last 3 months and am now doing over 120 miles per week, so I was feeling quite confident that the 'please tell me that was the hill' episode was well behind me (see post from 8th April re 'the hill'). Anyway, unlike the previous weekend when we all got soaked to the skin in lashing down rain, the weather was pleasant - cold but dry. When we set off the leader of the Sporting Group 2 (they are some of the top bananas in the club) said that they were going to ride with us as there were only 2 of them this weekend. Well, I thought the intermediates were a fit bunch, but SG2, blimey! Until Sunday I was thinking I could 'graduate' by the end of the year into the higher group if I kept up the training after the 'Big Boss Bike Ride'. I don't think so Michael - I couldn't even keep up with them going down hill!! Great ride though and thanks to everyone at Horsham Cycling for your support and encouragement. Maybe SG2 at the end of next year??

Long Ride from Home to Work and Back

Yesterday I cycled to the office from home and back. Well, actually, I cycled to the office and then had a rear tyre puncture going down a fast hill 3 miles before I arrived home. It was a bit scary, as the brake on the rear didn't work at all once the puncture happened. Stopping proved to be a bit of a hazardous event!

"I haven't got to go back as well have I??

I was completely wasted and really didn't fancy doing the repair, so, persuading myself that I had 'done my bit' and knowing I had a conference call to do with a group of American Phoenix Traders in an hour and a half, I decided to call it a day and telephoned for assistance from my support crew. My wife duly came to my rescue.

Anyway, it ended up being a 68 mile round trip which took 4 hours and 25 minutes, at an average speed of 15.4 miles per hour. Given that 2 months ago, the longest I'd ever riden was 21 miles (and that was only at the end of last year), I was pretty pleased to get home at all! Hot bath, one hour conference call with a bunch of fired up Traders and then out for a Thai dinner - lots of calories - great! Slept well last night too.

When I arrived home (in the car) my kids gave me a gold medal for coming first - out of one!

Thanks Stephanie for recording the video, thanks Rene for taking the photographs, thanks Gill for being my support crew and thanks kids for making me feel special!