What's next?

First day back at work and the event is nearly tidied up and concluded. Which means that it's on to the next one. Sticking to my crazy 'it's winter and I don't care' theme we'll be going for an Australian Day BBQ on the 30th January.

Yes, yes, a BBQ in England in January. I must be mad. But let's face it, I love Australia and I'd love to celebrate Australia Day on the 26th January, and so I'll do it in my own unique way. Quite a bit to organise and not much time to do it, but as long as we can get word out then it should be fine.

Today, I was de-signing the bike route. Took me nearly 4 hours in the car, managed to get to moat of the spots, a few I will do here and there over the next week or so.

Taking tomorrow off, just to get head clear and do some housework as our house isn't anywhere near for Christmas and then Wednesday we'll start the countdown to Aussie Barbie 2010!

Training - Day 3

Not much to report today. The ride is 3 sleeps away and I've lost a bit of motivation. We've had a couple drop out, but a couple have said they'll be there on the day, so I'm optimistic.

Hoping they all do they're own sponsorship and it's more successful than mine. Going to have to re-think my strategy, asking for money the week before an event was asking a lot. I might still wear the santa suit on the ride and rattle a bucket or tin on the back!

[Edit] This will teach me for not checking my page before posting...Thank You so much to an amazing friend for a donation! It's pretty amazing, so thank you so much Lucy, Peryn, Carys and Luned. [Edit]

You'll notice one of my links over on the right is to the Believabelles website. I came across them on Twitter, although who pointed me in the direction I have no idea. But they're 3 lasses who are a good laugh and will be riding London to Paris next year. @Lisaseat registered on the Festive Bike Ride yesterday, but I'm skeptical...only because on the same day she announced she was having Vince Vaughan's baby!

Anyhoo. Training today has consisted of a 1.1 mile walk from my house to my parents to drop the Big littl'un off and then cycling the 1.8 miles to work. The diet today will consist of a chicken sandwich, sweets and chocolate cake kindly donated by Sue in my office.



I'll cycle back home and pick the boy up after work, and may cycle in to Harborne to get some decorations to stick on the bike.

In other news, our tree went up last night and the children were lovely in helping. Not so lovley them helping take the tree down this morning!

Have a good day people.

Challenge Accepted

Ok, some of you may know, some of you may not. I've just started (2 months counts as just started yeah?) as Events Fundraiser for a charity in Brum...Focus Birmingham. We support people with visual impairments.

So, what did I think a good Christmassy event would be...you got it...

a Bike Ride!

The other thing you should know about me is I love cycling. Now 'love' is an intersting word to use. I didn't use to get out on my bike very much at all. But after meeting some 2-wheelers during my time in Western Australia I found my love for cycling again...I bought a road bike, even bought one for the mrs...and they sat nicely in the back yard!

But I started watching the Tour de France again, as I used to with my Dad when I was young and that fire started burning again.

We moved back to Brum and I'd had my bike shipped back to and after a year in another shed, it's wheels finaly tasted British tarmac.

And now, well, I'm not doing as much riding as I'd like, it is winter after all, but I'm commuting to work (all of 10-15mins!) and doing the odd longer ride when possible. It has to be said I know very little about bikes and am relying on the knowledge of various websites and my brother in-law who also purchased a road bike and was another reason for getting back on the road.

So, back to the point of the blog...I organised the bike ride and yes 20 cyclists doing a bike ride in December would have been nice, but we're a bit short. But that does give me the opportunity to have a ride, and so somewhere along the line I decided that if I was sponsored £200 I would don a Santa suit and do the ride myself.

I mean, I've scouted the route, albeit it took nearly 4 hours! So, it'll be fun won't it??! Here's hoping.

So, I've accepted the challenge and Day One of training has involved cycling back from work (I'll get the distance of http://www.bikely.com/ in a bit) and stopping off at the chip shop for sausage, egg and chips for tea.

So, if you want to see photos of me puffing up a hill on a bike in a santa suit, you better get donating. Who needs Christmas cards anyway?!?! www.justgiving.com/AndyyK