In order to boost our totaliser we recently held a fundraiser for both charities at the Old Bookshop here in Bristol and, despite it all being very last minute, we managed to pull off an amazingly successful night. We were lucky to get some fantastic support from a variety of Bristol businesses such as Friendly Records, Corks of Bristol, Jakes Bikes, Bristol Zoo and the Bristol Beer Factory, who all provided prizes for us to raffle off on the night. Music early on in the night was provided by Dang Radio, playing some killer funk and soul which started to get the place moving and pull the crowds into the bar area. To finish the night off we managed to get legendary Bristol icon Roni Size, a former Mercury Music Prize winner, to do a DJ set for us for about and hour and half. It wasn't completely random, he's known our support driver Ryan for quite a few years and was happy to help us in our effort to raise as much money as possible for charity. In the end we raised £810 on the night to split between World Bicycle Relief and Thyroid Cancer Support West - thanks to everyone who helped us out and donated on the night!
With only 26 days left we're definitely in the last few weeks of preparation as Gareth and I try to fit in as much training as possible and the three of us make sure we've got everything sorted for 10 days worth of camping. On the whole it's coming together and we've got a test weekend coming up soon - we're going to cycle down to Portsmouth and back over the weekend to check out the route for the first day's ride which will take us down to catch the ferry to France. Primarily it's a chance for us to see how long that first day will take, as we've got a deadline in order to catch the ferry so we don't want to miss that on the first day. Aside from that it's a great chance for some decent endurance training with two 100 mile days in the saddle back to back, which will give us a bit of feel (mostly in our bums) for how it'll be once we're heading across France.
Although this blog has been fairly infrequent until now, it'll definitely become more regular as we approach our leaving date and we'll be posting every day once we're on the road. We're hoping to post video diaries as well so that you can read and see how we're getting on. It not long to go so it's probably time to make the most of this sunshine and get back out on the bike for a few more miles!
