Say Yes More and Be like Gao!

It's been pretty cold over the last few weeks here in Bristol so I'm currently doing all of my cycling indoors on my turbo and even though I don't mind it too much, sometimes finding the inspiration to go out to the shed can be difficult. A bit like going to the gym it's always fine once you're there and doing your workout, but sometimes when you get home from work you just want to have a cup of tea and listen to a podcast - at least that's what I like to do on a typical Tuesday!

One of the many amazing things about Bristol is that every year in the winter a series of talks are put on called the Wilderness Lectures and feature a selection of speakers all with a unique and engaging story to tell. I've been to a few now and I always try to catch a couple each year if I can as they're a perfect antidote to the often terrible weather we have in January and February. Last year the stand out talk for me was Dave Cornthwaite and his 'Say Yes More' approach to life which really started to spark my imagination and gave me the confidence to consider all of the possibilities that are out there. It's a simple but powerful philosophy and you don't have to spend long on Dave's website to see the amazing impact it's had. If you need any more convincing then you have to watch this video about his Expedition 1000; don't let comfort kill your ambition!

This year I had planned to go and see the legendary Martyn Ashton, British and World Champion mountain bike trials rider who also made the phenomenal Road Bike Party videos - which have clocked up something like 30 million views on YouTube. Sadly his appearance at the Wilderness Lectures was cancelled at the last minute due to a hospital appointment but the organisers pulled in a last minute replacement in the form of Stephen Fabes. His story of cycling around the world over six years was pretty spectacular with some amazing photography, particularly his pictures of cycling across a frozen lake in Northern Mongolia. It was actually his experience in Africa talking about access to medical care in remote areas that really made me settle on my chosen charity. If you live in rural Africa and your nearest hospital or doctors surgery is miles away and your only option is to walk, then having a bike can be life changing. I'll talk more about the World Bicycle Relief charity in a different post as they're an amazing organisation that provides bikes to people in the developing world, and although Stephen isn't connected to WBR (at least not that I'm aware of), his talk in general inspired me to make the decision to raise money for this cause.

The other brilliant speaker I saw recently was Sarah Outen who was talking about her incredible London2London: Via the World expedition. It saw her get around the globe using a rowing boat, bike and kayak, with plenty of dramatic stories along the way. She even had to abandon her ocean rowing boat twice (in the Pacific and North Atlantic), which brought back memories of my friends who attempted the North Atlantic crossing in 2008 when their boat sank and they to get rescued. You can watch a documentary about the Scilly Boys crossing here. Sarah's mental toughness shone through in her talk which resonated strongly with me but it was her story of someone she met in China that hit home the most. Gao was a bloke that she met in North West China whilst restocking at a petrol station (I think!) and he was so enthused by what she was doing, cycling 10,000 miles across Europe and Asia to Beijing, that he wanted to join her. At the time there was still around 3,000 miles to go and Gao didn't even own a bike, but he wasn't going to let that stop him. Although Sarah had her reservations, she gave him a shopping list of supplies and a few days later he turned up fully equipped and ready to join her. You can see more of that part of her journey in the video below and it's an amazing story. Gao had never ridden more than six miles before but he had the courage to just get on with it and not be afraid to take that first step! On her website Sarah says that Gao really epitomises the spirit of adventure that she wants to inspire in others and it certainly had that effect on me. I'm sure on plenty of others in the audience as well!

In comparison to all of these people I'm aware that our own little trip might seem small in comparison, but small adventures matter just as much, and if you want even smaller check out Alastair Humprey's Microadventures, another past Wilderness Lecture speaker. Ultimately it's about sparking curiosity, getting out of your comfort zone and challenging your own perception of what you thought you could do. There are adventures inside everyone and it's inspirational people like this who can help unlock your potential to get out and live your own legend.

To follow on social media and find out more about the speakers mentioned above check out the details below!
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Dave Cornthwaite
davecornthwaite.com
Twitter: @DaveCorn

Stephen Fabes
cyclingthe6.com
Twitter: @cyclingthe6

Sarah Outen
www.sarahouten.com
Twitter: @SarahOuten

Which way to Montpellier?

Over a couple of ciders last Sunday Gareth and I sat in the pub with our laptops and started to discuss the finer details of our cycling challenge. Neither of us has done a cycling trip of this distance before and even though I've been cycling regularly for 4 or 5 years, I've never done a proper multi-day trip. I'm sure that Gareth would freely admit he's not done much cycling in the past, but at least he's cycled to Paris before!

So far our bible has been the excellent book 'France en Velo', written by Hannah Reynold and John Walsh, as it goes into a good amount of detail for cycling from St Malo to Nice. Now we're not going quite as far as we'll be turning right a bit before Nice, but the information in the book is fantastic and it's been a real time saver so far when planning which roads to take. I especially like the way the trip is broken into short stages to let you customise each day to your own desire and that it gives some recommendations for accommodation depending on what you're after and how much you want to spend. You can read more about the book and order a copy yourself at the France en Velo website.

With the idea being that we'd raise money for charity we don't want to make the journey too easy, plus we've only got a short amount of time available to us - mainly from work - to allow us to complete the trip. Looking over the book and our availability we've decided to cover the entire route in 10 days of cycling, which is broken down as 1 day in the UK cycling from Bristol to Portsmouth, and then 9 days cycling in France from St Malo to Montpellier. I'm pretty sure that this makes it a decent challenge! We've also put some though into rewarding ourselves a little so we've got a couple of days in Montpellier at the end to enjoy the beach and show off our cycling tans.

We've sketched out our first draft parcours, which is what you'll see in the Google Map on the right hand side of this blog, but subject to change (and I'm sure there'll be a few) these are the stages of our tour:

• Stage 1 - Montpelier to Portsmouth, 159km/99 miles
• Stage 2 - St Malo to Vitre, 128km/80 miles
• Stage 3 - Vitre to Fontevraud l'Abbeye, 195km/121 miles
• Stage 4 - Fontevraud l'Abbeye to L'Isle-Jourdain, 180km/111 miles
• Stage 5 - L'Isles-Jourdain to Brantôme, 128km/80 miles
• Stage 6 - Brantôme to Souillac, 162km/102 miles
• Stage 7 - Souillac to Entraygues-sur-Truyère, 148km/92 miles
• Stage 8 - Entraygues-sur-Truyère to Villefort, 176km/109 miles
• Stage 9 - Villefort to Châteauneuf-du-Pape, 149km/93 miles
• Stage 10 - Châteauneuf-du-Pape to Montpellier, 130km/80 miles

At the moment I'm trying not to look at the numbers in one go as they are pretty daunting, but it's also incredibly exciting. The prospect of revisiting a few places on the route that I've been to before when I was travelling through Europe around 12 years ago with some friends in a van, will also be a bit of trip down nostalgia lane. Stage 8 is going to be a particular highlight for me as I'm hoping that we'll have the chance to visit the monkey forest near Rocamadour. Feeding monkeys popcorn was an odd experience so I'm eager to go back, although I'm wondering if the angry monkey that tried to attack me last time is still there. I don't want a monkey related injury ending my ride!

Finally, those eagle eyed among you might have realised that that we're taking a slight detour at stage 9 rather than heading straight for Montpellier. Our penultimate stop will be at Châteauneuf-du-Pape, well known for its wine and we couldn't really cycle by it when it doesn't demand a huge detour. I've not mentioned yet that we'll have a support driver for our journey, our very good friend Ryan, and knowing that he's a lover of wine we thought it would be best to keep him happy as well! The final reason is that Gareth and I love this video about how to pronounce Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Yes it's silly and ridiculous, but it makes us laugh and I'm sure we'll be mimicking it many times when we're on our tour in September.

Always keep riding...

Back in April 2016 I watched the prestigious one day bike race Paris-Roubaix on TV and it turned out to be one of the best cycling races I've ever seen. The eventual winner was Mat Hayman who was riding for the Orica-GreenEDGE team and he later said that the best advice he'd ever been given was simply "always keeping riding". It certainly worked for him and I'm sure it'll be a mantra I'll be using in nine months time as I cycle, along my with friend Gareth, from Montpelier in Bristol to Montpellier in France. If you want to watch a great behind the scenes video of that Paris-Roubaix win then you can watch it here - it's always good for inspiration!

But back to our cycling trip! For around three or four years now Gareth has been talking about doing a ride from Montpelier in Bristol to the similarly named city in the south of France, but as with many things life has somewhat got in the way and it's continually been a "one day" idea. The concept for the trip stayed in both of our minds and the time has finally arrived where we can take from the page to the road!

In September we'll be setting off on this challenge, which is around about 1,500km, or similar to John O'Groats to Lands End in old money, and we'll be doing it all for charity as well. Further details on our chosen charities will be covered in later posts and we'll also post about our preparations ahead of the trip. This will include details about the route we're taking, our training, the kit we're using and then during the ride itself we'll be blogging from the road in all its pain and glory.

Until next time here's a picture of my Rose X-Lite CRS with my cat Haruki as it wouldn't be a good blog post without a cat in it!

A photo posted by Jim (@jimgey) on Feb 5, 2016 at 7:28am PST