Southampton to Barcelona - by bike

Saturday 1st March saw the (now annual) CF quiz night take place at Bursledon village hall. Each year we organise a quiz night in relation to whatever challenge we set to help raise funds for the CF trust.

This year's event topped anything we have previously raised on one of these nights - a staggering £2000! Thanks to all of you who attended and dug deep into your pockets. People donated way beyond what we were expecting which is fantastic!

A massive thank you to Chris and Angie Hall who covered all of our running costs (bar, food and hall hire) totalling £467.92 - this meant that all money raised has been donated to CF Trust as we had no outgoings.

It's now only 3 weeks until we set off and we're getting pretty excited. I just hope the French weather is kind to us.

I recently stumbled on the above picture on the internet of someone cycling through the Pyrenees and thought it looked pretty cool. If we're blessed with similiar weather I'll be well happy.

This week (wk commencing 11/02/08) we received an extremely generous donation of £1000 from Abbotswood Properties Ltd. This goes a long way towards achieving our £4000 target.

We would like to thank Ann Hauser and all at Abbotswood for this amazing contribution.

Ann also wanted to wish us good luck and had the following message for us:

"Good luck Richard, Lee and Michael! Go for it!! Love Ann x"

Last Friday Rich and I popped along to St Mary's stadium to have some photos taken with our friend and Saints player, Andy Surman. Photographers from The Daily Echo, Southampton University magazine and Southampton FC were there, and will all be covering the story. The aim being to help the sponsorship drive.

The story was covered in today's issue of the daily echo, click on the following link to read the story.
http://renstout.googlepages.com/lee-echo.pdf

Here's a picture of some Tour de France cyclists descending through the Pyrenees during a previous tour.
We will be passing through very similar territory, but unlike the tour riders we will be hauling around 40kg of equipment with us. That's not to mock the tour riders though - those guys are super-human.

That's right, Rich didn't have a bike until the end of December (much like myself before doing John O Groats to Lands End). He's gone out and bought himself exactly the same model as me - a Marin Muirwoods. Well it's the same other than his is a 2008 model (mine's a 2006), something that he claims makes it better, and that I contest with kiddish quips.

This time of year is rubbish for trying to train for a big ride as the weather is crap and the days are short. We have started to clock the miles up though, getting out over the Christmas break and battling through some pretty bad hangovers. We're lucky enough to live near the New Forest and this makes for some pretty cool riding.

We've also now booked our ferry tickets from Portsmouth to Le Harve, and also our return flights home from Barcelona. We all know what airline cancellation policies are like, so unless we want to be out of pocket, we have to do it now. It's good actually - it makes the whole thing seem like a reality.

The next thing for us to do is plan the route down through France, taking in the mini-Pyrenees, the full on Pyrenees, and then the short stretch through Spain to Barcelona. Mind you knowing us, we'll probably leave this until the last minute and just wing our way through.

We're now just 3 months from kick-off! Bring it on! I've only been back at work for two days and I'm already feeling the monotony.

The other big issue on the agenda is the sponsorship. We aim to raise £4000 for the Cystic Fibrosis trust and so far we only have £150. In my experience of fundraising though, these things always take a while to get going. We will be organising a few events to raise cash, I'll update soon.

Cheers,
Lee

Well, hopefully this is the start of the adventure. Since riding from John O' Groats to Lands end in May 2006 I've been searching for the next challenge and it isn't easy coming up with a decent, worthwhile adventure that fits around the day job.

I've really been inspired by an expedition that I have been part of called expedition 360. The expedition marked the first human powered circumnavigation of the globe - I came on board late on and offered my skills as an events organiser and managed the completion event in Greenwich. If you have never heard of the expedition then have a peek at the website www.expedition360.com

Anyway back to this trip. The idea of cycling to Barcelona popped into my head a couple of weeks ago. The original plan was to cycle from Paris to Barca, but after speaking to Mike via email, he suggested that we just leave from Southampton and pedal the whole way. So that was it, plain and simple. Nothing complicated, just a simple bike trip.

There will be some tough stages to get through though - anyone that is familiar with the Tour de France knows that the Pyrenees section of the tour often sorts the men from the boys and has determined the winner on many occasions. It involves some massive climbs and some amazing scenery. I'm really looking forward to tackling these.

We will be running several charity events in the build up to the expedition, one of them being a casino night, which should be useful for extracting money from people, and also a good laugh. The aim is to raise £4000 for the Cystic Fibrosis trust. All of the money raised will go towards finding a cure for the disease.

If you would like to sponsor us then please go to our charity page www.justgiving.com/renster

That's all for now.
Cheers,
Ren