Southampton to Barcelona - by bike

Today the boys started cycling at 8am (French time) and after 9 hours of hard slog completed the first 75 miles of their route. They stopped at 5pm french time and managed to convince some locals in Notre-Dame-du-Bois to let them stay just outside their closed camp site!!! The map shows the total journey completed and their current location - it will be updated as often as possible.

As Ren is obviously going to be a bit busy over the next few weeks, he has left me in charge of updating the blog so you can track their progress. He will be sending me regular messages, photos and possibly video footage so watch this space…
Last night at approximately 5:15pm, the boys set off on their adventure. They left St Mary’s Football Stadium to cheers from about 50 people and I know it meant a lot to them that so many friends and family showed such good support.
After leaving, they only managed to get as far as Bursledon when Rich’s front pannier broke – thankfully it was only a minor problem and could be fixed at the ferry terminal in Portsmouth.
After a bite to eat and pint of Guinness we said our sad farewells and they set sail to Le Havre. I spoke to Ren this morning and he said that they had slept surprisingly well and although struggled slightly navigating their way out of Le Havre were feeling positive about what was ahead.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for your support and generosity – if you view the JustGiving page, you will see that donations to date have tipped them over the original £4000 target and I know there are sponsor forms circulating that will top up the total further. This brings us back to what this about – the money raised will be greatly received by the Cystic Fibrosis Trust and put towards finding a cure for this cruel disease.
Thank you once again and keep viewing,
Kate x

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