At last New Year’s Party I was chatting with a friend, Simon (the mud-covered chap below), and he told me that he intended to cycle from Newcastle to London in 24 hours to celebrate his birthday. If anyone could do it he could, but no – I wasn’t interested in his kind invitation to join him. I mean, I’d be delighted to do something like a 10K run with him or, perhaps, cycle the Devon coast to coast – but Newcastle to London? Seriously? Do I look like a bloody idiot? I know my limitations!
Unfortunately Simon is no longer able to do the Newcastle to London ride, but I feel somehow that someone must. I don’t know why I feel this – but I do. And it would appear that I do look like a bloody idiot*, and my knowledge of my limitations is clearly rather sketchy.
So I’ve signed up to do the Newcastle to London in 24 hours, and I must now treat my body very nicely, with lots of water, fruit and veg, and exercise to get it into shape for the ordeal that I intend to subject it to.
24 hours is a nice aspirational target – but 28 hours might be more realistic for me (luckily, the organisers of the event don’t seem to mind that slow-coaches will be riding). In all honesty though, I fear I may have bitten off more than I can chew. I’ll do my best to complete – but, right now, I’m not sure that I can**. Coach, I need your help – and now.
Simon was a big supporter of Parkinson’s UK. Ride 24 supports Macmillan but it is possible to do it for a different charity instead. Sorry Macmillan, you’re a great Charity, but I’ll follow Simon’s lead and do it for Parkinsons. I’ll also be supporting the British Heart Foundation.
So what can you do to help me? Well, several things:
- Follow the donation links (Parkinsons – https://www.justgiving.com/Pascal-Harris, British Heart Foundation – https://www.justgiving.com/Pascal-Harris1) and donate, please. Be generous. And please leave a message too.
- Don’t ask me if I’ll take cash for sponsorship. I won’t. I’m doing the ride – you do your bit by signing up to give.
- Sign up at Ride 24 and join me. The more the merrier. It’ll definitely help as I hit the mental wall in the dead of night.
- Come out and cheer me on. I’ll give you details of the route as soon as I have it. Hopefully my wife will update this site with ETAs for the various waypoints. Pick your nearest and yell at me.
- Tweet a link to this page. Facebook the hell out of this. The object is to get my support and sponsorship to such a frenzied level that my server falls over, exhausted after a long squawk. Of course, this will be a pointless exercise if I don’t get lots of sponsorship out of this too!
Honestly, this scares the crap out of me. But it should be pretty memorable, for me at least. And you can rest assured that I’ll be looking forward to a post-ordeal beer in the Akeman for the entire duration of the ride.
*Twice over – once for doing it, and I’ll look like a double-dipstick if I fail to complete. This will take a miracle.
**No refunds if I try and fail. If you feel swindled then just think that your hard-earned has gone to a good cause.