Every year I enter the ballot to compete in the Ride London 100, a 100 mile closed road event starting from the Olympic Park and passing through the many Hills of Surrey finishing on the Mall. Every year I fail to get in... this year was no exception, but my chum Winston who rode for a charity team last year suggested that we should put a team in.
Despite this being my second Charity event this year, (I hate my sponsors to feel abused) I agreed, as did a few others...
We're riding as a team for the charity, United Response who are now looking for more team entrants so they asked me to do a Q&A about the TeamBreakfastBike entry in the hope of inspiring others.
They put this on their blog, I thought I'd share it with you...
Team Breakfast Bike tackle RideLondon
by Sarah Riddlestone
On 31st July, Steve, and 6 of his friends, will be cycling RideLondon on behalf of United Response in a bid to raise much needed funds. We spoke to Steve to see how they’re getting on…
So, what’s the meaning behind ‘Team Breakfast Bike’?
There’s around 20 of us, we meet each Saturday (usually at my place) for coffee, cake and general banter, then struggle out into the world for either a road ride, or a mountain bike ride. The ride depends on the weather and what people fancy, and an average ride will see between 4 and 10 folk turn up.
The breakfast bit of #TeamBreakfastBike is that although there’s often cake before the ride, (I like to bake), there’s usually a communal breakfast on our return, team-cooking of eggs, bacon, toast, sharing chat and eating before dispersing to do other Saturday stuff. Which is nice.
How do you know each other?
We’re a sociable group mostly local to Surrey but we also have joiners from as far afield as Germany, France, and even Singapore. It started off as an occasional mountain-bike ride followed by breakfast about 5 years ago. Some of us have known each other for 30 years, others have met one of us in a pub, on a ride or at the gym and said, "Do you fancy coming along", it usually works.
What are you doing to train?
Most of us do a ride or two a week. We have a cavalier approach to training, most of us are heading toward elderly and staving that off with visits to the gym, the doctor and our wine merchants. An average ride can be around 25k off-road or 60 to 90k, on a road ride, depending on the quality of the route-finding. A couple of us drove to Scotland to take part in the 132k Etape Caledonia, a drive of 1000 miles for an 81 mile bike ride! But it was a very nice ride.
What made you want to cycle RideLondon for United Response?
Winston is a big fan of United Response and he suggested we put a team together. A few of us failed to get ballot places so it seemed like a good idea, it’s a worthy cause and we generally have nice lives, so it’s nice to give a little back.
Do you have any special plans for fundraising?
Anna tends towards making cakes and encouraging people to pay generous amounts for them, it’s like a Mafioso Mary Berry, but most of us rely on the good natured generosity of clients, suppliers, business acquaintances, friends and family.
What are you looking forward to most about the race?
Pssst, it’s not a race!!! :) We’ve all done closed-road rides and that’s always fun, obviously the Surrey leg is an area we know and cycle a lot so we’ll be looking for lots of our supporters to be out there shouting for us. Personally I’ve always been jealous of my marathon-running wife who’s enjoyed a finish up the Mall, that will be a first for me and I’m really looking forward to it.
Labels: blogfromthebarn, Cake, charity, olympic park, Pru 100, Ride London, Surrey Hills, teambreakfastbike, United Response
posted by Stuffy @ 11:49 am
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