journeytothepoint

Things are really rolling now

Chris | August 8th, 2009

Whew! What a couple of weeks it has been.. I’m really starting to realise the magnitude of organising something like this. However, although it constantly feels like we need to sort something else out, when I take a second to draw breath and look at everything, it does seem the plan is coming together.

Our planned route seems fairly set now, however it all depends on whether the monsoons really will have come to an end when we set off in early September – my Indian friends telling me they ‘should’ be over is doing little to calm my nerves. We will ride down a nice small coastal road between Mumbai and Goa, before cutting inland and heading for Bangalore and Mysore. Then up into the steep Western Ghat mountains of Ooty, Mettupalayam and Coimbatore, before heading down to Kanyakumari. I’m starting to wonder if I’m going to regret our ambition in one of the steep hairpin bends on the way up to Ooty?

The biggest thing up in the air at the moment is that Jason has only been able to get 4 weeks unpaid leave from work, which means it is unlikely he will be able to accompany me all the way. More of that below. However, my good friends James and Rita say they are up for the challenge and have no fears due to their 35 km daily commute here in Beijing!

We have already received great advice and support from the fantastic brain tumour charity brainstrust. They are backing Alex’es treatment fund. Details on this can be found at http://www.brainstrust.org.uk/little-ships.php. As a result we have decided that sponsorship will be raised 80:20 – 80% of the money raised on our JustGiving page will go directly towards helping Alex Jones getting the proton beam therapy crucial to his survival, the remaining 20% will go directly to the charity for all the other work they are involved in. Meanwhile, eyes are all glued to how Alex is progressing in his blog (http://www.protonbeamalex.com/news_events.php).

I am happy to say we have already raised over 850 pounds for our ride, thank you so much to all those who have sponsored so far, I’m desperately hoping we can break through £1000 by the end of the month…

There’s an A1 piece of paper stuck to my living room wall with the whole plan for preparing for the ride. All the colour marker pens and arrows going in strange directions are particularly confusing for my Chinese girlfriend, who has to sit there and look at it when eating her supper. Last week the focus has been on approaching potential corporate sponsors, we’ve tried everything from charities who do rides in far off places like India, proton beam therapy equipment providers, ex-schools, etc., etc. I am happy to say we already have the backing of the high-profile Indian cancer charity https://www.indiacancer.org/. They will provide a prominent write-up on our trip in their website and also have agreed to help fund raise for Alex through their website. Brilliant news!

Then there’s my training, which is particularly puny in comparison to the Jason Luckett army regime. I’m averaging about somewhere between 150-200 km a week at the moment, having settled into a fairly settled routine of cycling four times a week. Two smaller rides cycling over to the other side of town for spinning and pilates during the week – however the ‘other side of town’ in Beijing can mean more than 20 kilometres. Then two longer rides out of town on the weekend, one on the flat and the other up in the hills surrounding the Ming Tombs or the Underwater Great Wall.

We have the Facebook group for the ride up, now there’s the small matter of making our presence known on Twitter and getting the dedicated website up and running in a, er.., week. The Chinese version will follow the week after, it’s non-stop stuff this end! All this with me in China and the Chinese firewall deciding to block YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Jason’s had to set-up the Facebook group and send me screenshots so that we get it finished. Things will certainly be easier when I am back in the UK in a fortnight, oh yeah – I’ve got to book my flights and buy some Indian road maps yet!