"Chain...get us up the mountain! (over and over)"

I know that Apple products won't play YouTube stuff right off the bat, which means all you see is a blank canvas below and miss out on a tune that you'll know pretty well anyway...you'll have the same effect if you can hum Mac's 'The Chain' to yourself while you speed-read this nonsense.

With 12 (that's twelve, repeat twelve) days to go and counting, it's about time to dot the i's and cross the t's admin-wise. That includes replacing any suspect parts on the bike (excepting me) so as a result it now has a new chainset, chain and brake blocks. It is also about a pound lighter since it was washed, hah-hah!

Speaking of weight, at last some has left me...4 kgs, which is good news but I still want the scales to tell me that another 3 kgs  has departed, albeit on a short-term deal. (Note to the proprietors of The Ashiana and the Wesham Chippy: I know that you've had to issue a profits warning for Q2 and lay staff off but trust me...things are gonna pick-up big time in August!)

Hoping that this new chain & chainset are up to it. At least more so than me!

Another important part of the admin arrived from the organisers of the 'Club Des Cingles Du Mont-Ventoux': the bit of card that you carry with you during the challenge and get stamped at the bottom and top of the mountain so that you have some proof that you were actually stupid enough to attempt it! They even include a little plate that you attach to your bike just to mark you out as an imbecile, just in case it wasn't already obvious. Very thoughtful, those French...

Wanna end up with a fully stamped card!

In previous years there has usually been a team or event cycling jersey but since this challenge has a more 'select' demographic (read 'stupid'), I've gone down the budget route and had a couple of commemorative t-shirts knocked up, bit like wot that Stella McCartney sort would. This year's theme was 'basic & functional'. And 'cheap'.

'Ronseal' t-shirts. No muss, no fuss. And no style.

Rapha will be having sleepless nights once they see this fab gear.

Having said that, I did weaken and buy a cycling jersey from the Royal British Legion after seeing Suzanne Dando (one for the over 40s) model one: well, seemed a bit rude not to...

Possibly it'll look slightly more flattering on Ms D... 

Further adventures with social media continue in the vain hope of maybe getting some more donations in: this week the splendidly funny Omid Djalili was good enough to 'RT' or re-post my challenge to his 200,000 followers on Twitter. He also wished me luck, which was nice...

He was merciless about Lytham, hah-hah! Great live turn.

As with last week's promotion by cycling legend Jens Voight, this RT netted absolutely sod-all in the way of sponsorship. However, thanks to my work's internet site there were a few more donations from complete strangers which was tremendous to see, as well as some very generous wallet-openings from those who have given before. Massive thanks to everyone...the total for CRUK is £800 with the RBL at £450. Wow! I know there is more to come...

Here are a few photos of the speed-bump as taken by Andy back in 2011 when he completed three ascents of Ventoux in one day. He reckoned that was a Big Day...so let's double it!

We're looking at 85 miles at anything between 7-10%.

That all?

The long & winding, yeah yeah...you get the idea.

Could be blowing a hooley on the way up.

But before any of that joy can be sampled, I have the small matter of getting there to deal with!

This'll be me all too soon enough. Oh dear.

So why all this nause? As if you didn't know, hah-hah-hah! Trying to raise funds for two brilliant causes, one of which is Cancer Research UK...

Same deal for ALL of the UK.

...and the other is the Royal British Legion. Coincidentally, today is Armed Forces Day 2014 which is a timely reminder of the debt that we owe to others who have given again and again.

Some famous types who have given their backing to Armed Forces Day 2014. Oh look, there's Vinny!

The links are just below and I will give £10 for every £50 that you do. Aside from that, there is one other thing that would help, if you can do it...please share this blog and/or the JG links with your pals/acquaintances/enemies.

Cheers!

To support CANCER RESEARCH UK please click on this...thanks!

To help the The ROYAL BRITISH LEGION please click on this!

Bracket & Tubby!

Another week, another blog post with only the faintest whiff of contractural obligation around it, hah-hah! No really...it's all filler, no killer! Or something like that...

So it was Crockett & Tubbs? Whatever...none more 80s.

With only 3 (yes, three) weeks until wagons roll, training continues and I have been lucky with pretty decent weather which means that I have zero excuses not to get out there and do a bit. It's never too late, right? 

Last Saturday there was a little venture into the hurt locker that is the Forest Of Bowland: I think I escaped with a score draw...

Deceptively benign looking. Do not be fooled.

Terrific views thrown-in, gratis.

And after a shoeing on the fell, you can descend and collapse in Waddington!

These two eejits had gotten themselves up there but weren't clear on how to get down.

With my lame efforts I had displeased the Cycling Gods. Retribution came in the shape of a great big staple!

Minor mechanical shenanigans occurred this week with the demise of another bottom bracket: I'd like to say that is a result of the Wiggins-like amount of power that I'm generating. Truth would be more like that FSA components are garbage, hah-hah! Anyway, better to get all this nonsense sorted now.

At the risk of stating the bleedin' obvious, it is in my best interests to carry as little weight up Ventoux as I can, and to this end I have cut-out curries, fish'n'chips and the like, as well as cutting right back on beer and wine. Worst half-hour of my life I tells ya', and just what you want to be doing when there is a fairly important, televised football tournament taking place, hah-hah! Anyway, I go to weigh myself after a week or so and there is no flippin' difference! Just to add insult, I got this guff through my letterbox:

Love you too, 'Slimming World'. Now clear off.

On the plus side, the very bloke whose mantra that I have nicked for the title of this challenge, was good enough to 'RT' my appeal on Twitter. All this means is that potentially the 160,000 people who follow Jens Voight have the opportunity to have a look at this blog and perhaps be minded to donate. 

I'm on the right.

All well and good and duly the amount of people who did look at the blog sky-rocketed for a day or so. Not one of the cheap b*****ds sponsored me, hah-hah! Tells you all you need to know about the quality of the blog, I suppose. No matter, because the totals are rising and I cannot thank you enough on behalf of the RBL and CRUK.

In case you ever get to wondering about what good your money does, I can offer you this: I talked to someone the other day who had recently been given an 'all clear' after treatment for a particular strain of cancer. They had been told that they were fortunate not to have gotten the disease a decade ago as the treatment then was a great deal more unpleasant and debilitating. So your money does make a difference. Good on you!

The totals are coming along: on behalf of the RBL & CRUK: thank you!

Right, time to suffer Chiles, Tyldesley & Townsend and watch England ease Uruguay aside*...cheers!

Never mind bottom brackets, *this*  is what I should be getting fitted. Nice idea Mark!

The links are just below and I will give £1 for every £5 that you do. Aside from that, there is one other thing that would help, if you can do it...please share this blog and/or the JG links with your pals/acquaintances/enemies. Cheers!

To support CANCER RESEARCH UK please click on this...thanks!

To help the The ROYAL BRITISH LEGION please click on this!

(*Result may vary. D'oh!)

Just can't wait to get on the road again*...

At long last I have now booked my high-end accommodation down route: the usual mix of chains like Formule 1 and privately owned hotels which I hope are all relatively cyclist-friendly. Mind you, my requirements aren't exactly demanding: at the sore end of 140 heavy miles all you want is a shower, beer, food, somewhere safe to store the bike and a bed. If they can throw in a pair of new legs'n'lungs and derriere then so much the better!

(*A complete lie, hah-hah!)

Stage 1: Fri July 11th, Warton to Rugeley. 105 miles and 3500'.

"千里之行，始於足下", as the great Chinese philosopher Laozi said. Of course you'll recognise his "...every thousand mile journey begins with a small step" quote instantly, right?

Daft coincidence time: there's almost exactly the same amount of climbing on the way out as there is in the six Ventoux ascents.

Stage 2: Sat 12th July, Rugeley to London. 145 miles and 4000'.

Would you believe it? The very night I'm in The Smoke, Mr Neil Young will be deafening 70,000 punters in Hyde Park (not to mention Eminem at Wembley Stadium or Robbie Williams at the O2 Arena). I'm staying about 100 yards from the Royal Albert Hall but the live turn on there is a bit high-brow for me. If I was able, I'd go and see Shakey tear-up the Royal Park...

Stage 3: Sun 13th July, London to Dover. 90 miles and 4000'.

Bit of a schoolboy error made when I booked my ferry from Dover to Calais...didn't remember that it is the World Cup final that evening. Will get to see the first half I hope, but I don't expect to be seeing England there either. More chance of them being on the ferry, to be fair. (Memo to P & O: please, please, please show BBC coverage! #noChiles #noTyldesley #noTownsend.)

Stage 4: Mon 14th July, Calais to Saint-Quentin. 125 miles and 4000'.

I hope to be able to stop-off at a WW1 monument around Arras. 100 years ago since all that horror began...

Stage 5: Tues 15th July, Saint-Quentin to Saint-Dizier. 130 miles and 3500'.

Stage 6: Weds 16th July, Saint-Dizier to Dijon. 120 miles and 3500'.

Don't ask me why I'm taking this particular routeing: I've placed all my faith in Google to get me pointing in the right direction. Worked alright last year. Apart from the time that I was stopped by the German motorway cops...

Stage 7: Thurs 17th July, Dijon to Vienne. 145 miles and 4000'.

To be honest, up to now I have fixated only on the ridiculous '24 hours of Ventoux' side of this challenge and have forgotten just how grim the long transit days will be, and I am out of my '120 miles max' comfort zone on most days. You'd have have to be a complete eejit to underestimate or be blase about undertaking this, ahem...

Stage 8: Fri 18th July, Vienne to Carpentras. 130 miles and 2500'.

As you can see there are two long stages to get into Carpentras on the Friday, one week after setting-off on this nonsense. I really hope that the weather is kind...any chance of a stonking tailwind? Oh well, just thought I'd ask. Might get a set of these bad-boys fitted:

Aero-bars can add 2 or 3 mph to your average speed...

A great, big thank you to you generous people who've donated already. It is a big gee-up to keep on getting out there to train!

The sorry after-effects of attempting intervals on Waddington Fell.

The links are just below and I will give £1 for every £5 that you do. Aside from that, there is one other thing that would help, if you can do it...please share this blog and/or the JG links with your pals/acquaintances/enemies. Cheers!

To support CANCER RESEARCH UK please click on this...thanks!

To help the The ROYAL BRITISH LEGION please click on this!

Fairly sure there won't be any sightings of Ms Crow.

Seventy years on.

Quite rightly you can't help but be aware that today is the 70th anniversary of the Normandy Landings or D-Day as it is widely known. The reason for the larger-than-usual interest in this milestone is not just because the sacrifice of so many lives in the pursuit of stopping Hitler's insanity or because '70' is a nice, round number either necessarily, although both form part of the rationale.

What makes this year's commemoration so poignant is that there are fewer and fewer veterans from that invasion that are still able to make the trip to Normandy to pay their own respects. To put it bluntly, this weekend's events will be the last time that many of these soldiers will be able to participate in person.

This moving poem was left at the Commonwealth Cemetery in Bayeux.

Robert Capa's photos give an inkling into the blind terror of these assaults.

'The Fallen' is a project to mark the loss of 9000 lives during the landings.

He'll never forget and neither should we.

Those photographs can only give a tiny insight into the sheer scale of sacrifice that was made by so many. For once Hollywood seems to have been realistic in its depiction of the landings if the reactions to the harrowing opening scenes in 'Saving Private Ryan' are anything to go by. I won't post a link here: you know where you can find clips easily.

As much as we should never forget these landings or the people involved, the British Legion is also about looking forward and trying to help those who served in our Armed Services. Its aims are rehabilitation, transition and trying to give focus to lives that have been irreversibly changed in the line of serving Queen and Country.

For these people it's year-round, not just in November...

Prince Harry is a committed supporter of veterans' charities.

Of course to do that it relies on the generosity of the British public: the British Legion spends over £1.7M per week in the course of helping these veterans and their families. We owe them too. If you agree then please follow the link to my JustGiving page: I will give £1 for every £5 that you give. Thank you.

To support our veterans both young & old please click HERE!

Who-ooo are you...Ventoux, Ventoux?

Since I announced this nonsense to the world I have people stopping to ask me*,
"What is this Mont Ventoux Challenge of which you speak? Do you have any sponsorship links?". Well, I'll tell you, and I hope you're sitting comfortably:

- There are three roads up to the summit at 6300 feet and to complete this challenge you need to ride each climb twice in the same calendar day. So that's 6 x 14 miles at an average gradient of 9%...same as cycling from Preston to Carlisle...up a 9% incline. Looks like someone's got an early start, hah-hah-d'oh!

- The total amount of cycling is 170 miles and the total amount of climbing is 29,500 feet. Mount Everest stands at 29,029 feet. The only good news that I can take from this is that half of those 170 miles are downhill. You can't exactly relax though, especially given that the first descent will be in the dark...I have been warned about various nocturnal animals darting out in front of you. Oh deer.

- The weather will have a big old say in how kind the climbs will be. The highest recorded wind speed at the summit is 200 mph, although since I gleaned that 'fact' from Wikipedia it may not bear scrutiny, hah-hah!
Scratch that: just checked and unfortunately it does. Also, we can expect it to be a f**king oven once the sun rises, so that will be nice! Must not fixate on Kronenbourg 1664 or similar.

Above the tree-line there ain't nothing going on. Except the climb...still, looks nice doesn't it?

- Last year Chris Froome was on his way to winning the Tour de France and finished a stage on top of Ventoux. The lanky so-and-so absolutely stormed the 14 miles and 5000 feet in 59 minutes. Each climb will take me about 2 hours and 30 minutes. Not expecting any calls from Sir Dave Brailsford!

It is fantastic to see donations for Cancer Research already, so a really big thank you to those who have dug deep.
As per previous years I will donate £1 for every £5 raised: if you can select Gift Aid too on the JustGiving pages then we are on to a winner! The links are over on the right and also just below...cheers!

(*complete lie.)

To support CANCER RESEARCH UK please click on this...thanks!

To help the The ROYAL BRITISH LEGION please click on this!

Whose bright idea was this?

Hello...again...hello!

Probably not the last you'll hear from Neil Diamond on this blog if I'm honest, so sorry about that. I'll cut right to the chase because time is tight (Booker T...none finer): in fact the wee countdown clock just to the right tells me that I should be out on the bike sweating instead of sitting indoors typing this nonsense!

This year's challenge is to start pedalling solo from Warton in sunny (and hopefully tail-windy) Lancashire on Friday 11th July and arrive in Carpentras, which is right down in the far end of France. So that's 1000 miles in 7 and a bit days, carrying about 35lbs (16kg for you youngsters) of baggage. That's part one...

HGV needs IPA.

Can we not straighten that line a bit?

After a day-off I'll be joined by my regular partner in lycra crime, Mr Andy Wickham and then we have a go at Mont Ventoux, big time. The idea is to complete as many ascents of the 'Beast Of Provence' as we can in one day. Andy did three ascents in 2011 in a day which qualified him for membership of the 'Club des Cingles du Mont-Ventoux' which translates loosely as 'Club Of Screwballs'.

The Giant or Beast of Provence. Merde!

This time we are aiming at six ascents which equates to cycling uphill for 85 miles (imagine Preston to Carlisle) up a gradient of about 9% average, and climbing just shy of 30,000 feet which is more than the height of Mount Everest. Not quite sure if I have words to describe what that loosely translates into...
Only eight English cyclists have completed this challenge (one of them is a guy who was in our Team Lanterne Rouge from a couple of years back: take a bow, Mozza!) and so far zero cyclists from Norn Iron!

Gets a bit blowy up here apparently. Record is about 190 mph.

Each year these challenges have gotten steadily worse but this marks a new low. Before I get the violins out, the reason for attempting this is to try and persuade you to sponsor me and divert some of your ill gotten/hard earned cash towards two very, very deserving causes: the Royal British Legion and Cancer Research UK.

By now, the word 'cancer' will have affected your life on more than one occasion I'll bet: maybe a family member or friend or even someone you have never met but who means something to you. CRUK are constantly working to find out how we can halt the disease in its many forms but this takes a lot of money to fund.

Adoring fan stalks Wilko Johnson who fights on and on. Go Wilks!

2014 marks the centenary of the start of The Great War and also the 70th anniversary of the Normandy Landings which will spotlight the veterans who gave everything for their country. Unfortunately there are many more people who served in the Armed Forces and have suffered in the numerous conflicts since 1945 and this is where the RBL come in. These are people who deserve our thanks and support.

The RBL works with other service charities too and needs our help.

As per previous years I will donate £1 for every £5 raised: if you can select Gift Aid too on the JustGiving pages then we are on to a winner! The links are over on the right and also just below...cheers!

To support CANCER RESEARCH UK please click on this...thanks!

To help the The ROYAL BRITISH LEGION please click on this!