Rebel with a cause

Well woke up this morning a little worse for wear.

Why the title?  it has nothing to do with yesterday but I thought it was a catchy title, I better explain what relevance it has with the last couple of days. If you are new to my blog that is a clue, basically up until two days ago around 120 different people had stumbled across my blog (thanks regulars), so to boost readership I thought I would do a bit of promoting on social networking websites.

I used Facebook along with Twitter. I have 261 friends (yes check me out) or 261 people that have lost to me in a drunken breakdancing competition, so Thursday I started posting a link to the blog going through my friends list. After a little while a message came up that I was adding too many posts too quickly; it could be perceived as spamming and I had to type in two words to prove I wasn't an automatic computer program. I then left it a little while and did another batch of names again the message came up, the same happened Friday after work and to my horror yesterday morning I had been suspended on Facebook for what could last between a few hours and a few days.

So that is the Rebel part of the equation, now I will explain to the 100 new readers (as a result of the post rampage) of the blog what my cause is. In five days time I will be embarking on a 250 mile sponsored cycle ride from Bristol to Lands End in just two and a half days. This is to raise money for the much needed renovation of the Bristol Oncology Centre in the Bristol Royal Infirmary, so far they have raised £1.5 million and have only the last £100 thousand to go. Personally I have set a target and thanks to some generous donations I am at £830 which help towards improving the experience Cancer patients have when the are receiving treatment. For anyone that hasn't yet sponsored me you can click on the Justgiving link at the top and bottom of this page or the widget thingy on the right hand side. Just like a big supermarket says Every Little Helps.

I hope the blog has been vaguely interesting I have done a lot of different things when writing the posts like Critical Mass, Bike Polo and to follow nicely on what I got up to yesterday. Last post I mentioned briefly about the Mr Berridge challenge. For those of you that do not know we are in the middle of a two day Bike Festival, in the programme on page 15 I noticed a challenge which included cycling and beer, who could resist. I rang the organiser Hintsch who I then met yesterday morning at the Full Moon pub in Stokes Croft to help set up. I had to lift 12 cider barrels into the back of a van and 3 large beer barrels, it felt like I was on World's Strongest Man on Channel Five. We then got in the van which betrayed what my mother had told me as a young lad not to get in cars with adults you do not know (sorry Mum).

We transported the barrels 13 Miles to Bath and waited for the entrants to arrive.  We had a talk about how we thought the day would go over an Apricot Jam sandwich. The discussion include any problems we may encounter and at this point I had been promoted to co-organiser when Hintsch introduce us to our band of helpers. The bikes were amazing, it was like being in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, some of the work that had gone in to making the bikes was unbelievable. We then assembled Hintsch's bike which was two bicycles side by side with a trailer attached between them. This carried our barrel, I was the co-rider.

We set off at 2.30pm on the Bristol to Bath cycle path (a disused railway line that has been converted to a traffic free route by Sustrans cycle charity) after a group photo. We had a great laugh on the way, especially trying to lift some of the contraptions over locked gates as the were too big to manoeuvre through the sides. After just under two hours we got back to the pub to a fanfare welcome. Well I say fanfare but we arrived five minutes at the end of the set of the first band so we waited for that to finished to received our certificates from the compare to rapturous applause and complementary Cider from the bar. This also gave me an opportunity to test my new phone with built in GPS and use the updating map on the right hand side of my blog, which you will able to view next weekend to see how I am getting on. 

Now you are probably wondering the relevance of Mr Berridge. In Victorian times he cycled 16 miles from the Brewery to the Star and Garter pub in Richmond. To prove you can still transport stuff without cars Hintsch recreated a similar scenario. It took good old Mr Berridge only one and half hours to do 16 miles but I bet he didn't have as much fun as we did!

Then followed another two pints of strong Ciders and two pint of Lager. That is probably why I am not feeling too well or last night when I had a lovely prepared Butternut Squash Lasagne which I couldn't finish and had too go to bed even before desert. So a lesson to add to don't go into cars with strangers (unless you get to ride on a custom two person bike) is do not drink five pints after cycling 13 miles with stomach only filled with an Apricot Jam sandwich.

Thanks
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