Bloodwise Wirral Bikeathon, Sunday 11th June 2017

[the stupid one]

This sponsored ride for Bloodwise, the blood cancer charity, has been going for years. This will be my first one, though I was in the ukulele band that performed there last year during an almighty downpour. Twenty-eight miles in two halves, I've had a couple of practice runs over much of the route and I'm really looking forward to it. Anybody else going?

Local Olympian and handsome devil Chris Boardman will be there. Shall I ask him to sign my helmet?

 

[the stupid one]

Well I now have the medal to go with the t-shirt, and I can disclose that Mr Boardman likes Hula-Hoops with a Pringles chaser.

A bright and breezy day with a couple of sizzling showers as I was getting close to the finish, and with the ride to and from the start I even chalked up a metric half-century. About 700 metres of park trail had turned into a cyclocross mudslide after recent rain, demanding heroic efforts from the roadies with razor-thin slicks, and another short section of bridleway had a cunning tree root about six inches high hiding at its exit, which probably caused the puncture that somebody was dealing with a little bit after, but otherwise it was a trouble-free route, took about three hours with three short breaks.

Most importantly, about £44000 raised for the Bloodwise charity. Well played, everybody.


EDIT: The muddy track through the park was more like 1350 metres. Good old Google Earth. Felt longer.