About
In March 2009 one of our close friends Chris passed away after a short illness in Wheatfields Hospice in Leeds.
Several of his friends, many of us having known Chris for forty years since childhood, in a flash of stupidity had an idea that they could, at the age of 52 years of age, cycle the width of England on the Sustrans Coast to Coast cycle route, 133 miles, Workington to Sunderland, in two and a half days.
On July 17th 2009 they set forth from the Cumbria coastline, two and a half days later on 19th July they arrived on the Sunderland foreshore, bewildered and bemused at the idea that they could even think of doing something so outrageous let alone actually, physically, ride it, on a bicycle of all things.
In excess of £4000 was raised for Wheatfields and at the end of it all the magnificent seven (should have been nine, we know who you are and we remember your excuses, do not try and use them again Gentlemen), all sat down and declared to anyone who would listen that, in a very strange and perverse sort of way, they had really enjoyed the experience, I mean really enjoyed it.
So they asked – what do we do now ?
A challenge in 2010 came from Dan at AllThatComesWithIt and his continuing support of a close friend of his who has a small charitable trust in memory of his three year old son who passed away in his sleep.
Dan knows I can’t resist a call from the Joseph Salmon Trust, I only have to look at the photo of young Joseph and read the first page of their web site to be heartbroken and yet heartwarmed at the same time. In 2010 Dan organised a huge walk along the width of Hadrians Wall, he invited me, I don’t like walking, so I quickly and very tactically shifted the conversation to cycling, and somewhere in the conversation the idea that we should run a cycle team across the Hadrians cycle path was born.
And in 2011 we return again to our original inspiration Chris as we once again partake on a mammoth bike ride to raise funds for Wheatfields Hospice in Leeds, this time its to be the Sustrans Coast & Castles route in Northumberland.
And thats the story of this blog.
