The Picos Ride for Cancer Support: 29/04/2012

Last of the Picos Riders - to Rome Alone!

Our first two charity rides were a huge success - raising over £20,000 for the South East Cancer Help Centre.

The Centre does a fantastic job of supporting patients and carers at the most difficult times of their lives. They make a real difference and you could help them in their work by contributing to our fundraising. Donations can be made via JustGiving.comhttps://www.justgiving.com/Tom-Vaz/ or directly into the Centre. For more details of the Centre and their work see their website at http://www.sechc.org.uk/

After 3 years of rest it seemed time to dust off the old muscles, bones and sinews and do one more spectacular ride in aid of this fabulous charity.

This time I will travel alone for 25 days, mainly following the ancient pilgrimage route to Rome, the Via Francigene, covering a distance of around 1,400 miles.

The route travels through Newhaven - Dieppe - Paris before I eventually reach the Via Francigene in Eastern France. From then on it is pretty simple apart from having to cross the Alps without an elephant!

Wednesday, 2 May 2012

Getting There

The most important part of our pilgrimage is to get to Spain! As with our previous fund raising ride in 2010, our most favoured choice is by ferry. Flying might be quicker, but crowded airports and the many rules and regulations for taking bikes on planes are a definite turn off!
Liz French has again worked her magic with Brittany Ferries and they have very generously provided return Portsmouth/Santander crossings during the very busy month of July. The normal cost for the four of us, including our bikes and a 4-berth cabin, would be £970, which amount we donate to SECHC. Thus the fund raising kitty will be boosted by nearly £1000 before we even set sail!
So that is another bit of our travel plans now taken care of.
These two pictures show us at Santander, about to board the ferry in 2010. Note the luggage on the back of our bikes, luggage which had to be lugged up the Picos de Europa mountains. So your very generous donations for that charity bike rider did alleviate some of the pain!