Myself and Simon have made an approach to the Rolls-Royce Community Investment Team for a contribution for R4RH. They have awarded us £300 (not as much as it could have been but better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick). Should cover a set of cheap tyres for the school minibus anyway!!!

They want to know how to make the cheque out to – Round Hill School? RHA? any ideas?

Adam can you put something on the website?

One of the things I planned to do was setup mobile blogging so that we could all send text messages to a number while we’re on route and have it appear on the R4RH website as a rolling feed throughout the four days we’re on route. There’s a bit of development to do so I wanted to gauge peoples appetite for doing this before ploughing in.

You will be able to send a text into a normal mobile number (eg 07786 201234) from your phone. I will match your phone number to your name, and profile pic, and put your comment on the web site.

My hope is that this will encourage people to be reading the website during the actual event and it will provide a compelling location for corporate sponsors to be featured. However this will only work if many of us are updating it throughout the four days.

One word of caution, in France these messages will almost certainly cost more to send. You will need to check you mobile phone tariff to confirm the costs of texting the UK, while roaming.

So what do you think?

The BBC monthly forecast says:

Monday 12th May 2008 to Sunday 25th May 2008

“More warm and dry weather for southern Britain.”

It looks as though eastern parts of both Scotland and England will be warmer than average with a good deal of dry weather expected across East Anglia, the Midlands and southeast England

Nicole, Victoria, Rosanna ……… One of Team RHA’s Olympic hopefuls ….

See the post below about 16th. Nicole Cooke sent us a skin suit for auction!

I have just come back from a Round Hill PTA meeting which had our big night on May 16th at it’s heart. The night will have:

A bar with very good real ale and chilled lager, wine (chilled if needs be), soft drinks and lager

A real cinema for kids with ice cream and pop corn!.

Cheer leaders/country dancing/choir (only early on though)

A film of R4RH – I think I will need you to all to come and do a piece to camera.

A tombola of the cycling books and photos we have been given.

Corporate puncture repair challenge – can your work/company send a team for £20 (and try to win Kate Silverton’s shorts)? Big advertising opportunity!

EITHER a slow bike race or a power output challenge

Waxing and shaving (We need people to be waxed and shaved – do you have little hair on your head and some on your legs and are prepared to have your leg hair waxed ? We really need someone)

The R4RH stand needs staffing.

We all need to be there to be onstage!

Summer Fair:

14th June 12 -3

We need to staff a cycle jumble with the bikes we will rescue and any other bits that we come across.

I would like some riders to be in a slow bike race challenge. Essentially you take on all comers and they see if they can be last over the line. If they win we give them a prize/money. Clearly to do this it would be helpful if you can ride a bike v slowly.

22nd May

Ian is hosting a night at the Bar in Chilwell. Carmina are playing ( www.carmina.co.uk ). I thought it would be great if we had this as a night for us to meet up before the grand depart – riders and partners. Ian is going to give half the door proceeds ( £5 entry ) to R4RH of any riders, partners or friends that go – mention it on the door so that they can keep tally.

Can you help with any of the above ?

I wanted to make an offer to all those interested in following the wise advice given, to go through a total muscle and liver carb depletion on the Tuesday before the ride for real starts on the Saturday.

If there are enough interested them I will plan a circuit that we can ride round until we bonk. I would like to have some support arranged with carb loading drinks and other carb replacement sources (not Jelly Babies!!!), at a specific location so we don’t have an uncomfortable ride home after reaching depletion point.

I plan to do this on Tuesday evening starting around 7 or 7:30 (ish). I would expect that if it is a just water ride it would take around 2.5 hours to reach the bonk.

Please leave a suitable comment (no schoolboy or girl humour about bonking) in the comments so I can assess who is interested in doing it.

mile 0-10

Flat section with only the Long Eaton road surface to bother. Beware of “stray cars” on road to Kegworth.

mile 11-20

Sharp descent at Sutton Bonnington. Fox Hill before Stanford, then careful at next junction, road often busy. Support don’t miss unsigned turn L on bend after village. At Coates support follow signs for Melton, then Barrow on Soar.

mile21-30

Sileby L turn to Ratcliffe – Sign is a little before junction. 2 climbs on Ratcliffe road, but followed by speedy descent. Narrow bridge before East Goscote. Re -classified Melton Road, can be fast traffic. Road surface between Queniborough and Hamilton recently re-done – lots of loose chippings. Hamilton – Scraptoft uphill section.

mile 31-40

Short uphill to Thurnby. After Great Glen, care at A6 roundabout. Steady uphill section before Fleckney.

mile 41-50′

Undulating as far as Theddingworth with some good descents as well. Short climb to East Farndon,following section of rough road.

mile 51 – 60

Continue along ridge, road quiet but poor surface. Undulating to Harrington then gently down to Lamport.

mile 61 – 70

Gently undulating around north and east of Northampton.

mile 71 – 80

Beyond Ecton descends to Nene Valley, then steady climb to Brafield. Then gently undulating to Stoke Goldington. From Horton route follows B526 – relatively fast road, but often with cyclists.

mile 81 – 90

Flat to Newport Pagnell. Then short A road section. M1 junction 14 needs care, especially short dual carriage section to A5130 roundabout. Flat.

mile 91 – 100

Flat as far as Ridgmont station (Amazon Books). Here road has been re-built to Ridgmont via A507 (old road not usable later April 08). Slightly undulating then gentle climb to M1 junction 12

mile 101 – 110

From Chalton route rises to re-cross M1 then descends gently through and beyond Luton.

mile 111- 120

Continues flat along Lee Valley till Cold Harbour. Then uphill to Harpenden town centre. Thereafter gently undulating to St Albans before steeply down from town centre and less steeply up to Watling Street A5183.

mile 120 – end

Descends to Park Street roundabout care needed there. Then flat to motel.

Another 5.30am get up saw Tim and I on the road for Brickett Wood. Tim will fill you in on all the detail about the hills we breasted. I can only say I was surprised that Newport Pagnell was very unlike the motorway service area. The following is a map of the route save for a wrong turn somewhere that I am sure Tim can point out:

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/5507096

I will be typing out his notes later.

We located some support stops. The first we have nearly all been to at Beeby or Barkby or whatever it was called. The second is the pub at another place. The third is here at the pub in Ridgetown or something like that.

This is the view from the restaurant at Brickett Wood across the duck pond.

If you are a light sleeper you may want some ear plugs as you could hear the M25 from the hotel. The restaurant was shut so no coffee for us!

Mark Nandlal pulled up on an altogether sturdier looking Dawes Galaxy and was joined by myself, Richard, Sean and Simon. There were people in shorts and mitts and the sun was shining – even the wind only appeared in the later stages of the ride and, get this, at points it was behind us! There was much evidence of ‘just back from the shop’ gear upgrading today with Tim telling me that his previous small front chain ring was a 22 teeth (Graham’s largest back chainring is 21!). Kev at Cycling Inn (Previously Sid Standard’s) is offering free labour to R4RH riders.

We did our 80 miles and went down the side of Leicester:

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/5495506

It was a good pace with a few stops here and there so that we could stay together as a group, to get directions and to buy water. No Punctures ! Now here was an odd thing ….. Tim started getting cramp and felt a bit weak at points but we did what Paul said and here is the evidence:

Tim had a bar bag put back on specifically to carry the appropriate amount of sweets. Personally I dropped one banana in favour of some jelly babies and I think that was enough!

Dear All,

I filmed Paul’s talk last night, downloaded it this morning and it is now on a CD as a QuickTime film.

If any of you who weren’t there want to watch it let me know.

Last night’s chat was excellent and real ‘food for thought’ so well worth watching.