BBC 2 IBC (2006)

We made it! Everyone had an enjoyable, if sometimes painful, ride and we exceeded our target of raising £8000 for the BBC's Children in Need charity.

Many thanks from the team to everyone who helped us get there - physically and financially. The only challenge left now is to try and work out how we're we going to raise even more money next year!

For the statistically minded here are some of the ride's most significant numbers...
0 : no of riders who failed to complete the ride!
1 : broken spoke (Tim) - fortunately Wes had his spoke wrench to effect a temporary repair.
2 : punctures (Tim and Jared).
3 : minutes late arriving in Amsterdam!
12 : pints of orange juice and lemonade consumed at the first pub stop (a disgusted Tim went for the beer option!).
50 : (estimated) portions of Dutch Apple Pie consumed by group during the ride.
95 : miles cycled on the longest day by Nigel, Chris H, Rhys, Wes and Tim (White City to Harwich)
156 : miles per hour was the highest speed recorded by Adrian's computer (and his bike was stationary at the time!).
376 : the milage recorded by Rhys' computer for the round trip White City, Amsterdam, White City.
0450 : hours - the time Nigel set off from home on the first morning.
1485 : metres of climbing recorded by Rhys' computer - yes, we found some hills in Holland!
10,276 : pounds raised for Children in Need (including the tax recoverable) - a superb effort!

Everyone's back home now. We should really total the number of miles cycled by everyone. All I know is that I spent a total of 36 and half hours on my bike over seven days covering 450 miles and my butt still aches. Most others will have covered similar distances. It was a fantastic trip. I hope you enjoyed following us as it progressed.

Everything must come to an end though. We need to tie up this year's ride so we can begin planning next year's. To that end, please get your donations in as soon as possible. The cutoff is next Saturday, the 30th of September.

Thanks to everyone who has supported us throughout the ride. You should feel good about helping an important cause.

Oh, and I've gathered together all the pictures I took along the trip.

Tomorrow I head home to London. I'm the only one left in Amsterdam and without Rhys to lead me, I'm not entirely confident of finding my way. However, I do have one thing that the others didn't. I have the GS tracking chabnab thingmabob. This means you will be able to see how lost I get. If things get very very dire, hopefully someone out there will send in a rescue squad.

In other news, I've been mucking around a bit and I'm going to try to send some video updates from the road, posted to YouTube. There are a couple up there now and we'll see how it goes. This would have been infinitely more clever if I'd managed to set it up before the 13 of us headed out. But now, Agatha Christie style, there's only me left so you'll just have to make do.

Keep your eye on http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=YandaBear

And keep the donations rolling in! We're still way off target.

Made it! I finally reached White City at 16:45 on Sunday having dropped Claudia off at Walthamstow and Adrian and Graham in Epping. Nigel rode back with us on the first leg from Amsterdam to Harwich but then opted for the train from there to London as he needed to get home on Saturday evening. My total round-trip distance was 578km (that's 358miles for imperial folk) and a total of 28 hours and 40 minutes of cycling.

The five of us had set off from Amsterdam at 7am on a beautiful Saturday morning. The sun shining, the early morning mist rising from the Amstel and, unbelievably, a light tailwind. The first 25 miles of the return trip were along the banks of the river with very little traffic and lots of wildlife. We made good time through Delft and arrived in Hook of Holland only to discover that the ferry was running late! This was somewhat ironic as I had often imagined that we might be late for the ferry! Our major difficulty on this leg of the route was finding a Dutch cafe open for Saturday lunch!

Despite it's late arrival the ferry set off pretty much on time and we arrived in Harwich a little early, dropped Nigel off at the station and set off for Colchester. The last leg in the dark along a section of busy dual carriageway was pretty unpleasant but mercifully short.

Another early'ish start on Sunday saw us setting off to re-trace our route back to Epping, where Adrian and Graham had left their car. We still had that tailwind but the temprature in the UK was hotter than in Holland and the ice-creams at Epping made for a welcome, and cooling break! Claudia and I then shared the first part of the route back into London before she headed off for Walthamstow and I for White City.

Rhys Lewis and a few others started back to London by bicycle yesterday. I think he may have taken us on a bit of a convoluted ride on the way here. He sent me a text this morning and apparently he and his party made it back as far as Colchester by 8:45pm last night. Not bad for one day's cycling. Apparently, it was "sunshine and tailwinds all the way".

Unfortunately, I have the gps tracker so you won't be able to follow Rhys today.

In other news, it's Adrian's birthday today. I'm sure he would be delighted with a donation to Children in Need in lieue of a gift. So if you were thinking of buying him that set of flourescent pink golf clubs, think again. Donating online is safe and easy and makes everyone feel good.

We've arrived at IBC. We were met by cameras and PR ladies and Pudsey and champagne. It was all very glamorous.

A selection of celebratory comments from the team:

"The sandstorm was tough. The blizzard was a challenge. But the dream saw us through." - Dave

"Just really pleased to have suceeded in the quest. Everyone should try it next year. Book early to avoid disappointment." - Adrian

"Happy to be here. Good bunch of... Good bunch of... People! Yeah! Good bunch of people." - Graham

"I just parked my bike and my water bottle cage went 'bleauh' and just fell gracefully to the side. I don't know what happened? That's my big story." - Matthew

"Where did everyone go? Why am I standing here once again, fiddling with a tiny electronic gadget? What is wrong with me? I should really submit this and go have a shower." - Me

I've just been informed that when we arrive in Amsterdam we will be met by a huge parade led by Pudsey bear himself. There will be acrobats and dancing girls and Elvis Presley freshly risen from the grave.

Why not come on down and shower us with kisses and flowered garlands. We will be at the first entrance to the RAI halls you come to North of RAI station at 3pm. Apparently, this is the entrance to halls 8,9, and 10. See you there.

If you can't make it, you could always make another donation.

We arrived dangerously early at our hotel last night. The early arrival and the seductive purple couches meant I had a little too much genever last night.

Genever tastes much better than Lemon-lime PowerGel. I suspect, however, based on how I feel this morning, that it isn't quite as good for you.

We woke up to rain this morning. Slave-driver Rhys arranged for us all to meet at 7:15 for breakfast. Easy for him. He went to bed at a sensible hour.

Things are looking brighter now though, literally as well as figuratively. The clouds are breaking up and we've stopped for coffee and pie. Pie is good. Me like pie.

We've made it to Harwich ahead of schedule. We can't board the ferry until 9:30. And so circumstances have forced us to shelter in a pub. I, for one, am grateful. I was feeling a powerful thirst and my water bottles were dry. I still had some emergency liquid sustenance in the form of a couple of sachets of some kind of weird nutrient gel. However, I tried one of these for the first time earlier today and was amazed to discover it is easily the worst substance I have ever tasted. I've had poisons that were tastier.

Continue reading "Waiting for the ferry" »

Well... almost. Rhys and Nigel will almost surely have left from White City about an hour ago. I'll be on the road within the next 15 minutes. I'm not sure about everyone else's specific travel plans. We're meeting up at Epping at 10:30. Pudsey will be there to see us off and we'll try to get some pictures up for you. I'm carrying the tracker so you should see a little dot moving out of Dalston in the next few minutes.

It may be slightly pathetic but I think I'm a bit over-excited about this trip. I took forever to get to sleep last night. Probably not a good thing when I'm about to set out on a 200 mile bike ride.

My insomnia did give me time to write about the relative dangers of England and the Netherlands, so I guess it's not all bad.