BBC 2 IBC 2007

Well, actually we've been there and back and much has happened in the intervening time. Oh, and far more of us went than are pictured in the above photo, but, hey, it's got a windmill for proof. You can see all the pictures at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/bbc2ibc/show/

Personally, my trip was marred by the fact that I am, in fact, a bit of an idiot. As you may know we were tracking our progress on the website using GPS on a couple of mobile phones. On day two the software stopped working. I continued riding with one hand while reinstalling the GPS software on the phone with the other; It was pouring rain; my cleats were clogged with sand from walking on the beach, and I was trying to catch up to the group after stopping to take some pictures. They had turned off the main paved path on to a muddy beach trail. I followed; the front wheel slipped on the mud; my feet remained firmly attached to the pedals, and I fell heavily on my side and cracked one of my ribs.

It was pretty minor -- nothing like when I’d done something similar in January. I could breathe all right and pedalling was fine. Getting on and off the bike was tricky and it took about a week before I could find any position I could lie in that would allow me to sleep comfortably.

Another of our members did go through four tires in the space of a couple of hours so he wasn’t exactly burdened with good luck, but I believe mine was the only injury on the ride.

All in all, there were 20 of us travelling in two groups and it was a fantastic trip. My odometer tells me we covered 320km in three days and to date we’ve raised more than £6500 (including gift-aid contributions), but we’re still looking for more. Last year there were only 13 of us and we raised more than £10,000. We’d like to at least beat that this year. You can still donate at http://www.justgiving.com/bbc2ibc2007/.

Less than 48 hours to go - and Pudsey's busy with his last minute tweaks to the route!

All the arrangements are in place (with many thanks to David Branch for steadfastly coping with a host of last minute changes) and everybody's looking forward to the ride (well mostly, anyway!).

Spare a though for Adrian though whose busy this weekend traipsing around the Cardiff bike-shops looking for a new bike after his was stolen on Thursday. Is it possible that the moral-majority fringe in BBC Wales decided they needed to take some preventative action after over-hearing Adrain saying in the Club bar that he wasn't planning to stop for any red lights until he got to Amsterdam?!!

The number of riders has gone up, down and up again over the past week or so and it looks as if 20 of us will be setting off on Tuesday to cycle to Amsterdam, with 6 of us also game enough to cycle back again. Keep an eye on the Web-site - if I can make the technology work then Chris and I will be regularly posting photos to the site and you can also watch our progress minute-by-minute thanks to the wonders of GPS, Bluetooth, 3G and a host of other wonderful (but mostly frustrating!) innovations.

And finally - if you haven't donated yet then please do so now - there's a long way to go to reach out target of £10,000.

It's now less than a month before we start pedalling for Amsterdam and it's time to get psyched. To get everyone in the mood (both those of us who will be riding the bikes and those of you who will be breaking out your wallets), here's a link to last year's site.

Enjoy!

The germ of an idea. Like many other wild ideas, an excess of alcohol played a key part! The alcoholic event was a Christmas celebration in late December 2002 at our offices in White City. A group of us got to talking about cycling and one of my colleagues, Mike Hawkesworth, 'volunteered' to donate £100 to a charity of my choice if I cycled into work and back. This entailed a return trip of about 70 miles, and Mike thought his money was reasonably safe - but I knew differently! I checked the following day that a sober Mike was still willing to cough up the money. He was. And so in April 2003, I duly cycled into White City and then back home again - a total of five hours on the bike. With Mike's contribution, and sponsorship raised from other colleagues, the BBC's Children in Need charity benefited from a contribution of around £450.

Bluff and counter-bluff. I thought nothing more of the ride until a few weeks later I was chatting to my boss, John Varney. Thoughts of arrangements for IBC, the International Broadcasting Convention held annually in Amsterdam, must have been in the air and when he asked how the ride had gone the resulting conversation went something like this...

Me -- "The ride went very well, it was quite enjoyable"
John -- "You know, I've always wanted to cycle from London to Paris".
Me -- "We could always cycle to Amsterdam this time instead of flying".
John -- "I'm up for it if you are!"

And so the idea was born. Some quick research showed that it would indeed be possible to cycle over two to three days and that BBC Technology, who were planning to exhibit at IBC, would be able to transport our suitcases. So in early September, John and I and seven of our colleagues set off for Amsterdam...but that's another story!

So, thanks to Mike for the idea and to John for the support which has seen Children in Need benefit by several thousand pounds since that original excess of Christmas spirit.

Rhys Lewis