A new member...

Excitingly we can announce our numbers have now officially grown from 5 to 6 as Nathaniel Hugh Stanford Gimson has reconsidered his position and declared himself available for selection for the Cambridge to Casablanca mission. Apparently Nat's decision was largely based on the persuasive powers of Davidson and a general realisation of just what he was missing out on... Nat remarked: "I'm really excited about joining the team, starting training and I'm delighted I'm doing something to help The Sick Children's Trust which is an extremely worthy cause".

Like the rest of us (except Hugh) Nat went to school at The Perse in Cambridge and he is currently in his third year of a political science degree at the University of Leeds. In his spare time Nat enjoys playing the cello, choral singing, sausages, mince pies (with removable lids) and resembling the mascot froma well known brand of roadside cafes.

Kit Manager Tom Doble said: "To be honest I'm delighted, if you are going to do one charity endurance event this year, it just has to be a cycle to Morocco. Nat may have enormous legs and no knee caps, but I'm sure he will be an asset to the team".

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The new bike...

So this weekend I went to pick up the bike from Ben Hayward. Having only been able to give Rob 24 hours notice he was still able to build the bike to my specifications and fit everything that needed to be fitted... The bike is a Trek 7.3 (above), black with Shimano Trigger 24 speed gears and generally looks pretty jazz.

Took the bike out for the first time on Tuesday, just around Oxford (after making somewhat of a meal about putting the front wheel back on - I think my bike maintenance skills need quite a bit of work...) and it didn't disappoint. Though it's not saying much it's the best bike I've ever ridden, it's lightweight, quick and the gears are amazing, you can just flick up and down like a car... anyway all in all it's made me pretty excited and can't wait to get out on them with the rest of the team - Ben Hayward has done us really well.

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Ben Hayward Cycles to supply bikes & kit

Despite the difficulties of the festive season we started contacting bike suppliers around Cambridge to find someone to supply bikes and the quite considerable amount of kit we would need to get to Casablanca.

After a fairly aimless afternoon wandering around the bike shops of Cambridge we began our serious approaches with Ben Hayward, firstly because we knew of their reputation as the best and most specialised cycle shop in Cambridge, and secondly because Doble's younger brother ("wee Dobs") was working there. Fortunately our search ended where it started as Rob, who runs Ben Hayward, made us a very generous offer to supply bikes, the Trek 7.3, and a bundle of kit, for an extremely reasonable price.

Our objective for the holiday achieved we all returned to our respective universities and made plans to return to Cambridge to get our bikes fitted and collect our kit.

Ben Hayward cycles have two shops, one in Cambridge (69 Trumpington Street - 01223 352294) and one in Horningsea (Notcutts Garden Centre - 01223 860471). You can visit their website at www.benhawyardcycles.co.uk

Christmas...

At the end of September we all retreated to our respective Universities and cycle chatter took a bit of back seat, until we were able to reconvene in Cambridge shortly before Christmas.

Ed showed us the first draft of the website designed by his girlfriend Sarah (The Firth) which looked very good and we made a 3 stage plan to move the cycle forward over the coming few months:

1. Talk to a bike shop and negotiate a deal for the supply of bikes and equipment.
2. Approach companies in search of kit sponsorship (through letters and the website)
3. Fund-raising (Using friends, family, facebook, the website and the local press)

The target was to achieve Stage 1 by the end of the holiday. We also hoped to have a 2 day training ride to the north Norfolk Coast and back, but sadly the heavy snow prevented it.

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The first training ride...

At the end of September we managed our first training ride. Using a collection of bikes found in Doble's garage Doble led Ed and I on a 20 mile or so ride around the villages of South Cambridgeshire, including Grantchester, Haslingfield, Harston, Newton, and The Shelfords. All three of us completed the ride without any major incidents which was a good start, though I fear 80 miles over the hills of central Spain in august may result in a somewhat tougher challenge than twenty miles of absolutely flat (except the bridge over the M11) south Cambridgeeshire countryside in early Autumn, but a start is a start!

The video shows us leaving for our first training ride...

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Preparations continue...

By the end of September preparations were beginning to take shape. Most importantly we decided on our charity: The Sick Children's Trust (http://www.sickchildrenstrust.org/), particularly Acorn House, their centre at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge. We chose The Trust thanks to a recommendation from Jane Pearson, and it was soon obvious to all of us how worthy the cause was. For those of you that don't know The Sick Children's Trust provides high quality 'Home from Home' accommodation for families whose children are receiving hospital treatment for serious illness. The other main appeal in supporting Acorn House and The Sick Children's Trust was that we all have a local connection to it, and through Jane's involvement we know the charity is well run and anything we raise will be used efficiently and wisely.

Aside from the charity we set ourselves a number of other goals and priorities. Ed took responsibility for organising a website, Doble and Hugh for researching kit and myself for looking at sponsorship and fund-raising. We also spent a lot of time trying to think of catchphrases for the trip, using as much alliteration as possible, though Doble felt my suggestion of "Cambridge to Casablanca: Cross-Continent Charity Cycle" was taking things too far, Ed came came up with the idea of using Casablanca the film as an idea and adapting the (allegedly) well-known quote "Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine" to something along the lines of: "of all the cylces, in all the world, it had to be this one"... The jury remained out.

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Preparations begin...

Returning from Norfolk at the end of August and now totally committed to the scheme we realised we only had a few weeks in which to get the ball rolling before we returned to University.... and so it was that four of us assembled at Dobson's house in early September for the first meeting. Sadly Rory decided an alternative jaunt to South America was of higher priority - could this be a sign of flakiness already?

The meeting was long and without direction, but somehow not altogether unproductive. We argued over where our exact destination should be, Casablanca winning through purely for alliteration purposes, much to Doble's high brow disgust and fear of cycling in Africa, where in his opinion we would inevitably crash, have our bikes stolen and collapse of heat exhaustion. Thanks to some direction from Susie Doble we also resolved to do some productive things such as choosing charities, contacting bike shops, arranging sponsorship, getting publicity and doing some research on cycling...

Recruitment

And so I returned to Cambridge in search of a friend to join me in this adventure. I first aired the plan in The Bath House over a few drinks and was largely met with laughs and a feeling that this was another of Dean's ill-fated crackpot schemes (admittedly I did air it at the same time as proposing we form an invitational cricket team to tour Australia next winter during the Ashes - which seems unlikely to come to fruition) . Despite these initial foregoings I pressed on and eventually about 2 weeks later Ed indicated he was definitely keen, and shortly after so did Doble. By the time we went to Norfolk for our annual bank holiday weekend at the end of August numbers both Hugh and Davo threw their hats into the ring as well. Having expected to struggle to recruit one other person, we were now 5 in number, only Gimson remained unconvinced.

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How it all began...

So how has it come to be that we're six of us with no cycling experience are planning on biking about 1700 miles this summer to Morocco?

It all began one exceptionally long afternoon in last July when I was sat at my desk on my summer placement feeling particularly bored, unwanted and generally out of my depth when the realisation came that before long the cosy life of a geography degree would be left behind to be replaced by a good 40 years of some generic office job or another, which would undoubtedly be filled with many afternoons such as these ... At this point I resolved to make the most of my summer after graduation and search out some adventure or another...

The exact point at which the plan to cycle from Cambridge to Morocco (Casablanca came later) is somewhat disputed, and my girlfriend (henceforth The Hog) claims all of the credit... but over the next week or so the plan emerged in one way or another to cycle to Africa the following summer to raise some money for charity... now all I needed to do was convince a friend to come with me.

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We have a blog...

161 days to go until we're scheduled begins and we have a blog...