Training has commenced

Well,

In true style, the training for this year’s Marrakech etape has started later than last year and strangely later than the year before.

Flights are booked I think and I recall booking a hotel – can’t recall which one though.

Beer consumption has resumed to  normal levels and the restorative powers of Alc O hol. have cured the cold that plagued me in January – begone foul germs.

The broken toes have set although not straight but the shoulder injury means I can’t raise my left arm above my head for any length of time.   I also dislocated my thumb kayaking but that popped back in.  So, usual high level of fitness. The good news is that my bike has been fixed

We have also expanded the team – welcome Tim and hello once again to Henry, no longer stoking  but riding solo.

I actually went on the 1st ride of the year last week and may have suffered minor frostbite.  A very slow and painful 3 hours of cycling on frosty roads with a wind chill that had only the hardiest venturing outside.

However, I’m reminded of the 1st Etape when we experienced blizzard like conditions, so winter training is to be recommended.

Well,  That’s the excuses out of the way now its  time to raise some money.

Middle aged men cycle up a mountain to a ski resort, which is higher than Ventoux ( a famous mountain in France, much loved by cyclists) and you get to laugh at the training antics / disasters along the way.  In return, all we ask for is some sponsorship.

Why, I hear you ask.

Well the Marrakech Atlas Etape  is organised for the benefit of Education For All, a Moroccan NGO. At present, few girls from rural communities in Morocco continue their education after primary school. College is not accessible to them for several reasons. To help tackle some of the issues, EFA are running boarding houses near secondary colleges, allowing some girls from rural families to continue their education

https://www.marrakech-atlas-etape.com

All donations are welcome and it’s very easy:

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Tuffcall2017

In return, we will post updates on a regular basis

Thanks

Water bottles

Grenoble airport has a certain provincial charm as one basks in the sun waiting for our (‘P2P’ Manchester) flight to be ready to go through security. This charm is offset by the loos which have graduated to porcelain but not toilet seats and have the obligatory yellow tabarded French women cleaning the urinal around you. Woman who, bar the cigarette (now part of inhaling, hunched, outdoor huddles where smokers, vampire-like, cling to gossip filled shadows) have not changed in the slightest from when the airport opened in the ‘30s.

A tented stand near the entrance contains a couple of high-end turbo trainers allowing one to try the local hills in their summer mode. Lyulf hopped on and started cruising a valley while I felt obliged to attempt a hill and, for the first time, use those gears that are built into the brake levers.

Immediately, muscles straining, my body temperature started to head towards that ‘turbo trainer’ hot. Wishing for a fan, I groaned and staggered off, the dismount ungainily highlighting that my jeans are rather restrictive at my current weight.

Regardless, this is my first hill training of the year and is celebrated by the gift of a souvenir ‘bidon’ (as cycling types refer to water bottles). The irony does not escape one as directly opposite is the entrance to security, my next destination, where, true to form when exiting countries, I am stopped and searched. My clothes nicely patted and stuck to the damp recently exercised body thereunder.

Despite it being slightly unpleasant for both parties, I will take it as a small victory and fly homewards with my Marrakech Atlas Etape training having, albeit briefly, graduated to a bike.

Roll with it…

Oasis playing.

1995 seems like a long time ago.

Beautiful day – one of a series that have made up a glorious week in Tignes.

The children finish early to get their ski school medals, so I will see if I can get a late afternoon skate in instead – My Dad’s Bauer’s purchased from Skate Attack 29 years ago cutting a hockey-bladed dash on the frozen lake in glorious sunshine…

Memories of early Broadgate days with Henry, Joel and the Canadian gang, ice, rain, Turbos and Chargers.

Young, fearless and fit.

The subsequent body battering, the self-induced, the brakes, the wear and tear. The lack of core strength from prolapsed disk, fractured pelvis and recent fractured foot meant I was too fragile and, more to the point, too scared to ski.

Strangely removed from the community motivation, skating was the answer and the first proper move towards regaining enough fitness to ride the Marrakech Atlas Etape this year. The experience has left me feeling healthier and determined to build up the strength to both beat the Ouka Monster and come back here to ski.

‘Some might say, ‘we will find a brighter day”

Bring it on.

Bike for Brains

So Tim Wild’s copywriting made my attempt at the first company-wide email sound a lot more professional, if flexing the truth a touch for effect. Normally, we do not get a response until the third email that goes out in April, but this has already raised over £200 in a day!

Here it is.

Hello folks,

Important feel-good charity news: 

Think Big

We believe that everyone should have access to education.

Start Small

Girls have as much right to an education as boys. Ten years ago, I started working to provide access to a secondary education for girls that are denied that opportunity. We began with a small group of seven girls from the Berber communities of the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco, and the project has grown and grown.

Fail/Scale Fast

Since then, the first seven are currently studying at university and we have scaled up to providing education to over 200 girls at secondary school, as well as help with electricity, refuge collection, recycling, the provision of ambulances and a hearse for the communities of the Three Valleys.

BT

Bike Transformation. (I’m here all week. Try the veal.)

For the fifth year in a row, we are holding the Marrakech – Atlas Etape at the end of April.  It’s a 140km bike ride up a 10,000ft mountain and back again. In one day.

What’s it got to do with me?

Tim Wild and I are representing R/GA – but we’re looking for (idiots) spirited adventurers to join us. 

Or, take the easier route and just sponsor us – via this convenient digital platform here: www.justgiving.com/Tuffcall2017   (This is the least irritating request we’ll make, by the way. Pay up now, the emails stop. Avoid us and there’ll be videos, pictures, emotional blackmail, actual blackmail etc. 

Here’s why:

‘Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.’ (Mandela)

 

Hello 2017

Now we are four…

The fifth Marrakech Atlas Étape supports Education for All which is 10 this year! With the first students now coming through University, the charity now provides access to secondary education for nearly 200 girls who would otherwise not have had the opportunity. The current campaign raising money to support a sixth boarding house.

And for the 2017 Étape Tuffcall return as a team of four – Chris and myself for the fifth time, Henry, last year’s stoker on the tandem is back for a second time and Tim is the new member for this year. There is also a chance that we will swell in numbers to six if Paul and his sister do more than threaten to sign up – potentially giving the tandem an airing.

Our foursomes’ current collective age is over 200 with the usual collection of beer bellies and random gear. Tim, by far the fittest of the group, has a proper mountain bike; Chris will have whichever bodged together stead that is most ‘road worthy’ at the time; I am not sure if Henry has upgraded from his boneshaker yet and I am planning, having ridden the small wheel tandem with Henry last year and the Pacific folder the year before, to revert back to the trusted Brompton. If nothing else, an eclectic mix to bring up the rear of the field.

Training to date has been a stop start affair with a lot of time dedicated to the former. Staying in the Cevennes in the summer saw Mike, one of the founders of the EFA, and I taking on some serious climbs at altitude before breakfast. A healthy life stretched before me – as far as the return to London and the reality check it transpired.

There followed a long hiatus. The agency world workload got heavier and Chris and I hardly speak to each other, let alone go for a ride. Work dominates most waking moments without any concept of balance – more going for the burn-out rather than the burn.

A confidence shaking crash and a ski holiday cancelling fracture in my foot add to the delays.

Off the crutches for Christmas and walking for new year. It is February and all prevarication has to stop.

So, I purchased some weighing scales.

Little steps.

Actually, more like one almighty jolt. I am back up to 16 stone. Something has to happen. I must act.

A blog post will help, surely…?