Not for the faint hearted

You know what, a lot of people love London. It's the thriving hub of our country, has plentiful opportunities, has the resources the rest of Britain only dreams of and particularly in relation to this ride, hosted the best Olympic games ever.
Now that's all well and good, but it's simply not designed for people. The roads and pavements are in poor condition, the signposting is completely random and there just isn't enough space for all the people that need to be there.

As you can tell, this is going to be a really cheery post!

The day started quite well. I woke up, had breakfast and loaded my bags on my bike. It then went downhill. Part one of my 'the road signs are ridiculous' rant, Watford. Quite a well known place, just north of London, decent football team. Nah, don't want to put that on any signs. Oh, actually let's put them on 1-in-6 signs so for the vast majority of the time you're just hoping.   But I got there, bouncing along on cycle paths or roadsides perhaps, but made it. To my great surprise I found Anthony Joshua's postbox quite easily...
At this stage, thanks to the stop-start nature of London's traffic I was already behind schedule, but alas I soldiered on.

Next on the list was Pete Reed's 50th post box, this time in Chiswick. What I discovered here is that the Brent area of London must LOVE cup final weekends because it must bring some order to their roads. It was like everyone in the town had seen a documentary on how crazy the roads are in India and thought to themselves, 'yeah, that looks good'. Cars, pedestrians, bikes just going anywhere regardless of road markings or traffic signals! After fighting my through that, Chiswick was quite nice and Pete's box was easy to find...

Next up, a 3.5mile straight road to Mo Farah's first box in Isleworth (with requisite Mo-Bot)...
Before a slightly more difficult 4miles to his second in Teddington. Here I met up with Klem, a follower on Twitter @MiddleRinger,  who joined me for Mo's second box...

The two of us then went looking for Wimbledon. You know Wimbledon, that world famous sporting and tourist attraction? Oh, let's not bother signposting that either. For one of the most tourist-popular cities on the planet it really doesn't want people to get anywhere.
Eventually we made it though and picked up Andy Murray's second box outside the All England Club(why he has two I don't know)...
Then a quick jaunt a mile down the road into Wimbledon centre for Sophie Hosking's box...

From here the journey became quite pleasant. Away from the overcrowded dangerously busy roads to a nice little village called Cheam, where we found the final box of the day, celebrating Jo Rowsell...

We then aimed towards Chobham to go our seperate ways, but not before a visit to an awesome cyclist's café in Ashtead @bikebeanscafe for a brew, some homemade cake and soup as well as a few pics, a £20 donation and potentially a little mention in a local paper. Honestly, if you're a cyclist and ever find yourself in the Epsom area I highly recommend it. Good food and good people.

In Chobham Klem and I separated, he returning home to Windsor as I carried on to Camberley.

As with yesterday, the day got much, much better as it went on and although there was a lot of stopping and starting all over the city, I got 7 more boxes checked off the list!
So now there are 7 days remaining, 7 boxes remaining and just the small matter of somehow getting back up to Bolton on Saturday!

Don't forget to follow @Pedal_Medal on Twitter and to donate www.justgiving.com/samlevey if you have the inclination to share my blog as well that would also be greatly appreciated!

London Calling

Well I'm actually already in London, but as this is a review of yesterday you'll just have to understand what I'm getting at!

Yesterday started terribly. After such a great welcome to Bedford, the difference was horrendous. You remember that wind I rode into the whole way from Reading? Well that turned arpund completely and carried a load of snow with it!
I fought my way to Stotfold to find Vicky Pendleton's postbox, however I found literally nobody willing to brave the cold so had to take a pic myself...

From there a truely disgraceful journey over to Elsenham followed, it appears nowhere on this God forsaken rock has any inclination of warming up. It's freaking April, stop being freezing! I reached Ben Maher's postbox and went to Yeomans Bistro to warm up...

Spicy parsnip soup later I hit the road again down to Harlow to find one of Laura Trott's boxes and the weather actually started to not be dire...

From there a hop onto the A10 for a few miles to Cheshunt to find her second one...
For some reason Laura Trott's (and Vicky Pendleton's) post boxes seemed to be tucked out of the way somewhat. No idea why, but when all the others are on a main road, the relative remoteness seems a little disrespectful.

From Cheshunt I got back on the A10 again, exiting at Enfield and finding Charlotte Dujardin's second postbox...

After that it was a simple game of traffic dodging, making my way onto the North Circular to Muswell Hill and finding my friends house.
As they say, all's well that ends well and my last couple of hours riding, followed by a top evening with a good friend and a few really lovely tweets from Charlotte Dujardin and some other, less famous but equally appreciated, followers and supporters made up for a pretty bad day in the saddle.

Today should be a good one. Meeting a Twitter follower @MiddleRinger around lunchtime, collecting a few postboxes in London before heading over to Camberley where my sister did her officer training at Sandhurst. Seven postboxes on the way today, which really brings the outstanding totally plummeting.

8 days to go...

Wind and Winning!

Due to some stupid route planning I actually had to ride back through Henley on my way up to Milton Keynes this morning. As a result I took a picture of myself at the postbox, no champions or medals this time, which was a little disappointing but oh well...

From there a long, difficult, freezing, windy journey up through Marlow, High Wycombe and Aylesbury, amongst others, to arrive at Greg Rutherford's box in Milton Keynes around 3ish...

Milton Keynes has recieved some bad press in the past, but I quite liked it. Fair enough it doesn't have a whole lot of character, but it was simple, orderly and made sense. Grid-system roads are so much better than old city labyrinths!

With about 18 miles to go and knowing there was a little bit of a welcome party due in Bedford I set off back into the headwind. I would say, honestly, that it was an equally unpleasant ride as some days in Scotland. Just an unrelenting cold wind. Awful.
About 10 miles out I pulled over and made a quick few phone calls, to the manager at Wilkinson's in Bedford, a lady at BBC 3 Counties radio and to Cllr Doug McMurdo telling them I would be arriving in about an hour.

Once in Bedford I went to Wilko's and with them went across to the post box, where the mayor was waiting. We shook hands and started taking photos as Doug McMurdo called Etienne Stott, the athlete for whom the box is painted, who jad arranged the mayoral reception. We had a brief chat, which was brilliant in which I thanked him for a superb summer last year and he told me I was doing a great job and that he was really impressed by what I was doing. It is incredible to me that elite athletes, champions at the grandest stage of them all, are impressed by me and thanking me for my celebration of their achievements.
Anyway, here's a pic of me and the mayor at Etienne Stott's postbox...

The Vikings Kayak club, who helped Etienne reach the top also came along to say hi, for which I am, again, very grateful.

From there we went up to the mayoral lounge for a brew and a biscuit and a chat, the result of which will hopefully be a much higher public awareness of the ride. I then briefly exited to have a radio phone interview and chat with a Uni friend, Ben Nye at 3 Counties radio before a couple of quick pics and me heading off to the night's accommodation.

As with yesterday, a great end to an otherwise miserable day! Looking forward to tomorrow, a fair few post boxes and seeing a very good friend, Sam Fearon.

Enter London, 9 days to go!

@Pedal_Medal
www.justgiving.com/samlevey

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Argh!

I know a couple of days ago I said I thought this blog was getting fewer hits while everything was going swimmingly...well yesterday was a bit of a disaster!

Set off well enough, made decent time to Nailsworth where I found Pete Reed's postboxes fairly easily...

From there I climbed a hill called The Ladder, which was a bit of a killer before finding the road I would be on for pretty much the rest of the day. All was going really well until about 7 miles outside Cirencester I heard my back tyre hemorrhaging air. I tried to remain calm, pulled over to the side of the road and switched inner tubes. At this point I discovered that CO2 pumps are unreliable so I resorted to waving down cars. Eventually a lovely couple, Mark and Mel, stopped and we bodged together enough air in the tyre to get to Halfords. There they told me that the old tyre was ruined, it was, and so I got a replacement and had them switch them over in the shop in Cirencester.

I set off again, probably about an hour behind schedule and with no trust in my bike, but fairly shortly reached Ampney St Peter and found Laura Bechtolsheimer's postbox, another one down...

I checked my route, it was about 60miles to Henley and then about 10miles to Reading, where I was staying the night. Luckily evening's are quite light til late, but it was still a big ask.
So, I set off again and a few miles down the road my tyre popped again. Luckily this time it went just as I arrived at a little village called Meysey Hampton so I went knocking on doors to beg for help. An exceptionally kind man answered after a couple of houses and took me and my wheel down the road to a Performance Cycles in Poulton. We changed the inner tube over again (very, very kindly donated) picked up a new pump and went back to the rest of the bike. Wheel fitted, bags reloaded, 55miles to go to Henley and still no faith in my bike, the joys! It was 3pm and my phone was rapidly running out of battery.

I got on the road again and rode for all I was worth, through some small places I've never heard of then over to Didcot, Wallingford and dropping into Henley at 7.45. I found the box easy enough and turned on my phone. Carl, my sister's fiancé, was on his way to collect me and Alex Gregory and Pete Reed wanted to come out and see me. Alex arrived first and we had a chat, he gave me some energy gels and such, then took a picture of me wearing his gold medal (one of the main goals of the trip for me!). Carl then arrived and took a pic of me and Alex at the post box before Pete arrived and gave me chocolate bars (they're already been eaten). We all spoke for a while and they told me they were really impressed with what I was doing and hoped I was successful and that I should get some publicity for it, which was brilliant.
As a side note, I don't think I've ever seen two bigger men in my life, I'm 6ft and was completely dwarfed by them! Men-mountain the pair of them.

All-in-all the ending in Henley went a really long way to making up for the nightmare of the rest of the day. Seriously, my longest ride of the whole journey and that happened! Ok, moving on, all's well that ends well.

I had to skip the remaining 10miles to Reading, but I'm here, fed and just about rested.

10 days to go. Reading to Milton Keynes to Bedford today, before the joys of London traffic tomorrow

The cold is getting old

Morning everybody, firstly I'll apologise for the slight delay in getting this done. I felt good last night and had the time, but I simply didn't do it before I went to bed.

I checked out of Stratford upon Avon college a little bit later than expected, due to seeing out of the window and not really being inclined to freeze, but I got going eventually. From there it was a pretty simple 8miles to Alcester for Nick Skelton's second post box...

Following a slight detour I got myself back on track taking some country roads through to Worcester, through Malvern, who had an unappreciated welcome for me...it's a big hill. I'd seen the hills on the horizon a few miles earlier and just knew that I would be going up them! From there it was a fun, if freezing, decline to Charlotte Dujardin's box in Newent, Gloucestershire...

The next target was Cheltenham for Alex Gregory's box, about 17miles away. Annoyingly enough this took me onto my first busy A-road of the day, but it was only for about 6miles so wasn't too bad. I found his box after a little minor messing around (one way system in a place I don't know)...

After that is was a matter of phoning my hosts for the evening and making my way to their house for dinner. Dave and Dee, my sister's fiancé's parents are great, very friendly and very accommodating.

I spent a bit of the evening contacting people for the next few days to confirm accomodation and company en route and it looks as though I'm good up to  Newport, Wales. Waiting to hear back about that, need to find somewhere in Weston-Super-Mare and Okehampton and then I'm golden to Penzance!
I'll be staying over in Penzance on the Friday night then getting the train back north on Saturday (I wonder if TCAA would donate the train fare or a helicopter ride for me? - I have put in quite a lot of effort suppprting them after all)!!

Today's ride is my longest of the challenge, about 95 from Cheltenham to Nailsworth then Ampney St Peter, from there to Henley on Thames before ending at my sister's place in Reading. Long ride but pretty flat...except the first drag up to Nailsworth!
Let's hope I get a bit of warmth today!

Don't forget to follow @Pedal_Medal on Twitter and donate at www.justgiving.com/samlevey

Stratford upon Awesome

Despite the awful fact that I lost an hour's recovery time last night I did get up and gone at a slightly delayed time of 9.45 but my host Vikki, manager of TCAA charity shop in Rugeley and her husband, Steve, fed me well before Steve joined me on the ride to Tamworth before heading back to the on-laws and leaving me to continue to Bedworth to visit Nick Skelton's first post box...

In Bedworth I met Jo, from TCAA and her husband, Ian, who rode alongside me for the rest of the day arriving at Stratford upon Avon at around 4ish. Stratford college actually donated a room for the night which is brilliant and Di (the lady behind my video) met us there, got some new material to update the vid and took me out for dinner.

I'm now fully fed and recovering well, ready for a bit of a monster ride tomorrow heading to my sister's fiancé's parents in Cheltenham. Looking forward to it, now I just need to hope the weather stays clear and the terrain stays pretty flat!
Good times

Half way!

Yesterday's ride completed the halfway stage of the challenge!
Anyways, I got to Flint nice and early, got the photograph taken at Jade Jones postbox, which is just round the corner from Jade Jones Pavilion (they're quite proud of the girl up there it seems)...
From there I rode up what they call Flint Mountain, but I'm sure it's not a real one, and back down into Wrexham a couple of hours later, finding Tom James's box nice and easily...

From there it was a small matter of 50miles to Stafford, where I was being met at the train station for a list to Rugely where there's a TCAA charity shop. They'd rounded up their volunteers and we did a little photo session, which I'll share a link to when I can (pics aren't on my phone) before donating some money and giving me a very lovely little miner's lamp as a memento. Then taking me to the pub for a couple of beers and some time chatting. Really great group, and very much appreciated.

Today's ride looks like fun, from here to Bedworth solo then meeting up with a TCAA employee and her other half and riding in to Stratford-on-Avon to see Di (the lady behind the video) and hopefully rest and recover well!

Hopefully tonight I won't be completely shattered so will be able to do the blog then, but if not we'll have to wait til morning. Enjoy your Easter everybody, hope you have a good day.

@Pedal_Medal
www.justgiving.com/samlevey