I have never in all my 48 years done a sponsored ride, walk or any such event, always feeling reluctant to ask others for money,  so the combination of a friend's suggestion, a great cause and middle age restlessness prompted me to take on this 9 day (970 miles) ride spending 8 nights in a tent.

The cause is The Brain Tumour Charity.  Silas Pullen was a boy at my younger son's school who died of an aggressive brain tumour in December. Silas was 11.  Incredibly, survival rates for children with brain tumours have not improved in 50 years and at one point Silas was on drugs that are 30 years old and were not effective then. This charity is leading research in the UK in changing this. Money you donate will go specifically to paediatric brain tumour research and a fund set up in Silas' memory. 

I started training in November in foul weather and after falling off several times (most spectacularly when I couldn't unclip my shoes at a set of traffic lights in Hastings and landed on a Mini) am getting used to most of the cycling world. The saddle is another story...