letourdedrupal

Getting knocked off your bike the moment you land in London is probably not the best way to start three days of cycling... apparently she didn't see my bright blue Drupal cycle shorts and vibrant lime green Paramo jacket when she broad-sided me whilst attempting to make a right turn! Thankfully there was no permanent damage to bike or body but it was my first encounter with a bonnet and needless to say I was pretty shook up.

The time has come, I'm just about to get on a train and head for London ready to set off tomorrow morning from Trafalgar Sq.

I'm excited.

I'm nervous.

I've packed 7+ times.

I think I know the route.

I have a wonderful Drupal jersey and Drupal bib shorts from Chapter THREE, thanks Matt :)

I will post some tweets and photos as and when I can.

Bon voyage and see you in Paris...!

I got out today for my first ride since the "big" ride into Manchester last week, I did another loop around the local hills over to Oakenclough. It also gave me an opportunity to test out RunKeeper, an iPhone application that enables you to track your route via GPS giving you valuable information such as time, distance, avg. speed and calories burned. One really cool feature is a graph that displays your speed overlaid with the height above sea level which I found really useful.

As previously mentioned, Liz at the Meningitis Trust has been working hard on a press release and here it is!

UPDATE: You can read the press release directly on the Meningitis Trust website - http://www.meningitis-trust.org/press/UK-Press-Releases320.html

LANCASHIRE FATHER CYCLES EIFFEL LONG WAY FOR CHARITY

A father from Preston, Chris Maiden, is cycling 300K from London to Paris on his beloved Brompton bike for the Meningitis Trust this month.

When I started training for Le Tour de Drupal two weeks ago, James suggested I keep a log of mileage covered and timings, here's some data from that log:

• I've been out on the bike 10 times over a two week period
• I've been in the saddle for a total of 11hrs 28mins
• I've covered a distance of 146.3 miles
• It was raining... not all the time... but generally speaking it was raining...

So based on my training data, if I'd set off for Paris two weeks ago, I'd still have about 30 miles to ride!

Yesterday was a breakthrough day! Some of the exciting things I'd been trying to get done in preparation for the ride all came together.

I cycled 50 miles in a day, yay go me! Well it was actually 49.3 miles :)

It was the North West Drupal user group last night so I rode from Garstang to Manchester via the hilly ascent to Belmont on the A675 and through Bolton clocking up 40 miles! After the user group, I got the train back from Oxford Road to Preston finishing the day with a 9.3 mile ride back home.

It's been another encouraging day in the build up to Le Tour, donations have reached 15% of the target total, yay! This is fantastic news and I want to say a big "thank you" to everyone who has donated so far!

I also received a call from the Meningitis Trust who are going to help publicise the ride and make some press releases to local newspapers which is a huge encouragement. I'd contacted both the Garstang Courier and the Lancashire Evening Post but as yet have not heard back from them, hopefully the good people at the Meningitis Trust will have more joy!

I've been busy tonight booking the train, ferry and Eurostar for Le Tour de Drupal... ironically it's costing me more to cycle most of the way to Paris than my colleagues who are travelling by plane!

Here are the details in case anyone wants to travel with me/meet up:

Going
Thursday 27th August - I travel by train from Preston to London arriving at 4pm - want to meet up? I'm hoping to have a little get together with a few send off drinks etc.
Friday 28th August - I'm booked on the 22:30 ferry from Newhaven bound for Dieppe.

We've had some fantastic activity on Twitter today, thanks everyone who tweeted about Le Tour de Drupal - don't forget the hash tag #tourdedrupal if you want your message to appear in our feed...

Thanks again and keep up the good work of spreading the word, it all helps!

Whoo! Thanks for all the donations so far, we're fast approach 10% of my fund-raising target - please give what you can at http://www.justgiving.com/le-tour-de-drupal/