Intro: Fifty cyclists, including Novacroft’s Duncan Smith (2nd/3rd Line IT Analyst) and Daryl Hurst (Head of Research and Development), will be taking on the 230 mile ‘Ride for Hope’ cycle challenge from Northampton, England to Ypres, Belgium, from July 6th – 9th 2017, in aid of the Northampton Hope centre. The route takes them from Northampton to Enfield (72 miles, day 1), Enfield to Canterbury (80 miles, day 2) and Canterbury to Ypres (73 miles, day 3) followed by coach travel back to Northampton. Novacroft will be following Daryl and Duncan’s journey, from training to the event itself, and the trials and tribulations in between.
“After two weeks of not cycling, and with the second Pidy organised 32 mile practice ride on Saturday afternoon, I was asked if I wanted to go for a 30 mile ride on Saturday morning. Stupidly, some might say, I put the following update on my Justgiving page:
HURT ME NOW! It’s been nearly two weeks since I last got on my road bike as it’s been at the bike hospital getting its bottom bracket replaced (both bike and bracket are doing well). I’ve got my next group ride tomorrow afternoon at 2pm (30 miles) but I’ve been invited on a Saturday morning jaunt (approx. 30 miles) so am “toying” (bah hah haaa) with the idea of doing them both! I know right! So I’ll do a deal with you all… If I can get a mere £30 sponsorship between now and tomorrow morning I’ll do both rides! My pain is in your hands!
Long story short, I have friends and colleagues that clearly don’t like me much as within a couple of hours I’d got 4 new sponsors to the tune of £45! Both rides were on!
The first was with Stuey (see previous blog), his brother Andy whom I’d met on the previous Pidy ride, and a bunch of their ‘Kislingbury Sun Cyclists’ friends who, I must say, were a very welcoming bunch. ‘The Sun’ by the way is a great little pub in Kislingbury (apparently). They all turned up in their bright yellow jerseys with the slogan ‘building up a thirst’ on the front and pictures of beer bottles sticking out of the back pockets. This was going to be fun!
The ride was a circuit of Northampton and to be honest a little quicker than I’d hoped, averaging around 15.5mph. At the end of it, I thanked them for allowing me to go out with them and rushed home to get some much needed lunch down me before heading out an hour or so later for the afternoon ride. I felt pretty good all told.
The afternoon ride was warmer, hillier, but thankfully a little slower. Daryl was with me on this one and we managed to stick with the lead group of approx. 10 riders until we couldn’t all agree on which way we needed to go at a particular junction. We ended up with 5 of us going one way and the others going the other. Checking on the map a little while later we could see we were a couple of miles off the route so ended up going through a few more villages before we got to the Canons Ashby tea room meeting place. We met up with everybody else and swarmed over to the cakes counter…. Hey, don’t judge me!
Daryl and I asked a fellow rider if she’d take a photo of us….it was only when we looked at it did I realise that we’d both worn red and black, which explained why everybody was confusing us for some elite racing team…..yeah right! We also had a group photo taken before we set off again in two groups back towards Northampton.
Again we managed to get lost on the way back, so added a couple of more villages/miles to the ride. All part of the fun. Finally, the group of six I was with got back to the Pizza Hut car park where we’d started from.
I’d done a total of 65 miles for the day. I was tired but still felt good. So good that when Daryl asked (jokingly, I thought) if I wanted to go out the following day I said “sure, maybe up to 30 miles?” He smiled and said he’d text me in the morning.
He did!
We agreed to do a 26 mile ride from the Novacroft office. We both rode from our respective homes to work, did the 26 miles and then rode home. Well, almost home. My Garmin said I’d ridden 37.5 miles. I couldn’t finish the ride on that! I’d have to do the extra 2.5 miles to make it up to 40!
Berating myself for being ridiculous I looped around past my house and carried on with tired legs for another mile and a half before turning back and finally getting home after 40.5 miles.
Over 100 miles over the two days. Well happy!
My next big challenge is to ride 75 miles in one go (with a couple of refuelling breaks).”
Duncan and Daryl need to raise £500 each as part of their commitment to the Hope Centre. If you’d like to add your support and help them reach their target, you can access Daryl’s JustGiving page here and Duncan’s JustGiving page here.
