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Well, at least, to start going home.
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We survive the night and breakfast and escape to start our journey south at 8:30. The teddy bears didn’t get any more victims.
Tempting to go and pop back to the sign post, but we have a long way to go.
Richard and Becky have kindly offered to stage our journey for us. Before that, there is quite a lot of retracing to be done.
Carlos is snug now, bike on the back, me in the back and the girlies up front.
Saying that we start our journey south at 8:30, I do have a moments reflection that 8:30 is bike time normally.
Same roads as yesterday to start, just going the other way and faster. Well, a bit faster. After Tain, we keep on down the A9 as opposed to the smaller roads I had taken going north 2 days before. We get very familiar with the A9. It is an awful road.
Speed limit of 60 even on the dual carriageway bits, and on the single carriageway bits, HGVs are limited to 50mph, meaning that everyone else has to go 50 as there isn’t anyway to get past. Even if there were, Carlos is quite heavily loaded and he only has 995cc under his bonnet, and despite Lewis Ayrton Ruth’s best efforts , overtaking would be challenging, not to save a threat to life and limb.
Things aren’t helped by the fact that there are roadworks all over the blessed A9, slowing us down even more. They also have average speed cameras the length of it, and those things are evil as they seem to work and slow traffic down. What is the world coming to?
We just keep going.
Eventually we get off the A9, stop at a petrol station as someone needs a wee, buy a sandwich or raspberry, drive, stop for a wee and then celebrate as at 16:30, we leave Scotland. It almost feels that it has taken longer to drive it than cycle it.
More hours later we arrive at Richard and Beckys. Chat, eat, drink, and then to bed.
Off the following morning and home later on the Monday.
Strangely, when we got home, I went for a short bike ride…
The next few days its meeting up with people again, lots of back slapping, chatting about all that went on, starting to write this thing (only 21 months later and its nearly finished), start the process of booking in the screenings, go for some cycles with the Proper people and strangely the Sussex hills and rides in general feel really pretty easy now. It’s a shame that the fitness wont last. More than likely never be as fit as this again. Small note for Strava fans, after finishing the ride on July 2nd, checked my ranking globally for distance, picture below. 120,000 people doing this worldwide, I was inside the top 500. That's inside the top half percent. Something else that will never happen again!
And now it is 21 months later, the screenings happen next week.
200 people at Varndean and Priory will be checked, in fact, we have about 210 booked in, but some won’t turn up. We’ll be there on the day, and it will be odd as I don’t want anyone to have a problem, but at the same time, I really don’t want the 211th one to be the one that had the problem. Better that they be found.
It probably is time to wrap this up now. I’m not sure that I have finished this off well, but it’s a different thing to all the days before. I may consider this overnight and see what else to say.
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​July 3rd – Time to go home
OK, having considered this, it is lacking a bit on the fun and games getting the screening days set up.
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Varndean from the start have been brilliant. Jan and Jackie along with Phil have done all they could to make this happen.
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Sorted the day early, meeting up as needed and then as we get towards the date, they worked closely with Christina from CRY to get the mechanics rolling. The promotional side also worked well. Internal communications went out, then there was follow up, videos recorded by myself and Ruth, all of which led to the position where when bookings opened, 4 hours later they were full.
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Sussex Downs were another story.
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From the outset this didn’t feel as good. Where at Varndean I had been able to speak on the phone and meet up face to face, I never got that from Sussex Downs. I offered many times, but it was always too much effort for them to be able to speak with me. They agreed to a date, and then as time ticked by did nothing until advising in January 2018 that they wouldn’t be able to do this as it was too late for them to start on it. It is hard to have any reaction other than if only I had given them more than 18 months notice, but it is about finding the right person or people to deal with. That very much happened at Varndean, not at Sussex Downs.
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It was with a heavy heart that I asked a few people, and went to social media to see if anyone had ideas as to how we could find another venue at short notice.
Another complication here was that I was working as all this was going on, whereas when organising the LEJOG and getting sponsorship and fund raising sorted I had taken time out. That time was so needed.
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Initially, Steve contacted to see if the date was fixed as they had a new property that could have been used, but hat would mean delaying at least a year. Also, Steve was able to start enquiries at the Leisure Centre as Jamie worked down there.
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In the meantime, a fellow Proper cyclist (Chris, worthy of a mention here) came up with a contact for Lewes Priory school.
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Priory had been a touch absent back in 2014, but getting in touch with Amanda made all the difference.
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Here was someone who was willing to make effort to see that if this could happen it would.
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Within the space of a couple of weeks, Amanda, Christina and Priory had managed what Sussex Downs had failed to do in 18 months. All about the people.
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For anyone else looking at this kind of thing, the key, the only lesson here is the importance of that right person and meeting up face to face and keeping in touch. Contact not always from me to the colleges or schools, but the fact that they contact me on regular occasions lets you know all you need to know.
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To anyone in the events organising area, that wont be news, but others may not quite grasp how important it is.
As a result, this afternoon I have o dig out the wall papering table, get promotional material together, get some videos on the laptop ready to play all in order that we can have a promotional table at the screenings.
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This doesn’t stop after March 14th. I will have a chat with people to see if we keep on going to raise more money for more screenings or if the baton is now passed on, but it must continue until the screenings are widely available, ideally on the NHS as 12 people a week, 1 on 300 having a defect, those are numbers that cannot be ignored and will only end in sadness unless people get screened and treated where needed.
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We will see…….