Wednesday 25 April 2012

B2B Social and news on the route

Not exactly biking weather, is it? I'd like to say that I'm a year-long cyclist, getting up early on freezing winter mornings to stick on my warm togs and take on the bracing 12 miles to work. But I'm not. In fact, as it turns out, I'm a bit of a two-wheeler wuss - even now looking out at the (fairly slight) drizzle and thinking... naaaah. Tomorrow.

But then, as your man Sam Cooke says, "a change is gonna come". Oof. Apologies. But the sun (surely, surely) is on its way, the Surrey Downs lie in wait a matter of miles away from sarf-east London... and Bike to Bestival looms large and very exciting just a matter of months away...

We've been ferreting away at the details of the bash of late; in a matter of days, we'll be sending out, to those of you who've declared an interest in the ride, a FAQs document which will hopefully start to fill the gaps in a wee bit. In the meantime, though one or two other bits and pieces:

First up, towards the end of next month we'll be inviting as many of you as can possibly make it to a Bike to Bestival social. Apologies at this point to those of you outside of London; we really don't want this to become a London-centric thing, and as time goes on we'll be thinking of ways to try and remedy this. For now, however, we'll be sticking to the Big Smoke and hiring out a big old room in a lovely pub somewhere...

Details to follow very soon, but this will be a chance for you to come along, share a few ales, have a natter... and most importantly, kick-start the whole musical element of the trip. We'd like the chance to see how many musicians we have and to figure out how this is all going to work. Practically speaking, the chances are that we'll form lots of little groups within the whole gang, but it'd be good to think that we can rustle up a few numbers that we can play en masse and make one big, beautiful noise. Bestival are very keen that we all play together on site - and who knows, we may even get to perform on stage in front of thousands of adoring fans. Yes!

Secondly, the route...

As you probably already know, we're going to be taking on a fair section of the Olympic road-race route. This will take us out of London via Hampton Court, and then south past Weybridge, veering off just to the east of Guildford, before heading west towards our campsite. Handily, this part has already been mapped out for us by London 2012 (do you think they might do the rest of it, too?) You can take a look here:

http://www.london2012.com/documents/venue-documents/cycling-road-race-route.pdf

That's all for know; but keep 'em peeled here for more bits and pieces very soon...

Tuesday 24 April 2012

Guardian bike blog






We got a mention in the Guardian bike blog yesterday. As this is our first year we've been absolutely stoked by the responses and interest so far. Warren is busy putting finishing touches to the overnight stop, and the FAQs and terms and conditions are ready to go. Everyone who has expressed an interest so far will get notification when registration opens, and any remaining places will be avaialble to all after that.

If you are here because of the article yesterday then you can express your interest by emailing us at biketobestival@bestival.net

Keep an eye on your email over the next few days and thanks again for your enthusiasm so far!!





Wednesday 4 April 2012

Progress update.

In case you've emailed us at biketobestival@bestival.net recently and wondered why you haven't heard from us yet... There have been lots of emails in the last few days and as we are now close to sending out the information packs. Rather  than answer each email I am waiting to be able to send these out to everyone.

We are working hard with the bestival team and the cancer research uk team to get as much information as possible out to you in one go.

What will happen is that shortly after the information pack goes out we will open registration via a web page. Once everyone is registered we can start to look at charity fundraising ideas and training needs.

For those of you that want, we can do some training rides to get used to spending some time in the saddle.

For those of a musical inclination we can start to look at playing together. We'll come up with ways to involve those not based in London... So don't worry about that.

Needless to say that with both Bestival and Cancer Research behind this endeavour, we are looking at a great event that should get your festival experience off to a flying start.

I look forward to meeting each and every one of you and I'm sure we'll have a lovely time preparing and riding to bestival.

We aren't planning on ruling out any cycling abilities or types of bike (although I would rather they had at least the two wheels)

So shortly I hope to meet you and welcome you to the inaugural bike to bestival.

Dominic