MarinMartin
Marin Fan
Re:
So today was a special ride. A good friend and cycling inspiration was recently diagnosed with incurable brain cancer and only has about 3 months left. He was supposed to do Lands End to John O Groats in September for charity but since he can't it was decided that to raise money for him, an event would be set up. Basically the aim was to get people out riding over this weekend in isolation and combine the mileage to make up the 1000 miles he would have ridden. Well turns out it went global and combined mileage is now over 10,000 miles and a lot of money has been raised for him. I met Fran at the Twenty four 12, a complete stranger but he supported me when I was on my own to keep me going. So I wanted to get involved with the challenge to show support for him through this.
He rode for a road cycling club and the team colours are pink so I thought it only fair that I use the one pink bike I have, my 1988 Raleigh Mustang. I bought this about 6 months ago and had never ridden it as a) it weighed the same as the titanic and b) I was off the bike because of my injury so couldn't ride anything. It needed a lot of work so in typical me fashion I bodged it together yesterday in the hope that I'd be able to get at least 20 miles out of it. You know I've been struggling with injury after an accident and since then the longest ride I did (on a modern lightweight bike) was 15 miles and that was a struggle. But wanted to do at least 20 to really push myself, especially with a bike of this 'character'
I don't know how but 33.6 miles later she's still in good working order, same can't be said about me
.1.25 skinny slicks on rocky paths are interesting to say the least but she made it. I'm definitely going to be sore tomorrow but it's worth it, I've needed something like this for a long time to really push myself again and prove what I can do so this really was a special ride.
So today was a special ride. A good friend and cycling inspiration was recently diagnosed with incurable brain cancer and only has about 3 months left. He was supposed to do Lands End to John O Groats in September for charity but since he can't it was decided that to raise money for him, an event would be set up. Basically the aim was to get people out riding over this weekend in isolation and combine the mileage to make up the 1000 miles he would have ridden. Well turns out it went global and combined mileage is now over 10,000 miles and a lot of money has been raised for him. I met Fran at the Twenty four 12, a complete stranger but he supported me when I was on my own to keep me going. So I wanted to get involved with the challenge to show support for him through this.
He rode for a road cycling club and the team colours are pink so I thought it only fair that I use the one pink bike I have, my 1988 Raleigh Mustang. I bought this about 6 months ago and had never ridden it as a) it weighed the same as the titanic and b) I was off the bike because of my injury so couldn't ride anything. It needed a lot of work so in typical me fashion I bodged it together yesterday in the hope that I'd be able to get at least 20 miles out of it. You know I've been struggling with injury after an accident and since then the longest ride I did (on a modern lightweight bike) was 15 miles and that was a struggle. But wanted to do at least 20 to really push myself, especially with a bike of this 'character'
I don't know how but 33.6 miles later she's still in good working order, same can't be said about me
.1.25 skinny slicks on rocky paths are interesting to say the least but she made it. I'm definitely going to be sore tomorrow but it's worth it, I've needed something like this for a long time to really push myself again and prove what I can do so this really was a special ride.
