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...
