JoGLE in Memory of Sdn Ldr Ant Downing

On the 22nd December 2011 Sdn Ldr Anthony Downing was seriously wounded when the vehicle he was travelling in was caught in an explosion south of Kabul. Ant was flown back to the UK where sadly he died of his wounds at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.

Ant was my brother, an exceptionally good man and an inspiration to so many, myself included. From an early age he tried to push himself to see what he was capable of. Whilst he was at school he competed in endurance events in running and cycling and as an adult went on to such feats as cycling across America in 25 days a number of Iron Man competitions and completed a Double Iron Man too.

At his funeral the idea of retracing his wheel tracks on a ride across the USA was talked over with many of Ant's friends. I said on a number of times I would like to give it a go. This ride however is not quite so ambitious; it is a training ride to see if I have it within me to cycle long distances. Ant completed the Lands End to John O' Groats trip on his own in 1999. The journey should be approximately 874 miles, hence the target for the fund-raising. My friend Chris Tremblett and I shall be doing the journey in September the other way around mainly due to logistical reasons.

We have been told on a number of occasions that going North to South is the awkward way to do it as we will be pedalling into the wind every day. However, Scotland is high up on the map and Cornwall is at the bottom so although it's a long way it will all be down hill. How hard can it be?


Very, I suspect...

Wednesday 12 September 2012

T Minus 3 Days

First and foremost may I please say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has donated. I picked the target of £874 purely as that was the approximate number of miles we had to cycle but as of today we have over £1000 in sponsorship money (plus the gift aid too) and for that I am quite humbled. Thank you very much everyone.

The last minute panic has solidly started and the list of things to do has suddenly grown bigger. I've got a day to get everything done and then that's it, we'll be on a plane and shall just have to get on with it. Most of the last minute things are now centred around publicity. I had a phone interview with the lovely Becky Ricks from the Plymouth Herald who will hopefully publish a couple of articles on our ride. Due to time constraints Chris and I went up to the Blockhouse after he finished work and Mag took photos of us to hopefully be published in the Herald. I've promised to email Becky a photo from the John O' Groats signpost too.

I've bought a solar charger on the advice of Helen to enable me to charge my phone on the move for navigation and blog writing duties. Cotswolds Outdoors in Plymouth were very helpful and gave me a nice discount too, so thank you to them. Just need to have a bit of sun for the ride now...

Right, it's 11pm and I need to decide what to pack, find where those things are hiding and then somehow fit them into the world's smallest panniers. Hopefully tomorrow we will have some flyers, everything outstanding would have fallen into place and I can go and have a cheeky north coast surf before a final curry with everyone.

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