Extreme Gardening

Now the bike is starting to look pretty good, last weekend was spent doing some basic test fitting of the panniers and the complete removal of the old and redundant graphics on them and the bike to make room for all the potential sponsors, it may seem like wishful thinking but if all those that have said they will do something actually come across, it will make a huge dent in the target.

I didn't get to do as much work done on the bike as I had planned at the weekend I will have to do some catching up in the evenings now, as each week goes by the start date gets ever closer, obviously.

Now for the reason for the title, I had read somewhere that chopping wood and heavy gardening was a good way of getting fit, well it turns out I live in an old gamekeepers cottage surrounded by a copse and over the last year or so some of the trees have got rather out of hand as well as some of the older and more diseased ones need to be felled. With this in mind Saturday morning saw my good friend Jay come around to help me with chopping down a couple of trees and trim back a couple of others, as I would have to lop some of the branches 25-30 feet up, I needed some safety cover. When a major branch decided to twist back and knocked me off the ladder it proved a very good idea, thankfully I had a safety harness and had strapped myself to the tree, so rather than falling 20 feet, I just dangled there for a moment before Jay got the ladder back in the right place for me to climb down. I got off very lightly in the end, with just a couple of bruises, far better than the broken bones that might have stopped this project before it even started.

By Sunday evening at about 6.30pm whilst standing looking at the glowing embers of the bonfire, I knew I had been in a very tough workout, parts of me were aching that I had long forgotten existed. My shoulders and arms ached right through until Tuesday night, carrying round 20kg lumps of wood and raking leaves generated a good sweat a got the blood pumping. It was certainly an interesting option to a visit to the gym. To give an idea on the amount of work that went in, there is an image of one area part way through the felling and before the bonfire was lit, the other indicator is the fact that I have had to go out and buy a new chain for my chain saw, it wore out, I couldn't sharpen it anymore without it losing teeth. This coming weekend will be some more of the same, to clear up the last couple of trees that have been felled but not cleared up. The added benefit apart from getting fit, is when the wood dries out properly in 6-12 months time I'm going to have between 2 and 3 years of wood available for my fires.

I still have the new Cockpit Dash to paint and fit, the dash will allow met to fit a couple of additional gadgets to the bike including an additional power outlet so I can recharge my laptop batteries whilst I am on the move. The next item to source is a RAM mount for my camera, I've seen a couple but it's going to a bit of task finding the right place to fit it, to make sure that I get the right line of vision, as with most digital cameras these days, it give the option to take some movie files, so it will be nice to see what it can do.

On the subject of Cameras, that good friend of mine who came around at the weekend rides in Enduro competitions, it turns out he is about to invest in a new Helmet Cam and is going to let me have his old one for the duration of the ride so I will be able to provide even more footage than I originally planned.

The Press release has now been fully signed off and Sanjay of Acorns has just let us know that he has been speaking with BBC Radio WM and they are talking about doing a weekly piece on my travels around the UK. This is getting serious no turning back now.

I will now start sending out the Press Release along with a covering email to all those companies and individuals that have said they will support the fund raising and gain their commitment as well as any logos they want to mount on the bike. One of the organisations I will be sending the info through to is The YHA, who have said they will post it on their website. Given the time of year I am starting this endeavour Youth Hostels are going to come in handy. And any additional publicity as I go round them will be useful.

Now where's that damn list, there must be something I can cross off ---- more later! and in the words of a good mate of mine. 'You don't stop riding when you grow old, you grow old when you stop riding!'