3 weeks to go!

A quick update...23 days to go!

On the 23rd June, Jamie, Sam and myself will roll out of San Francisco on our new purpose built bikes and set off for the east coast of America.

Preparations are well and truly underway on the logistical front ie. places to stay, the route, visas, kit and much more. On the kit front, it was good to be reminded by an experienced cycle tourer on one of my many trips to the local bike shop to ‘lay out all your kit that you’re going to take out on your bedroom floor, get rid of half of it and pack the rest.’ Judging from that, I fear it may well be a VERY smelly three months! However, there is one major part of our preparations that we have somewhat discarded…

Most people would probably argue that the actual riding of the bike was the most important bit to our preparation, but calling our training regime lack lustre would be a big understatement. In Jamie’s case, he has the perfectly decent excuse of living in central London revising hard for exams, needing to pass them all to be able to complete the ride. On the other hand Sam and I don’t have the same excuse and to put it bluntly are just being lazy! We will just have to get fit as we go (and I'm sure we will)…

On the donations front, we have exceeded even my wildest expectations at this stage with £12 000 raised to date and the generosity of friends and family has been amazing. Thank you so much! We have also been promised quite a lot when we have finished, so it gives us an even bigger incentive to get it done. I must say it’s quite addictive checking if anyone else has donated when I get home from work.

There is still one major problem though, our contact address in San Francisco fell through and therefore we are currently short of somewhere to stay. If anyone knows anybody that wouldn’t mind having Sam and me to stay for a couple of nights before the 23rd June please please send me an email at charlessale@hotmail.co.uk

We are prepared to house sit, baby sit, dog sit and are happy to sleep on the floor!