Epilogue

In May 2012, four friends set out to cycle the length of the River Thames over three days. 

There we were, fully kitted up, with the sun on our faces and a slightly breeze behind us. Months of planning and organisation had been done, and now the time was here to achieve what we set out to do; cycling from the source of England’s biggest river to the other end at the Thames Barrier, separated by some of England’s best countryside.

The GPS Route

Trip Summary

Four Go Down The Thames: Day 3 Photos

Foster at Staines Thames Footpath

Four Go Down The Thames: Day 2 Photos

River Hotel at Oxford

Four Go Down The Thames: Day 1 Photos

Braker Boys at Kemble Train Station

Four Go Down The Thames: Day 4, ...and relax!

The hotel at Canary Wharf was great and very comfortable.  After a sumptuous lie-in, and a hefty full English breakfast, we prepare for our final journey back to Waterloo.  However, this wasn’t all on bikes.  We took the Thames Clipper service all the way back to the London Eye, travelling through central London in style!

Four Go Down The Thames: Day 3, The End is Nigh

I started the day feeling surprisingly fresh, mentally at least.  We made another early start, aiming to get to the Thames Barrier before the final day of the Premier League finishes. 

Today we actually left on time, and made very good pace from Slough to Staines. 

Four Go Down The Thames: Day 2

Knowing that we had a lot of cycling to get through today, we attempted to make an early start.  I had had a somewhat disturbed night’s sleep, being woken by Foster to tell me I was snoring! 

We spent a little time in the morning finding a bike shop for Foster to replace his spare inner tube, having got a puncture yesterday afternoon.  Then it was onto the towpath out of Oxford all the way to Abingdon, and was just great with some great views of the river through the city.

Four Go Down The Thames: Day 1, The Adventure Begins

I hadn’t slept well.  It may have been nerves.  It may have been a million and one things going through my head such as have I packed and repacked enough times?  Have I done enough planning, preparation, and training?  Have I got the train times right?  Will I get there on time?  Will I even finish?  Then again, it may well have been the large amount of pasta I’d consumed the night before to ‘carb up’.  The day started off being rudely awoken by a text message from Shum at 4:30am.  Oh the hilarities of such a practical joke!

Living on Stanhope Road

Fosterball: After months of constant yet gentle reminding by my fellow charity cyclist chums, I’ve decided to tap a few hundred words via keyboard about my principle motivation(s) of doing this. I was coaxed into getting a bike by my good friend, Phil Newman, several months after his idea of doing a bike ride for charity was born into this world.



More after the jump

The Boys

Phil's Training Diary - 3

This month’s training has been going well.  It’s been a little interrupted with birthday celebrations and things, but overall been going well. 

More after the jump...

Why Cycle?

Paterson:I’ve cycled for as long as I can remember from the days where you used to sweat but you would be able to get away without smelling like a festival goer.  However my relationship with cycling gradually drifted away due to the introduction of four wheels, university, and alcohol!.

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I am addicted

Shum: I think Ernest Hemingway put it best with regards to how I feel about cycling.

“It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.”


More after the jump...

Places - 6

Greenwich

Greenwich is located at a latitude and longitude of 51° 28' 38" N and 0º 0' 0" E/W (by definition). It is 6 miles east of London on the south bank of the River Thames.

The Cutty Sark is the most famous tea clipper built, and is the only one to survive. She is now in dry dock at Greenwich. As a tea clipper the Cutty Sark played an important role in the world tea trade.

more after the jump..

What's in a name? (pt2)

Now I can't make you do it, you gotta look at the guy next to you, look into his eyes. Now I think you are going to see a guy who will go that inch with you, you are going to see a guy who will sacrifice himself for this team because he knows when it comes down to it, you are gonna do the same thing for him.
That's a team, gentlemen and either we heal now, as a team, or we will die as individuals.
That's football guys.
That's all it is.
Now, whattaya gonna do?
-Any Given Sunday

More after the jump...

Phil's Training Diary - 2

27/01/2012

So far, training has been intermittent, thanks to eye surgery leaving me unable to exercise for two weeks.  (It was a vision enhancement on one eye, and during the healing process it is advised not to exercise).

Biking to work the first week back seemed quite easy following the hills of Somerset, so I guess hill biking has its benefits and isn’t just a means of self-flagellation!

more after the jump...

Places - 5

Putney

Putney has, for decades, been London's rowing centre. 

The growth of the sport was greatly encouraged by the popularity of the Oxford and Cambridge boat race, which was first rowed over the Putney to Mortlake course in 1845. Since then, the boathouses of schools and rowing clubs have spread westwards along the southbank from Putney Bridge.

Putney Bridge is world-famous as the starting point of the annual Oxford and Cambridge University Boat Race.

More after the jump...

Places - 4

Runnymede

Runnymede is 3 miles along the River Thames from Windsor in the county of Surrey.

Its great claim to fame is as the site where King John signed the Magna Carta in 1215. President John F. Kennedy is also commemorated here. It is an attractive area of riverside meadows, grassland, and woodland.

More after the jump...

What's in a name? (pt1)

The charity thing, the bicycle thing, the route thing and all those kind of things were all in the bag. It was Phil's original idea and planning, but once we had bought into the idea, the rest like training, bikes, equipment, etc, were not issues, with one exception.

More after the jump...

Places - 3

Eton

Eton is a town in Berkshire, lying on the opposite bank of the River Thames to Windsor and connected to it by Windsor Bridge. Until 1974 Eton was in Buckinghamshire.

Eton is home to the largest and most famous private school known as Eton College. The school was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI. Nearly 1300 boys attend the private school aged between the ages of 13-18 and all are boarders.

Many famous people went to school at Eton College including Prince William and Prince Harry, 19 prime ministers, authors such as George Orwell and numerous peers of the realm.








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Profile- Phil Newman

Name - Phil Newman

Nickname - Newman

Bike(s) - Genesis Vapour Cyclo-cross 2011, Giant GSR FS 2004

Slogan - Talent + Application = Success

Heroes - Brian May, Tony Adams, Stephen Merchant, Daley Thompson

Villains - Clive Tyldesley and Andy Townsend for their crimes against sports commentary

More after the jump...

Phil's Training Diary - 1

In the first of several updates on my training and preparations for the bike ride, I shall be letting you how I’m getting started and what the plans is.

28/12/2011

It is a few days after Christmas that I am writing this.  I have been off the bike for a number of weeks now, since the bad weather set in and Christmas parties and present buying had taken over.  I’ve been spending the festive period with the family in Somerset, and thought it best I took my bike with me, to make the most of those in-between days of Christmas and New Year, and take advantage of some hilly bike riding.

Having purchased a new bike helmet to replace the one I’d left in Portsmouth, I’ve now been for two short rides now, and I had forgotten just how hilly it is round here, and just how difficult it is to start riding again even after a short period off the bike.  Still, needs must, and the riding shall continue, longer, quicker, better.  I’m sure at the end of it I’ll be longing for the flats of Portsmouth!

From now until the big day, there’s no stopping now, no good excuses, it’s training hard until such time I can actually relax a bit!  Putting it like that is a bit daunting, especially considering my starting point, but I think I’ll be able to make it!

Places - 2

Whitchurch-on-Thames

Whitchurch is a picturesque south Oxfordshire village located on the north bank of the River Thames, five miles North West of Reading. The history of the riverside village can be traced back to Roman times, and possibly earlier. 

 

Kenneth Grahame, inspired by the wildlife he observed on the Thames wrote the children's classic 'The Wind in the Willows'.

Hardwick House in Whitchurch is said to be the inspiration for Toad Hall.

The Thames leaves Pangbourne in an easterly direction along the base of the Chiltern Hills through pleasant meadows towards Reading.

More after the jump

Profile- David Foster

Name - David Foster
Nickname - Fosterball/Fozzy
Bike(s) - Genesis Vapour 2011
Slogan - If you think you're gonna puke, run harder until you do. Know your limits.
Hero - James Hetfield
Villain - Advocates of The Establishment


More after the jump...

Places - 1

We'll be cycling through some of the best of the British countryside as well as some of the more anonymous stretches of road.  In a series of blog articles, we'll be giving a short introduction to some of the more interesting places we'll be passing through.

The River Thames flows through the nine counties of Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Surrey, Middlesex, Essex, and Kent, before finally entering the North Sea.

The importance of the Thames can be seen in the settlements that line its banks. Royal palaces, government buildings, great trading houses, market squares and river crossings all provide links with the past. Many of these settlements have changed little in hundreds of years.

In comparison with major rivers of the world, the Thames is a very small river. It has a total length of just 215 miles (346 km) and is the longest river wholly in England.


More after the jump...

Profile- Andrew Shum

Name - Andrew Shum
Nickname - Akira, Shum
Bike(s) - Specialized Allez 16 2011 and SE Draft lite 2009,
Slogan - I thought what I’d do is I’d pretend I was one of those deaf mutes
Heroes - Ayrton Senna, Muhammad Ali, Wong Kar Wai
Villains - Chairman Mao, the guys that remade the Prisoner,

 More after the jump...

Profile- Andrew Paterson

Name - Andrew Paterson
Nickname - Andy, Pat, Paterson, Patterson, Patman
Bike(s) - GT Aggressor 2009
Slogan - Scientia et Labore or I'm here for a good time not a long time!
Heroes - Rinus Michels, Cus D'Amato, Corazon Aquino, Nelson Mandela
Villains - David Cameron, Flo Rida & T-Pain


 More after the jump...

The Route

As you know, we're cyling the entire length of the River Thames.  We'll be starting off in Kemble, just outside Cirencester in Gloucestershire, and ending at the Thames Barrier in east London.

Our route will follow the river as much as possible; there is a national trail along the entire route. However, the Thames Path National Trail is not a long distance route for cyclists, and most of it is a public footpath. The majority of the ride will therefore be on roads. In London, some boroughs allow cycling on the Thames Path, but it is a disjointed picture.

That said, the route has been carefully planned to ensure that every bend in the river is accounted for, giving good distances between each way point, stop-off point, and the start and finish points. We aim to start on a Friday, meaning that riding through Central London will be on Sunday, which will be less busy. The trip will be done over three days

More after the jump...

Charities

We’re doing this bike ride for charity – as well as for the doubtless improved level of fitness- so you might want to know for which charities we want to raise money. Well, we’ve chosen three charities that are close to our hearts.

More after the jump...

The Great River Thames Charity Bike Ride

You may be wondering why we have decided to ride our bikes along the River Thames. I can’t speak for the others, but this is a short story on how the idea for this ride was conceived and my own reasons for wanting to do this.

It was in the long hot summer of 2010 that the idea for a charity bike ride started to formulate. I had done a couple of 5km and 10km charity runs before and found them to be a good challenge, but I wanted to do something different. I still wanted to raise money for charity, but perhaps this time the challenge would involve sitting down. Then it struck me; how about a bike ride?


More after the jump...

Introduction

Hello and welcome to our blog of our River Thames Charity Bike Ride!

We will go into more detail on exactly what we’re doing later, but in short we are just four guys riding the entire length of the River Thames over three days and hoping to raise money for three great charities.

We hope to raise as much money for the charities as possible and share the money equally between them. We’ll be doing the ride in May 2012, cycling approximately 60 miles a day. With your help and generosity we can achieve our goals.

This blog will cover all news, updates, photos and training diaries of our journey. We will be posting regularly prior to the big weekend, hopefully during the ride and at the finish. At the side is a link to our Virgin Money Giving page for donations, and links to our charities of choice.  There is more information about what we're doing, how we’re doing it and why we’re doing it, so please feel free to read on – and thanks for your support!