One of our Ride25 Riders Gary Mitchell (pictured left on the above photo) recently sent us an email listing the main reasons that have compelled him to hop on the Ride25 bandwagon and book a cycling tour with us. We love Gary’s ‘Reasons to Ride(25)’ so we thought we’d publish them for you all to read – with special thanks to Gary for allowing us to do so!
Gary recently took part in the Ride25 training ride in Yorkshire (the Grand Depart route) last month with his friend Andy and is due to embark on his first ‘proper’ Ride25 leg in June 2014 from Geneva to Milan.
Perhaps some of these reasons will resonate with you..!
Knowing that everything is looked after means we can go and focus on the biking – support vehicles and logistics all taken care of – and the others will help us.
Andy is 10 st and I am 15 st. If we went on a trip together alone, Andy would not be testing himself. He loved the Ride25 training ride of the Yorkshire Grand Depart route, and was riding with ‘the best of them’. I, however, loved the Ride25 Yorkshire training route simply for being able to finish! We both loved starting and finishing and meeting at lunch etc – and meeting other people we could cycle with – it is a natural mixer of people.
This means it is now or never. Like a lot of people, we are new to the sport. Middle age has meant that our traditional sports are too hard on the joints – so we have come to the sport late with little chance of “achieving”- Ride 25 is a special Sportive as it gives us all a chance to experience something exceptional – and it is slightly less demanding than a stage – which after all is designed for the professionals. It would be like me trying to play my 5 a side with professionals. I would be on the same pitch but outclassed.
These are collectable steps – and the value depends on the level of participation. Call me a big kid, but I can’t wait to start collecting my Ride25 badges!
I went out biking with my friend Ed the other night, who cycled the Paris to Geneva Ride25 tour last year and is about to cycle the Geneva to Milan leg but is yet to do the UK to Paris leg. He said he was desperate to to do ‘leg 1’, the Ride25 UK to Paris leg, to connect “his house” to Milan – so he could sit back and say after this year – “I have cycled from my house to Milan!” – then Rome the year after – which is a pretty cool thing to be able to say …
Ed also said after his ride last year he realised that the experience was so special to him that he was desperate to do it again – it was such a great feeling cycling through France and stopping for lunch in the Cote D’Or … he couldn’t believe he was doing it….
This has made me train and put meaning into my training. I have looked at diet and how to fit in training to my lifestyle. It has been hard but I have never ever felt better and do not ever want to feel less good than this. It has been the exciting goal I have needed. In March it scared the living daylight out of me. Now – after the Ride25 Yorkshire training challenge – I am hungry for it. Yorkshire did me the world of good. It made me work to get fit but it also has given me the confidence for the trip now – i.e. allowed me to see how it would be, make a few errors (ate too much lunch), meet some people who would be on the real trip (exciting). It has taken away so much of the worry.
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