Seven Days In The Saddle:

You’ve read the daily updates, now we thought we’d bring you a round up of what it’s been like for the past seven days – a behind the scenes blog. So, in no particular order, let’s have a look at some pics and the stories that go behind them…

For some reason Sasha and Luke are fascinated by men’s bits at the moment. So James and Tom having a wee on an Exmoor gate was too much for Luke – he went to investigate. So, a few seconds after this picture was taken, did Sasha, who promptly dropped her jacket in the bush Tom had just finished watering…

Pen has been an absolutely invaluable member of the team. Not only driving the Fun Bus, but also able to give the riders medical help and exercises to relieve aches and pains. Here Georgie tries out some pilates moves to relieve back ache.


Keeping Sasha and Luke entertained while on the move is a challenge – unless there’s a river and a ready supply of stones. Sasha makes arty piles and shapes, Luke just chucks them in the water. In VAST numbers. About 200 in 15 minutes. Enough to build a dam if he threw them all in the same place! Amazing he’s only hit Sasha in the face once… However every time we take him away he has a huge strop, finishing up by sobbing his favourite phrase: “stay here all night”


Nicko obviously wasn’t that upset at saying goodbye to his Daddy at the MRF in Thornbury. His parting shot? A massive wee that soaked his trousers. Lucky Alex!


The Fun Bus has been utterly fantastic – even though Ollie, Penny, Sasha and Luke have only slept in it for two nights. Here it is at Clitheroe. More impressive than the space on offer inside is the pace it achieves with ‘Rally Penny’ at the helm. It’s safe to say the UK doesn’t have a faster camper van. Ollie has lost count of the number of sports cars(complete with gobsmacked drivers) that have been seen off by the charging Fun Bus.


Tom and James have been true to their word, downing Guinness whenever the opportunity presents itself. They’re both cheap dates, too. After 100 miles in the saddle two pints has them wobbling up the road like a pair of skittles.


Spot the veterinary nurse. Georgie’s training came in very handy just after we crossed into Scotland. She spotted a sheep on its back in a field, roped in James to help and they turned it over, saving its life. Heroes, the pair of them.


This is Ollie’s shoe after the accident, and a mashed up buckle which made it very tricky to get the shoe off in the immediate aftermath. Mind you, it did a good job of protecting his foot – although the pic below was taken almost a week later and look how swollen his foot still is.



Speaking of his injuries, they haven’t prevented Ollie getting back on the bike – if only briefly for a ride round the Clitheroe campsite…



Ollie can more often be found like this:


With his foot up (as per Penny’s instructions) in a teashop writing up the daily blogs. But that’s not what you want to see – you want to see gore, right?



Well, this is all he’s prepared to show you – his scraped left thigh. This was taken on day 3 and the dressings had stuck to the flesh. It took Penny an hour to take them off. Ollie’s language during the process doesn’t bear repeating…
The leg’s actually been healing well, although he has to sit on a disposable baby change mat wherever he goes to stop the wound seeping through the bandages into the chair/bed. but the ribs are another matter – breathing still hurts and laughing and coughing are very painful.

And Finally: Internet Access. We thought it would be easy in this day and age. It’s been a nightmare. As I write this I’m sitting in the manager’s office of a hotel in Braemar - the only place I could get on-line. There is a public access computer in town - just one mind you - and it even has wi-fi! But the lady there doesn’t know the password, her husband is out of mobile phone reception somewhere in the mountains and the USB drives don’t work… Computers with no USB drives, internet access that doesn’t exist, people not prepared to let us use their own computers at B&B’s - you name it, we’ve had it…

And all in seven short days…

This entry was posted on Monday, June 25th, 2007 at 2:43 pm and is filed under General chat. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.