Riding the Tour de France?

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IanT
Posts: 198
Joined: 14 Jun 2009 20:40
Real Name: Ian Taylor

Riding the Tour de France?

Post by IanT » 21 Feb 2021 21:53

One of the things I love about the Beacon RCC is the rich and storied history of our club.

It’s not just distant history either, the last few years have been a golden age as we’ve savoured the achievements of the Hughes household, marvelled at Stu White’s Transcontinental adventure, applauded the long distance Audaxers taking on Paris-Brest-Paris and of course celebrated the numerous time trial successes delivered by Jess, to name just a few. Heroes, one and all. But here’s the thing – can we claim to have sent a rider to the Tour de France? I think not. Until now. Well, kind of...

In June this year, I'll be part of a team riding all 21 stages of the Tour de France, one week ahead of the professional peloton. Led by ex-professional footballer, Geoff Thomas, our team of 25 riders is aiming to raise £1m for Cure Leukaemia to help fund a network of specialist nurses and a Trials Acceleration Programme across 12 blood cancer centres throughout the UK, connecting blood cancer patients with pioneering treatments and clinical trials.

This year’s route is 3383km in length and has been described as a classic Tour route, with more time trialling miles than in recent years, which I'm seeing as a bonus because they’ll be short days! We also tackle a double ascent of Mont Ventoux on stage 11 and of course the obligatory challenges in the Alps and the Pyrenees. Our objective though, is simple; just to complete each stage and raise as much money as possible for Cure Leukaemia. It promises to be a long way outside anything I’ve done before on a bike. The Weston ride in 2013 just felt like it lasted 3 weeks.

I’ve been involved with Cure Leukaemia for a couple of years and they do fantastic work, making a real difference to the lives of people with the disease. If you want to read more about our Tour 21 team, https://www.thetour21.co.uk/ has all the details.

If you’d like to contribute, you can donate via my just giving page https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/geoff-GT15 and every single pound helps get us another step closer to our £1m target.

So, with 118 days to go until we set off from Brest on Stage 1, I’m currently combining fundraising activity with increasingly long and steady rides as my training steps up. I'd love for people to join me on some longer rides as we head into Spring (assuming we'll be allowed to ride in groups again soon) and I’ve also got a few fundraising events planned for April and May if you feel like getting involved. More details to follow in the next few weeks…

Cheers - Ian

caashford
Posts: 132
Joined: 19 Dec 2014 15:41
Real Name: Christopher Ashford
Location: Solihull, Birmingham

Re: Riding the Tour de France?

Post by caashford » 28 Feb 2021 16:24

Good luck on this adventure Ian! You are always more than welcome on the Beacon Audax adventures and I know the club will support you in this great endeavour.

My friend / ex-BRAT training and racing team mate Steve Faulkner is part of your Tour21 team having being impacted by cancer at a young age. I don't know if you have all met up with the team yet, but I'm sure you will all have plenty of stories of your training during lockdown to tell. He is based on Loughborough now, but a long-time Birmingham resident.

Anyway, I look forward to seeing what you have planned for fundraising in April, May and may well join you to support in some way.

Cheers,
Chris

Dave Cox
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Joined: 23 Jan 2007 18:03
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Re: Riding the Tour de France?

Post by Dave Cox » 11 Mar 2021 17:05

Double checked the date. Great to see that this can be set up for current year. Good luck Ian

Dave Cox
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Re: Riding the Tour de France?

Post by Dave Cox » 11 Mar 2021 17:05

I'm assuming that last year's pledges still stand - is that right?

IanT
Posts: 198
Joined: 14 Jun 2009 20:40
Real Name: Ian Taylor

Re: Riding the Tour de France?

Post by IanT » 12 Mar 2021 12:34

That's correct Dave, all donations from last year have carried over and are being applied to 2021.

Dave Cox
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Re: Riding the Tour de France?

Post by Dave Cox » 14 Mar 2021 16:35

Look forward to the vicarious pleasure of tracking your progress around France in the summer - getting in some training watching highlights of the Paris-Nice (almost) !!

IanT
Posts: 198
Joined: 14 Jun 2009 20:40
Real Name: Ian Taylor

Re: Riding the Tour de France?

Post by IanT » 30 Apr 2021 08:53

Latest update

Thanks to everyone that's entered the TT so far, I’m pleased to say numbers are looking good but we’d love to see even more entries, so if you haven’t yet entered please make sure you do so before the deadline of 14th May.

There’s plenty of parking right next to the sign on desk and the course will be open between 5.30pm to 6.45pm so riders can get used to it whilst having a warm up. There’ll also be warm up area next to the car park.

I’d like to ask for volunteers to assist with the usual jobs – sign-on, course marshalling etc so if anyone can give up a few hours please let me know on this thread, on DM or via Gemma on social media.

In other news, the Tour21 team have launched our latest fund raising initiative, a raffle of cycling goodies, with some truly fantastic prizes – take a look here https://fundraising.thetour21.co.uk/buynow/raffle and once again all funds raised will go directly to Cure Leukaemia.

And finally, we're still on track to ride the route of the Tour de France 2021 one week in advance, COVID-19 permitting. Today marks the start of our 50 day count down and our fundraising has just gone through the £600k mark.

Thanks to everyone in the Beacon RCC for your help, support and kind wishes, it’s hugely appreciated and makes a massive difference.

Ian Taylor

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