So the hard work starts here

So I have been preparing for a cycle ride for Sense (see www.sense.org.uk) since I floated the idea of doing 'some sort of challenge' last Christmas.

Having cycled from Land's End to John O'Groats in 2007, I thought I might just add on a few miles this time. My route looks to be around 2,000 miles as I have decides to go from the furthest Westerly point in Northern Ireland to the furthest Northerly point in mainland Scotland (Dunnett Head but taking in John O'Groats on the way), then the furthest Easterly point at Lowestoft before heading down to the furthest mainland Southerly point (the Lizard) and then finishing at Land's End. Hopefully the finishing will be in one piece but with 2,000 miles to go anything can happen... The start date is around 16th July 2010 (or whenever I can get both me and my bike to Sligo in working order) and I need to be finished to come back to work on the 16th August. Nothing like a tight schedule to keep you on your toes. I hope to do about 100 miles per day 6 days a week (well, I think a rest day is deserved every 600 miles or so). I will be stocking up on industrial quantites of chocolate and sports drinks, although seeing though I will need to carry everything that I need with me on this trip I might need to rely on restocking as I go.

I decided to do some sort of challenge for Sense for a number of reasons. I work for Sense but don't always get to go out and meet the people that we work for and with: whenever I have had the chance to see the Sense operations 'on the ground' it has always amazed me. I have always taken my sight and vision completely for granted and in truth can't even begin to imagine a life without them. To see the things that deafblind people can do on their own or with the right kind of support is a lesson in what can be achieved even if seems impossible. Cycling 2000 miles seems like a huge challenge for me and yet I know it will be only temporary: to be faced with the prospect of riding 100 miles a day every day for the rest of my life is something I don't think I would know where to begin to deal with, yet deafblind people and their families will often face far more testing struggles every day. I wanted to do this trip to raise money, hopefully some awareness about deafblind issues, but also to challenge my own perceptions of deafblindness. There is a whole world out there that I never knew existed before I joined Sense and I realise I have only just scratched the surface of what it means to be deafblind.

On that note I ought to go and do some maintenance on my bike... me thinks a service might be a good idea before Lightning and I start on our big adventure (yep, my bike is called Lightning - probably because my friend Helen called her bike Jet and so it only seemed appropriate to call mine lightning - if you are too young or have too much good taste to remember watching the Gladiators TV series there were two female gladiators called Jet and Lightning...the names seemed somehow appropriate for the bikes at the time).