Heal Bike Ride
October 6th – October 9th 2006.
The bike ride took in some fantastic scenery, including parts of Cumbria, the Yorkshire Dales, North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire. The bike ride raised over £7,000 for Heal.
Alison Glover, who drove the support vehicle, wrote the following diary of the event:
The Team – Alison Glover (me) – Support vehicle
Matthew Glover (my husband) – Cyclist
Andrew Glover (my brother-in-law) – Cyclist
Usha – Cyclist
John Olkiewicz – Cyclist
Daniel Armitage – Cyclist
Chris Clegg – Cyclist
Andy Ibberson – Cyclist
Andy Blackwell – Cyclist
My Diary over the next 4 days
Friday 6th October 2006. Barrow-In-Furness – Dent
We set off from Evalast in Barrow- in- Furness at 10.00am after mending punctures, altering seats etc and taking photo’s, this was a little later than planned I must say.
Five minutes later my phone rang it was Matthew informing me John had a puncture so off I went to find them. I Found Andy and some of the others first with another puncture; this wasn’t a very good start.
We had 2 amateur cyclists with us called Lee and Carl they were showing us the way to Sedbergh, which was really good as it was a very busy road and they knew all the quiet ones.
We had a couple of coffee stops along the way one in Cark and one in Seizer, Carl and Lee left us at this point. We are now heading to Dent where we are staying the night.
The journey from Seizer to Dent was difficult; the weather didn’t help being windy and heavy rain. Group A went off on their own with their directions and I stayed with group B directing them to the George and Dragon in Dent where we were staying the night. We arrived there between 5pm – 6pm. We had covered approx 60 miles today.
Saturday 7th October 2006. Dent – Ripon
Setting off about 9.15am with no hiccups! On our way to Hawes.
The road out of Dent was horrendous; we climbed what felt like Mount Everest, I was at this point glad to be support vehicle and not one of the mad cyclists! We all managed to get to the top it was freezing up there, some of them were having a warm from the car engine it was so cold. After everyone was together again we went down the other side……..this was a bit hair raising, I couldn’t catch them- they were all flying!
After directing them onto the main road I sped off to Hawes hoping to do a bit of shopping.
I was only there half an hour when the phone rang ‘We are in the coffee shop’ Matthew said. That was the end of my brief shop. We had done about 20 miles at this point.
It was about mid-day and we were heading to Leyburn this was about 20 miles, it was a nice straight forward road. I stopped a couple of times to check on everyone then hurried on to find somewhere for lunch. I had been there a while when group A arrived, group B arrived approx half an hour later. We then had lunch in a lovely little Café bar. We left there about 2.45pm arriving in Ripon about 4.30 with no problems. We had covered about 60miles today.
We stayed in the Black Horse pub, well to be honest me, Matthew and Usha stayed in the hotel up the road, they was no way I was staying at the Black Horse it was rather rough! (What a snob, I know.)
Sunday 8th October 2006. Ripon – Wakefield
Setting off about 9.15am the weather looking good!!
Everyone was feeling the strain today; it was going to be a hard day. We were on our way to Orion Windows in York only 26 miles away!
John had mapped out today’s route, so I had nice easy directions to follow. I went with group A and John stayed with group B. We went through some lovely little villages before reaching York. We had stopped a couple of times for energy bars and drinks, these were disappearing quickly today. We arrived at Orion in York at approx mid-day where we had coffee and photos. We were now heading to a little village called Stillingfleet where we had got sandwiches and lager awaiting; well with this thought in mind you can imagine the speed of the cyclists! We arrived there within half an hour – making it now 1pm.
It was about 2.30 when we set off home to Wakefield only another approx 25 miles to go!!
We had a few stops; everyone was really tired by this time. We passed through Sherburn, Kippax, Swillington and then picking up signs for Wakefield…….Yippeeee!!!
We arrived back at West Yorkshire Windows between 4.30 – 5.00pm, a few tired legs and sore bums etc!! No-one was looking forward to the final day.
We covered about 70miles today.
Monday 9th October 2006. The final day. Wakefield-Mirfield-Shefield
We left at 9am from my house in Wakefield heading to Visual Effect in Mirfield. The weather wasn’t good this morning with heavy showers making the canal path very slippery. We reached Visual Effect at about 10.00am where we had coffee and some more photos. I went and re-stocked with mars bars and energy drinks, they were much needed today. I met them again at the sovereign in Denby Dale at about mid-day; we had about half an hour here while everyone caught up. The next few miles weren’t too bad apart from the road into Sheffield being very busy; we reached Weatherglaze in Sheffield at approx 1.30. We had covered about 45 miles up to now. The sun was shining nicely so we all sat outside Weatherglaze and ate McDonalds for dinner……..Yum…Yum!!
After our photo shoot we set off on our last stretch to Prime which was the other side of Sheffield, this was about 15 miles away.
I made my own way to Prime as it was too busy to stay with the cyclists through Sheffield.
I arrived there approx half an later and sat and waited for them to arrive……it was about 3pm when the first group arrived, the second group arriving about half an hour later. They had done it, we had a celebratory drink and of course our last photo shoot.
We had covered about 60 miles today.
WELL DONE EVERYONE.
We all had a really good time and raised £7,000 For HEAL.
