And they're off!

It's 8.30 and I'm about to check out of our little apartment in Sorrento. I've just gone down with the boys to wave them off as they kick off the challenge with great air and style. Thankfully they decided to leave the air horn for another time as 7.30 was deemed too early for such a thing

Yesterday was equally as boring for me and james. We arrived in Sorrento last night at around 7pm, which meant after we'd unpacked we would have time to actually go for dinner and talk about how silly we all are for agreeing to do this for a third time! Rather than go exploring, we went to the restaurant downstairs, where jake and steve had already been for lunch. If it ain't broke don't try to fix it! So we really haven't seen much of Sorrento at all. This is the view from our apartment

Right. Time for me to head off. I'm a little nervous to be honest. The streets are very windy and narrow and there are lots of moped which seem to just go anywhere. The motorway driving etiquette is very different here than the England. In England you generally drive in the slowest lane possible and move over to overtake and then go back in. Here, you stay in the fastest lane possible, and when someone gets up your arse and wants to get past, you move over a lane then back out in to the fast lane once they have gone past. Great!

I'm also going to take longer routes and avoid the tolls. In not fun in a right hand drive!! 

Good morning from our ski resort in Turin!

It seems we have found the least fun thing to do on a holiday - spending 16 hours in a car. 

We decided to push on a little further last night, which should make today a little shorter - around 11 hours of driving rather than 13. If we arrive in Sorrento at about 7pm instead of about 9pm today it will make all the difference - we can go out for dinner with the boys and have a bit of an unwinding evening and maybe see some of Sorrento before the fun and games start tomorrow. 

Here's a plot of our route from yesterday! 868 miles of driving...

600 to go today!

Last year I did little summary videos of each day. I'll be doing the same this time round too. You can find them on my youtube channel if you search for Emma Salter. Yesterday's is day -1 and to label it as a "highlights" video would be misleading...!

Here's the link: 

day -1

It's 7.30 am and we are on the road again. We spent the night in a basic b&b in a ski resort at 1000m above sea level. We are frustratingly close to the finish point of Ciclismo Italia, and the hills look immense. We've just driven past Mount Blanc, it's behind me so I can't take a photo, but here's some other little hills. 

The sat nav says we'll be at the apartment in Sorrento at 5.30, but that's if we drive continuously. So maybe 6.30 if traffic is kind...

Meanwhile back in England, Jake and Steve have arrived at the airport and are ready to go!

Day minus 1; East bound and down

We're on our way across the Channel!

While the cycle challenge doesn't officially start for another two days, James and I have the job of getting the support vehicle to the start line. Sorrento is about 1,500 miles from Sidmouth, and we've got only two days to get there. 

We were up at 5am this morning, to catch the 1020 Eurotunnel. Annoyingly, we will lose an hour, and will arrive at Calais at 1200 French time. 

The plan for the rest of the day is to get as far south as we can, ideally just across the border in to Italy. I have a cheap hotel room booked in a small French town called Chambery, which is about an hour before the border. It was a lot of logistics trying to think how far we can get today, in order to make tomorrow not as horrid. Chambery is about 550 miles from Calais. 

I'm hoping we can get a little further though, and push a couple hours further to Turin. This would mean losing the non refundable hotel room in Chambery though and booking another one. The plan is to reassess later this evening and decide how much further we want to go. If we can make real progress and get meaningfully further than Chambery, I will get on booking.com and book somewhere else. I've had a little look this morning and there are plenty of rooms available. 

Just for context - In total today we would have driven almost the equivalent of going from Exeter to Edinburgh and back again!! Tomorrow's drive will take just as long through almost the whole of Italy. 

Where are Jake and Steve?

Hopefully planning an early night, as they are flying to Naples very early tomorrow morning and meeting us in Sorrento. The should hopefully be able to enjoy a day of sight seeing - visiting Pompeii and having a pizza in Naples where they were invented. I'll be giving them a shopping list though and getting them to check us in to our accommodation. Every hour will be precious to james and me tomorrow. 

For everyone who has been saying how lovely Sorrento is, and giving us recommendations for restaurants and things to do - optimistically we will arrive at 10pm tomorrow and will be up at 6am on Thursday to start this challenge off properly!!!

So what's changed from last year?

Free EU roaming. This will completely revolutionise the trip, if not for the boys then most definitely for me. In the past I would arrive at the lunch stop and have a vague sense of how long the boys would take to get to me, within a couple of hours or so. This meant I was very limited on what I could do. Now, I can text them, call them, watsapp them, and generally pester them by whatever means I like, for free!

We have all downloaded this app called Life360 so we can each see where the other three are. I think it's aimed at parents so they can track their children - perfect!

In the past I wrote these blogs as staying in touch with home was tricky, intermittent and costly. It enabled everyone we care about to have just one point of contact for updates, instead of us contacting people individually. Now that we're better connected though I'm not sure what place this blog has, but I will start with good intentions and see how I go. 

Sponsorship is rolling in!

So far we've raised over £200! I'm absolutely over the moon! Thank you everyone who has so far sponsored, this will no doubt spur the boys on through the next couple of months of training. 

Our trip is now just two months away, and we're busy putting the finishing touches together to the planning. The Eurotunnel is booked so James and I can drive the van down to the start point in Sorrento. Steve and Jake are finalising flight times and will have these booked soon. 

Training is going well. Steve has been over to Italy, and has risen some of the climbs - which is a fantastic scout out! Jake has been to Yorkshire and taken on some of the moors Up North. James has been doing his thing around Devon doing his "climbatron" and "climbathon" loops! Steve rode from London to Exeter last week too. Gedd'on boys!

James and I have written to a few companies to try and get sponsorship or support, and we're not getting very far. We've tried a few sports kit companies, as well as tyres. Last time we were able to secure a big discount from Brittany Ferries and some free on board dinner tokens. Eurotunnel sadly don't offer such discounts for charity trips. Maybe the boys can get better luck with their flights. We also had a big donation of stash from High 5 who gave us loads of energy gels and batter bottles, hopefully they can help us again :)

The MS Society have been in touch and are delighted that we have chosen to raise money for them again. They've spoken to us via email, on the phone and have sent us some advice in the post too. And some balloons!! Haha. As well as that they have given us some cycle jerseys, a running top for me, and some plain T shirts. Their branding has changed this year and the kit looked great. It's fantastic for us and the charity that we can really look the part. 

In the next few weeks I'm going to be contacting some local media outlets to see if we can make an appearance on local radio or tv to try and raise awareness for our charity. If anyone has any ideas of either corporate organisations who might want to give us stuff, or ways of raising awareness, please let me know. 

Here's James modelling our kit! 

 

  

It's on!

In 2014 we rode 1000 miles through France (http://lignedefrance.blogspot.co.uk/). It was epic. Last year we took on Spain (http://cyclismoespana2016.blogspot.co.uk/) and it was unrealistically hard. But as soon as the legs had recovered and the pain was replaced by rose tinted glasses, it's not a surprise that the boys wanted to start planning then obvious next challenge... Italy. Not completing a third Grand Tour is simply not an option.

Last year we raised over £3,500 for the Multiple Sclerosis Society, which is amazing. They are close to a cure, and believe in my heart of hearts that it will be cured in my lifetime. That doesn't help me, or my family, or importantly my mum who has the secondary progressive form of the illness, but hopefully in the futures others won't have to go through what we go through. They are funding a 6 year third stage trial of a potentially break through drug. This is costing 6 billion pounds. We has set our target at £3,000; £1,000 per rider. You can donate here: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/ciclismo-italia or text "CIMS50 £2" to 70070 to donate £2. Or substitute for however much you want to give.

So who's cycling this year? It's the exact same line up as last year - James Salter, Steve Hackett and Jake Cope. Hopefully they'll be using the summer to get ride ready.

This year's challenge: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/21358471  is 14 days long, including a rest day in Venice. We start in Sorrento and finish at Stelvio. It's around 1000 miles, so around 75 miles per day and around 62,000 feet of climbing including Italy's highest road. We will start at the end of August 2017.

You can follow our journey on this blog, and on our facebook page.

Thank you for your support - we're all very excited!

Emma