Delivery for team Berlin

Our team saddles arrived yesterday, so now they're on the bikes, and it's time to break them in before August. Already they seem more comfortable than the Brooks Colt on my other bike.
It will look great once we're all together with the saddles and our team jerseys.

130 mile training

with the 2nd of August getting closer and closer it was time to step up our training. so this week everybody will be busting out a century to prepare for day 1 of the ride.

The majority of Birmingham riders, along with some London folk, are setting off on this route on July 2nd, but due to other commitments myself and Neil decided to do it a week early.

Making sure we ate buckets of Flapjack and other sugar rich goodies, we set off from Birmingham at 8:30am and cycled 130 miles to London.

the route we took was mainly B roads with the occasional spin on the busier ones, with an accidental turn onto the A40 just outside the capital (which nearly ended in tears)

We stopped for Lunch in Bicester, but couldn't find a cutlery outlet, so had to eat pasta with our hands.

After some tough miles just before High Wycombe we took a walk up Bledrow Ridge ( a 2 mile, steep hill climb, which cars were struggling up) and then bombed down the other side and onto Wycombe, where we had to help some people jump start their car.

The sun was on our backs as we entered greater London and began pedaling through the bust streets of Southall, Ealing and then onto Oxford st and finally to Euston.

The ride was long, but really fun, some great roads, and no problems. We took a couple of wrong (long) turns which meant the trip was 130 miles over 10 hours. We were dozing off on the train, but felt great again the next day when we got up to play polo.





Might even do it again next Saturday...

Meeting

Last night's training ride was a bit of an obscure one, Jess had organised a double denim ride in the city centre, so we donned our best stonewash and headed for a big loop around the outskirts of the city. Ending up in the pub for our meeting.

Of course it wasn't a proper meeting as Dyfan and Ed weren't there, but we spoke about our camping gear and other equipment so we will probably have a list up soon, as well as talking a bit about our Jerseys which are getting printed shortly!

Half a century, half by night

On Tuesday we added another 52 miles to our training tally. Riding south from the city we took the A road leading directly to Stratford, these 20 miles were fairly flat, but we had to ride in single file (it being and A road) and the scenery was pretty dull too, so we were glad to get to Stratford. Jeet got the train from Birmingham as he was running late, and he walked down to meet us on the banks of the river. After a 30 minute re-fuel of Pink Wafers, Fig Rolls and Garibaldi's we set off again.

We left passed the train station and staright onto a nice quite b road as the sun set behind us. We followed a similar route to the one we did last week, through some nice coutryside, although this time we couldn't see it. We had left Stratford at 10pm and took a wrong turn missing Tanworth. We took a quick break on top of a bridge, then followed the dual carriage way back to Wythal. The petrol station was closed, which meant no Milk Chews, but we weren't too upset. 5 more miles and we were back home.

A message from our sponsor

Our friends over at Brooks England have offered to support our ride and sponsor us with these 6 brand new saddles, we've all chosen either B17's which are great for touring, or Flyers which are sprung and therefore very comfy. We've also arranged to set off from outside the factory down in Smethick after having some photos taken with the team.

Take a look at the Brooks England website here.

showing our routes

Here is a short video showing our full route and all our 'b' stopovers. We haven't chosen a London stop over yet but it could be Brixton, Bethnal green, Barnet or Brick lane. If any one wants to/knows anyone who can put us up in these areas can you email us brumtoberlin@gmail.com

In Brugge

Our friend Marc is kindly putting us up and giving us a tour of Brugge when we arrive on day 3 (August 5th) He is also helping to organise some local press and events in Brugge for when we're there, and on top of that hes made us this nice logo to represent the Brugge stop over. Thanks Marc