» Swanning around: On yer bike
Alison Swann is getting ready for the ride of her life
That’s going to hurt!” has been the general reception to my announcement that I am going to do the London to Brighton cycle ride. With my usual lack of foresight I signed myself up for the mass wheeling action that will be taking place on Sunday 21 June, without first stopping to find out just how far I was going to have to cycle.
54 miles.
Your level of fitness will dictate your response to this. If you scoff and regale me with tales of cycling backwards up Ben Nevis while juggling flaming sticks, then I’m sure I have seen you practising on The Level. If your jaw drops and you gasp, then I am sure I have seen you in the pub – often.
Yep, 54 miles, I’ve always considered the journey to be strenuous enough when aided by a seat and a train. But in the spirit of change and a very personal promise, I am going to do it.
Several reasons have motivated this decision. First off, I have an almost pathological inability to stick to any form of fitness regime and, with three months to go, suspect that there might be the smallest chance that, with the prospect of public humiliation and personal pain on the horizon, I might actually pull my finger out and get vaguely fit.
“Claiming I was having an asthma attack after being caught puffing away on Tunbridge Wells’ finest B&H didn’t get me very far”
Secondly, it is a huge part of the Brighton calendar and, for once, I think it might be interesting to actually do the ride, rather than joining it at The Level and pretending to be exhausted in front of the waving crowds – or was that just me?
Thirdly, it is for charity and I haven’t dared raise my head up above the charity-fundraising parapet since that unfortunate incident at school when I was 13 and got caught smoking during a school sponsored cross-country run. Claiming that I was having an asthma attack after being caught merrily puffing away on Tunbridge Wells’ finest B&H didn’t get me very far.
Lastly, and by no means least, my brother always wanted to do it. He died in April 2007, while out cycling up on Devil’s Dyke, when a speeding car hit him. James loved cycling, so I’ll be doing the ride in his memory.
There better be a bloody large vodka and tonic waiting for me at Madeira Drive. Here’s my fundraising page: (Go on, be first!) www.justgiving.com/alisonswann2.
