Mad Man Cycling… Episode Two!

The second episode of John Slater’s slightly mad charity odyssey from Birmingham, England to Istanbul… on a cheap, no-lycra, bike!

Well, the start of my journey is planned now. The Grand Depart will be around midday on Thursday, from the HQ of Alzheimer’s Research UK, a few miles outside Cambridge.

From there, I’ll be riding about 40 miles to the campus of my old uni, in Colchester. They let student rooms cheap(ish) and it’s for the sake of nostalgia as much as anything. I’ll have to get up early on Friday because I’ll be boarding a Stena Line ferry at Harwich. It’s a 9am sailing which means I have to check in by 8am and there’s 17 miles to cycle before I can do that. Cycling from 6am. This really isn’t a holiday!

I’ve just realised I don’t know if the arrival time of 5:15pm in Hook of Holland (Near Rotterdam) is UK or Central European time; European I hope. Whatever, by the end of Friday afternoon, I should have tyres on mainland European tarmac. Fingers crossed.

My First time on the radio, I think, in about 30 years, being interviewed on Midlothian’s Black Diamond FM about my forthcoming solo bike ride to Asia. The mid-morning presenter is Geoff Ruderham whom I’ve not seen for over 40 years when we both worked at Edinburgh Playhouse. Also in the conversation was Bernie Carranza. She’s the Scottish fundraising manager for Alzheimer’s Research UK.

Geoff does like his studio dark. So did I, but not that dark, and I never worked in a studio with computer monitors. Mine had turntables and tape machines.

Can you support John? https://justgiving.com/fundraising/TheRideOfOurLives