So its been a long time…………work commitments and training have taken up a lot of our time.

Its less than a week to go I will update whats been going on!

Since our last update we have all been training hard.

SIX of us managed to get together for a ride and managed 50 miles around Essex – pictures are in the Gallery. Other than this we have pretty much been training by ourselves. Sandy seems to have the ability to NOT stay on his bike and managed to take Cliff out whilst stationary!

Steve is way out in front in mileage having done well over 200 miles last week…..however he was off all week and wasn’t having to contend with work hours.

On a recent ride with Sandy, Del and Brian they cycled through a SMALL shallow ford. Unfortunately Sandy, at this point decided to confuse swimming with cycling and ended up lying in the ford on his back looking bleary eyed at the young lady cycling towards him! Sandys mishap however affected Del severely in that he forgot about his cleats and in a fit of laughter ended up flat on his back in the road!

Syria has finally moved on from riding around the park and has made it to Redbridge Cycling Centre in Hainault to have private training sessions with a medal winning UK police champion! Unfortunately riding on the road has not happened and is being left until the FIRST day of riding in Paris………

We also visited Fisher Outdoor and have seen all of their gear. Jon Sangan the product manager and Richard Allmark the CEO we amazingly helpful and have kitted us out in top of the range SANTINI SMS (pics on the Gallery!)

Hooray!!  The kit has arrived.  9 very exited cyclists will now look the part if nothing else.  To great amusement the sizes ranged from Medium to 6XL.  We can leave you to guess who needed that size, however by ordering 6XL Steve T thought he was ordering Wadsworth Bitter.  Apparently it’s all down to Italian sizing schedules.  Yeah, right!  Everyone was mightily impressed with Team “Barking Bloodhounds” ride shirt made especially for us by Santini.  Many, many thanks go to Monica Santini at Santini SMS in Italy and Richard Allmark from Fisher Outdoors in St Albans for making all this kit available to us.     

Also we have today received SOME of the Barking Bloodhound T-Shirts, just in time for the trip!

One more weekend to train – and some of us have SPORTS MASSAGES booked!

Tags: Derek, Merchandise, Sandy, Steve, Syria