Countdown

It’s seven hours until we set off for our latest adventure and I haven’t introduced it yet. With the help of a few statistics, here’s an outline of what we have planned.

During this year’s challenge, we will cycle 635 km cycle through Norway from Bodø to Tromsø.

We are a team of twenty-two people, fourteen of whom live with Parkinson’s. We are travelling to Bodø from Canada, the UK, and various parts of Norway. Some of us will be meeting for the first time but fifteen of us who cycled to Barcelona last year will be reunited.

This year’s adventure is taking place thanks to Rune and Rune, two of the Norwegian contingent on the Barcelona cycle ride. Having organised a number of such adventures now, I know how much hard work is involved and was delighted to take a step back and let someone else take the helm. The route looks stunning and we have a programme of evening events in addition to the cycling. I love the thought of sea kayaking, whale watching and hiking and I’m hopeful I will complete the cycling in time to take part.

Image Source: YouTube

Our destination, Tromsø sits above the Arctic Circle, so we can expect that it will never get dark. We will experience, many of us for the first time, daylight for 24 hours each day. There is a golf match teeing off at midnight one evening to celebrate this phenomenon and a few members of the team will take part in this.

Cycling in warm, dry, still conditions is thoroughly enjoyable. Cycling in the cold, wet and wind is simply not. We have therefore been watching the weather forecast avidly over recent weeks and scouring historic weather data for average temperatures and rainfall during August so that we can pack accordingly and mentally prepare.

It rains on average on 12 of the 31 days in August. The optimists in our team are hoping that this will present itself as a light drizzle for short periods of time on three of the eight days we will be cycling. From experience, we know there is never anything average about our challenges and we have, albeit briefly, entertained the possibility, that eight of the twelve days where it rains in August, might just happen to be the eight days we are cycling. Having the right clothing can make all the difference and so it has proved the perfect excuse to add to our, by now, considerable collections of cycle wear.

Image Source: Shimano

We can expect that the temperature on average in Tromsø should range from 9 – 15^oC but average temperatures in August have been as low as 5.8^oC (1952) and as high as 18.1^oC (1934). These facts may prompt the need for some further spending……

There is much preparation goes into these trips, in terms of training and organisation. It is wonderful that Rune and Rune have organised this adventure and in theory, this should have allowed me more training hours. I seem to have procrastinated throughout recent months and for a whole variety of reasons haven’t trained as much as I had originally intended to, so I’m hopeful that I have done enough.

Evidence of some training – or perhaps evidence of frequent coffee stops.

Taking our bikes overseas has proved time consuming, costly and an organisational challenge in previous years and it is proving to be no different this time. Thankfully, I started dismantling my bike earlier this week to box it ready for our journey. The video I watched to refresh my memory of the ‘how to’ claimed that it should take five minutes. I realised that five minutes was optimistic but hadn’t anticipated spending three hours on it and then not being nearly finished!

I’m sitting here typing when I know I should be completing the bike boxing challenge, with only seven hours left, it is possible that I will still be boxing it with minutes to spare.

As the team brought their bikes in boxes around to our house, ready to lift into the minibus in the morning, there was a palpable excitement, a little hesitation and a sense of gratitude that we have be able to find the desire, the determination and the resources to take part in what promises to be another great adventure.

We’re as ready as we’ll ever be…………….