Why do it?
A common question (and not an unreasonable one) is “why did you decide to do it?” But first of all, I’ll answer a slightly different one.
What made me come up with the idea?
As part of my work, I do an awful lot of driving. Whilst the office is based just south of Leicester, we have clients and training groups all over the UK so it’s fair to say that I’ve been to many and varied places over the last ten years. Often times I’ve seen some of the brown signs that signify a place of some interest and I’ve thought, “Wouldn’t it be good to be able to find out what these are all about. Ironically, the schedule (which has been revised umpteen times since I first started to seriously map out my plans) is not going to give me much opportunity to visit these places. Nonetheless, I guess that’s where the idea first came from.
What to do with 3 months?
I am sensible to the fact that most people I know of my age would give their arm teeth to be able to take 3 months leave at full pay to do what they like. And I remain very grateful to the progressive thinking of Mercia that enables me to do it.
At the same time, I am wary that if I’m not careful, the time could slip by without doing enough. Hence the big idea. Some of my colleagues have taken the opportunity for a long holiday (sometimes in New Zealand or Australia or both). But that wasn’t going to do it for me; not least because I’m not sure a three year old and 3 month old would really appreciate it.
I wanted to do something that I could look back on and say “I really did that”. Swimming the channel I decided would have been harder and, after that Walliams bloke from “Little Britain” did it last year (and raised millions of pounds – credit to him on all fronts) it seemed a bit passé. No – my best swimming days are long behind me.
The cycling is a new thing for me. Like many, I had a bike when I was a boy and like most people I eventually seemed to forget about it. I did buy a cheap bike about 10 years ago – a horribly thick-tyred (basically a mountain bike) thing that I now know is way too small for me. But in spite of this, I’ve found being out on my bike is truly therapeutic. Whilst I’ll never be nearly as keen as some of the interesting characters I’ve got chatting to whilst rolling the country lanes, I think I knew I could continue to enjoy it. That’s I guess where the germ of an idea started.