Bill wrote in to tell us about his sponsored bike ride in aid of the Douglas Bader Foundation late January, early February this year.

How did it start? It began with a mad idea to cycle somewhere warm in the middle of our cold winter, experience two summers in one year and lose some weight. At first I was interested in Guide Dogs for the Blind’s ride in New Zealand. I started training in August 2003, but when I applied officially, I discovered that with a low demand the ride had been scrapped. I then looked around to see where else would provide the winter warmth and came across Vietnam, Cuba and Kenya. Mainly because my father had an amputation and I had seen the struggles which all the folk had in the recovery ward at Musgrave Park Hospital, Belfast, I chose the Douglas Bader Foundation cycle ride in Kenya.

What about training? Classic tours, which run many of these Bike Rides, provide good guidance as to how you build up the miles (and more importantly for this ride, the hills.) I had sputtered at training since May but never really got into a three day a week rhythm until the middle of August, when I was doing about fifty miles a week. My daughter Sarah’s wedding in early September set the training back a bit, but by the end of October I had managed Lisburn and back twice and a run up the coast road to nearly Glenariff. God was good with regards to the weather. In a ‘normal winter’ (if there is such a thing in this country) rain, wind and snow would have interrupted training. Most weeks I was able to get out three and sometimes four days a week which proved to be crucial when it came to tackling the big hills in Kenya. Motivation after Christmas in the colder January days was a real problem, when it was so much easier to sit in the warm than face four hours in the cold cycling round Islandmagee!

Fund-raising? Folk have been very generous. After an accident I had, I had decided to use some of my retirement funds as a Thank you to God to fully meet all costs, so that all sponsor money given would go to the charity concerned. What with support from relatives, church folk, Carrick Grammar School Charity Fund and staff, I hoped to raise over £2,000 for the Douglas Bader Foundation. With the other nine riders we should have raised over £12,000.

What was it like? Kenya is a really beautiful country with a huge range of bird and wildlife. Much of what we cycled through was cultivated and quite densely settled but there were still remote quiet places where fewer people were found. The support team were excellent, providing quick help for bikes and people with three course tasty cooked lunches provided at the roadside!!

Here are my diary extracts:

Sat 31st Jan 2004 – Heathrow terminal 4, 5.37p.m. Tired already – I’ve been on the go since 9.15am and I still have not left London. I hate this Belfast to London slog. I’ve done it three times in three years to meet other flights and still it never gets better. Transit lounges surrounded by 1,000 strangers and eight million locals, yet still quite alone. It is never daylight here. I read the Bible and prayed and just felt the Lord with me and I wasn’t alone any more. Perhaps a short tea and then meet the others at 7p.m. They seem like a good crowd and are very friendly. It’s difficult to make friends immediately, but we gel surprisingly well, for people who have never met but who have a common purpose. I am stunned to see Mike, a double amputee (below both knees) who is going to cycle most of the 400Km. Later in the week, when I see him strapping on his artificial limbs and dealing with the abscesses on his stumps, it is so humbling to see the huge efforts that he makes and it puts any difficulties that I had in training into a true perspective.

Wed 4th Feb. The Big Hill day. I can’t believe that we freewheeled for half an hour going down the twisty hairpin bends into the Kerio valley from the overnight stop at Kabernet in Northern central Kenya. We descend from 2065m to 1200m on the valley floor. Great fun to see the kids’ faces at Chermurgui Primary School, when Mike takes off his artificial leg. We stopped here to hand over the pens, pencils and drawing materials (plus a UTV Frisbee that I won in a quiz !!) to the headmaster of the school. We were all asked to bring some resources which would be better than giving out sweets. Carrickfergus Grammar School had provided boxes of pens and pencils, which went down really well.

Then it was off up the Elgeyo escarpment. In Classic tourspeak it was “a very serious climb” – to you and me it meant if you hadn’t done enough hills in your training ‘get off and walk’. I don’t think I have ever faced a stiffer challenge – a fifteen mile hill that went from 1200m to 1925m. Lunch at two o’clock had never tasted quite as good. The views on the way up were stunning in the early morning but by lunchtime it was too hazy to really appreciate the whole landscape.

Thursday 5th Feb. Another 60 mile day phew!! This time less long steep hills and more undulations (shorter and steeper) Through the Kakamega rain forest with views of Vervet and Colobus monkeys. The first few days were cloudy and it even rained on Monday (warm rain, of course, unlike Carrick). Now it was blue skies and 35 to 37 C with little shade even through the forest. A litre of bottled water has never tasted so good. I needed the Factor 50 sunscreen that I had brought with me as I burn so easily. The rain on the first day had washed the sunscreen off my right calf and the sun had burned it even through the cloud!

Fri 6th Feb. The final run into Kisumu – only 35 miles!!! All those days of encouraging one another were over. The distracting ploys like: “look at those lovely wee wild flowers beside the road” – but don’t look at the huge hill that is emerging in front of us as we round this bend or “Let’s stop and look at the view’” which means: I’m punctured and need a breather. Another one was: “I must take a picture of this for the folk at home” read as : I need a good drink of water, and finally “Look, I think that might be a bee-eater / shrike / black kite” which translates as: I’ll be able to get my heart and lungs back to a semblance of normality while I try to focus on this pesky bird.

Outcome: a huge rewarding effort and a great sense of achievement while seeing a really different part of God’s beautiful creation. New friendships made and many folk helped through the generosity of our sponsors. Oh and over a stone lost in weight, since starting training in August.