April turned out to be rather wet, something about the most rainful in the UK during April the the last 100 years? Summat like that at least. I got wet, a lot, most of my rides it seemed, which was a bit of a bind as I’d talked a bunch of people into a group commitment to try and ride 1000 miles each that month. Oh dear! Anyway, quite a few folk took me up on the offer and most of them sprinted ahead of me whilat I got destracted by various talks, running and general work and life commitments. Then the rain got heavier, as it always does, and I thought about throwing in the towel.

Then I thought about all the other folk who were putting in the miles and decided failure wasn’t an option. Problem was there was only 10 days left to go and over 400 miles yet to cover. I decided to knuckle-down and commited myself to living in damp/wet cycling kit far as many hours as possible each day. In the end I made it with about 24 hours to spare! All-round it was a great effort, with quite a few folk who have never done that sort of milage doing the lot, and quite a few more having a damn fine crack and covering more than tey’ve ever done. From some of the blogs I’ve read, and some of the messages, it seems quite a few folk had a good time despite the weather aswell.

Onto the prizes…

When I announced the challenge and invited people to join in I also offered some prizes. So without futher delay the winners of each are:

1) The random draw from everyone who registered for the challenge: Rebecca Sutton

2) The random draw from everyone who completes the challenge: Graeme Warren

3) My favourite story someone writes about their experience, or one of their rides, during the challenge:

Goes to Sean Brassil for pretty much all of his blog posts which I found very inspirational, and in particular his short movie about his first 70 miles on the challenge.

4) My favourite photograph that someone posts from one of their rides during the challenge:

Goes to Naff Judge for his image of two shoes stuffed with newspaper! Not the most inspiring image but the image that most captured the way I was feeling with a few days left to go!

So that is that: 1000 miles done and dusted… all I need to do now is work out what each of them has won…

I couldn't face not going out although checking through the window at the lashing rain, it was going to be an easy option to cry off. It was one of the days though that I just couldn't be dissuaded. Kitting up in everything waterproof I owned I had a momentary pause as I opened the shed an pulled out the road bike. It was properly hammering down. Like standing in a power shower. Back went the road bike and out came the cross bike. For some reason I thought it would come in handy.

Posted via email from Oli Pepper