Endemol

Finally, the last member of the team is me.

I have been an ardent cyclist for years, braving the London commute on two wheels for over a decade. I have several war wounds to prove this as London motorists and pedestrians are a careless bunch sometimes.

From an expedition perspective, I have had a few adventures in my time. Last year I cycled 4200km to Nordkapp, the most northern point in Norway and indeed, Europe. The year before, I cycled from Lands End to John O’Groats. Other outdoor pursuits include rock climbing, mountaineering, trekking, sailing and so forth in lots of interesting place around the world.

I am fortunate enough to have a good excuse in that being a photographer, it is all part of my day job. I am not sure if anyone believes this but what the heck, it works for me.

When I am not in the wilderness, I am an online specialist and have been privileged to have worked at many of London’s finest agencies, including The Team, Blsat Radius, Head London, Endemol and Imagination to name but a few.

In recent weeks, I have been cycling around 120 miles a week in preparation for this ride. However, there is no experience like being out on the open road and Iceland has long been a dream of mine. I just hope that Angelique and Dave do not want to kill me for dragging them to the Island of Ice and Fire (or is that Tierra del Fuego?).

My other preparations for this trip include trying to part you generous people from your cash by way of sponsorship and fund raising. In fact, rather than dismantling my bike for the flight next Saturday today, I have been writing to lots of newspapers, magazines and companies to see if I can rustle up any interest to back the expedition and the Kids First Trust. So, if you have a fiver in your pocket burning a hole, please do donate to a most worthwhile cause at my Just Giving page.

Welcome to Team Iceland 2010.

I was fortunate enough to be in Guernsey last weekend. The main purpose of the visit was to see my good friends Mary and Pete. We had a lot of things to organise. Firstly, about 60GB of HD video footage we shot on our Le Jog ride last year. Thanks to opaque technology and the need to have multiple external hard drives capturing the output of huge files via various video programmes, we spent most of the weekend indoors, struggling with the computer.

Fortunately, the results from the first MTS file transfers look good. Once we have managed to drop out the videos as manageable QT files, I hope to upload a selection of 1 minute files for each of the daily rides for the Le Jog ride to YouTube and link into this blog. More on this when I get round to it.

The other big focus of the weekend was to decide upon the timing and location of this year’s big ride. I have elected to raise money for a charity called Child’s i Foundation, set up by some of my Endemol colleagues. There is plenty of great information available about various charitable endeavours on their website, which is another WordPress blog like this one.

So far, we have chosen two rides that we would like to select one to undertake from:
1) London to Nordkapp (Norway) via Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. This would be an epic 2500 mile ride, taking us well past the Arctic Circle.
2) Circumnavigate Iceland, which would be considerably shorter at a mere 1,200 – 1,500 miles.

I would love to do both rides but due to various fiscal and time limitations for all parties concerned, this is highly unlikely. What it will ultimately boil down to is timing. When there are several people involved with varying calendar restrictions, finding the sweet spot is complicated.

Does anyone have experience of either of these cycle rides?