When i first sit down to type these things i always think well not much happened today,lots of fields,my ass hurt all day,it rained a bit and french people continued with their nonchalant attitude towards everything…

Whilst thats not a bad summary, a lot more actually happened, firstly as we set off i began my daily routine of using google maps to navigate everywhere and anywhere…in theory this is a great idea but in practice it more often than not results in a bone pulverising,shaky ride up some medieval cobbled road in rural france, as you could imagine, the boys absolutely appreciate this 100% and often ask me to find more cobbled roads or indeed muddy fields, but they must learn not to be greedy.

Talking of greedy, one think i have noticed on this trip is that every time we stop for a break i always wander round to the back of the car to find myself some food and every single time there is one man knee deep in jelly babies, munching away, satisfied and grinning from ear to ear.. he shall remain nameless for now or at least until he returns mine and Rhys cans of energy drink, which he has somehow hidden from us in the car somewhere!!!

After taking a break today about 15 miles in , we had the grim realisation that we still had over a hundred miles to do for the day to reach the french coast, cue mild panic and further clenching of my already sore backside.

Fortunately France found us an awesome tailwind to blow us along and we were soon averaging nicely 17-19 miles per hour, tearing through the french countryside towards the coast. As normal the obligatory sounds of french cars (usually always a renault/citroen/peugeout) would beep their horns in anger at us cycling faster than their s**t cars would drive down the hills before catching us on the other side and yelling some unfathomable line of french abuse.

Now i have absolutely nothing against france as a country, it’s beautiful,stunning infact but the people in it make it a strange old place. As we are leaving in a few hours it’s only fair to give you a breakdown of the people we have met

1. Helpful frenchman-few and far between,quite smiley, doesn’t speak english but willing to try and help.

2. Work shy frenchman -picture the scene its thursday afternoon in a major city- the place should be thriving,people busy doing work… but no work shy frenchman is elusive – the town is dead, the shops shut..left early to go and play boules.(no wonder the euro is doomed)

3.Arrogant frenchman – this is the guy who pitys your pathetic attempts to speak in his mother tongue, you say ‘bonjour’ but he already knows that your GCSE french isn’t up to his high standards,oh no he will look at you arrogantly before spurting off some french gibberish that nearly always includes the word ‘imbecile’ before walking off shaking his head.

In fairness not all french people are like this and i don’t wish to stereotype but it just seems that the majority of the ‘locals’ we have met on this trip fall into one of these categories,but it is a stunning country and cycling the alps and through the countryside has been amazing.

As we moved further north today the weather closed in a bit and the rain started to fall – a clear sign we must be close to Britain, but on the plus side hopefully the merciless taunting about my sunburnt face and panda eyes from sunglasses will relent with the arrival of the crap british climate.

So with our eyes on the prize this afternoon and early evening we onto the french coast line just left of calais ( to avoid sangatte) and arrived at a beach (la plage) after cycling 700 miles from Turin over some of the hardest climbs in the world and without a shadow of doubt one of my personal highlights the Alp D’ Huez. As you can imagine our arrival generated much fanfare amongst the local population (one portly lady wearing a plastic bag as a rain jacket and eating an ice lolly)-with such a fantastic turnout out our security and back up team (Abby) whisked us away to the nearest restaurant for food.

The meal was nice enough but once again the service terrible and ended in even more awkward fashion than usual when Sammy paid Dom’s £20 cash to the waitress she mistook it for a tip, which resulted in everyone else running back to the car whilst Dom broke the waitresses heart by demanding his £20 was used as payment and not some gratuity for the 2 1/2 hours it had taken for them to serve him a burger.

With that final interaction in France we retreated/surrendered (much as the french themselves used to do) to our hotel to await extraction to the UK in the morning.

The guys have cycled so well through France this past week and it has been my absolute pleasure to be in the TT Matrix Train as we thunder across the French Hills and mountains, the support and donations we have had have been amazing and really helped to keep us going. So a massive thank you goes out to everyone who has donated to the charities and to everyone who has followed us so far, we still have three hard days left in the saddle and i look forward to doing it but all in the UK, so Look out for TT Matrix Train smashing through the crappy weather and rolling countryside,if you fancy going us for a few miles then grab your stabilisers and get on board.

Cheers Scott

Started off today with a big climb away from our luxury camp site, which was fully loaded with running water (hot AND cold) toilets and a shower block.   It was a nice 20 odd degrees so we were all creamed up and ready for the day.  The hills just seemed to go on and on and a nasty head wind was making riding very hard.  Team work was essential today so we practiced the advice given to us and fell into line for some drafting, The matrix train was born.  Taking it in terns to be the head of the train for 10 minutes each before falling to the back to enjoy a nice rest in the slipstream made by the riders in front.  This helped us push along at a decent speed, much to the delight of birthday boy Sammy, who just wanted to get to Troyes to watch the football and have a nice meal with an ice cold cider.  The landscape on this section of the trip was very boring in comparison to the beauty of the Alps.  Just plain fields and straight roads.  On reaching Troyes we quickly found ourselves a premier class, freshened up and hit a nice big all you can eat Chinese buffet (which had a fish tank under the floor, very posh).  The result of which was 5 very satisfied full people

Day 6

Today we set off for Soissons.   All excited that today could be the day we get a tail wind to push us along the miles,  It didn’t happen.  So the call was put in “1000tt riders, ASSEMBLE”.  The train was once again formed and off we went.  The roads were a lot flatter today but once again the scenery was a field each side of us and the road just stretching out ahead as far as the eyes can see.   This doesn’t  help with the riding but we kept our selves in good spirits and plodded along determined to beat the head wind.   We have noticed the the sign posts with how many KM until the town we are aiming for, isn’t always accurate.  It can say Soissons 80 km and after 20 minutes of riding it’ll jump up to 85.  then slowly decrees only to jump up again.   It’s confusing but we’ve come to the conclusion the French just make it up as the vino is calling and they  want to get home.  We made good time only to slow slightly as we hit a town and Scott had to get out his google maps and try and navigate us the wrong way up every one way street he can find.  On eventually reaching the forever moving Soissons we found a retail outlet so Rhys can have his seat adjusted to ease the pain on his knees, happy cycling at last.   Our support driver, Abby, found us a sweet hotel with breakfast included which we will do our best to take full advantage of

Day 3!!!

Waking up in Braicon a gorgeous little mountain hotel with a woman who had far to much free food to offer us! … Dom took advantage of the this #onthetoilet …. bad mistake! but the rest of us with steel stomachs took the delicate quail eggs down nicely and #tookourskirtsonandgotonwithit

beautiful ride up towards Col Du Lautaret (2058 m)! We were exhausted from the previous days ride up the highest mountain pass in Europe but with the Big Dog Owen Watkins of Matrix Cycles keeping us motivated and helping us through the tough times we managed to get our stiff legs working again and carried on up the mountain feeling like Gods!

Rhys Jenkins on top of one of the busiest passes decides as were all waiting for him to once again amuse us! Shouting Suc le Bleu he navigates brilliantly into a wooden barrier “s*%t” and down! to the amusement of a lot of dutch mountain riders he quickly got up pretending it was nothing but pain in the forearm to the delight of the europeans still laughing!

Still Laughing at Rhys 30 miles or so later he needed to redeem himself! and where better than Alpe d’huez!!!  The Magic of the 21 hair pinned hill climb in gruelling 34 degree heat was unbearable so what does Rhys Jenkins do! well he he does what Rhys Jenkins always does! takes his top off ….. but some reason he put clothes back on … not any clothes … a morph suit! Yes people of the 1000TT Rhys went up in a morph suit! if climbing Alpe d’huez wasnt enough! The Donations flew in an he became a bit of a celebrity on the hill! Word on the street there putting one more bend in and calling it the ‘Le Idiot in Le Morph’ …

#superbeffort all riders getting up in around 1 hour and 30 mins! this may seem slowish bu people have to realise people train years for this hill! we did it after doing around 300 miles in 3 days up 3 bigger mountains than this! people just dont realise the pain were going through for this great charity! we need your help tho!

once at the top and welcomed with the certificates of achieving this famous climb we decided to call it a day! head down ready for the next day!

Day 4!!

Sammy looking forward to this day for a long time!!! the decent of Alpe D’huez!….. gutted rained to its max i think the breaks barely worked so achieving his top speed of the ride was cut short Sammy and the Bug Man (Dom) went down in typical quick stlye but didnt quite make the boys happy enough…. a long 2 hour decent out of the final parts of the Alps was well deserved after what we had been through clocking up most of the day with speeds around 30mph! The first time we had hit over 100 miles in a day and the absolute worst struck! Chambre’less! we had to fight a rough it out with pizza from a van and camping! Never thought id see the day where abby was content with the tent without a tunnel but scott kicked up one of his big dog girly hissy fits and had his own way to erect … yes erect dom … the tunnel … Nos DA!

Day 5!!

We woke again to an inspirational message from the big Matrix Man Himself Owen! Keep drafting and working hard! as first time riders we put this into practice! not sure if this went down to well we nearly had to cut the journey early as Rhys decided to see which type of branded tyre we used on Sharan! he ended up on his back with a “badly cut exposed bit of skin” aka a graze!… anyway we grabbed lunch bucked up our ideas and the Matrix Train was Dijon Bound!! we were unstoppable plowing through the French Wine Regions at an average speed of 18mph across nearly 6 hours! we really got tested today by Zeus Himself!!! Riding smack into the set of Twister …. Rain,Hail,sleet,winds,thunder,lightning but nothing was stopping us we rode it out and arrived in Dijon…

im sure if i ever become famous and anybody asks me who my heros were it would be these guys what we have achieved so far in these few days is unreal! try wearing the same tight wrestler like outfit that grates your bum like cheese whilst sat on a scaffolding pole for 8 – 12 hours a day till you have consumed your body weight in black power and red thunder its really not fun! were doing this for Cancer not for a holiday in france its far from it and as im writing this now the thought that we still have another 8 days of this left is not good for my ears… sorry ear!

#itsbeenapleasure and ive probably been banned from doing a blog again but guys we really need your help! take anything and just give if you have it spare even if it is a pound! spread the word and keep sending the love!

Your Big Dog Sammy A

Starting the day well rested we headed off from sampeyre , italy towards the base of the climb in casteldelfino .

The Col D’agnello is a mountain pass linking Italy with France and is not heavily used -probably due to it being over 9,000ft high which is 3 times the height of snowdon.

It is the third highest pass of the Alps. Despite being the highest international pass of the Alps,

Casteldelfino consisted of not much but a small church and some seriously deserted roads, the gradient began to get interesting from the bottom quickly rising to around 9% for too many kilometres from there it began to get really difficult averaging a gradient of 14% for way too many kilometres through gruelling hairpin bends. It was around here that we met a 65 yr old belgian and his wife who had tried to climb the mountain but turned back due to the horrendous headwind, after chatting to the nice couple- the gentleman decided he would accompany us to the top and quickly pedalled away like Lance Armstrong, setting a outstanding pace.

We followed suit and dug deep to climb the rest of the way to the the summit. I have done a lot of crazy,hard things in my life but that was easily the hardest, the length and gradient of the climb was gruelling.I’ve never had cramp in my right calf and left hamstring before whilst cycling but now i have, i must say it sucks!!Didn’t know whether to stretch the calf or hamstring first so in the end carried on pedalling till it went away!!

i’m sure the others would agree that many times we felt like throwing the bikes over the edge of the mountain, but through sheer hard work and extermination we dogged it out and achieved a phenomenal ascent of one of the toughest mountains around in the world.

Here our two photos from the summit with our belgian friend!!!

The descent from the Agnel was awesome, more hairpin bends and lots of snow higher up, before descending into tree lines and finally after avoiding some rogue deer and marmottes. We then enjoyed a quick sandwich at a bar (no beer sadly) before heading along the valley floor to the base of the col d’izoard.

Rest assured after that first climb, this was no less intimidating. I always try to look and guess which mountain we will actually be climbing but sadly it never turns out to be one you can see, it’s always hidden away and only becomes visible the higher up you get.

The col d’ izoard started off quite reasonable before becoming a gruelling series of more hairpin bends at around 11% and then heading into la case desserte (which looks a bit like mars) about 3/4 way up the climb. From there the final assault on the summit, was sharp and steep and again windy/sunny/ cold. We all arrived at the top and were thoroughly pleased with our efforts for the day.

The team all climbed so well and descended without fear speeding down the freezing mountainsides.And as for Abby her support and help was amazing, constantly giving support and encouragement in the most challenging of environments.

Finally we ended in the charming french town of Briancon and have just enjoyed a good feed.

Please support all our hard work and effort by donating to the charities!! http://www.justgiving.com/1000TT2

Best wishes,

Scott

Guys refuelling on the Protein Shakes

The drive continued and France was looking pretty flat, much to the delight of the guys. Views were stunning with pefectly kept agricultural fields and trees that cast a view that looked like something straight off a Microsoft desktop wallpaper. Word of note to the French – patent that shit! The sun began blazing down and Rhys’s feet started to pong like vineagar – he checked several times by rubing his feet woth his hands and smelling his fingers – classic test method! He then confirmed and asked for the ac to be put on. The smells coming from that were a combination of Rhys’s feet and wet dog. Distracted by the smell, Scott, our wheelman for the day,  veared over our lane lines and edged closer to a British form of driving, before a Citroen 1 slammed on the brakes before honking his horn and swearing in a distinctive french accent. Scott took to the wheel of Sharan like Hamilton to his Mercedes F1 car and death was averted – only just.

Trying to correct Dom's Navigational Mistakes

Dom had been doing great with the directions all day but by tonight, he was not getting a high five as I, Rhys and Sammy woke up to Dom telling Scott that we had went the wrong way and quite a bit down the wrong route. Great. It gets worse as we meet roadworks and later a caravan destroyed to smitherines. End of their caravan holiday. Poor sods but at least they were ok.

The drive was getting boring now as it was 6pm and we were still not in Turin. If you need a game to pass the time, Sammy, Dom and Rhys, appear to have given their golden approval to the app ‘Worms’. By the cheers and screams of victory/tears of disappointment, it certainly kept them entertained for at least 4hours!

Then we saw Mont Blanc, views were spectacular. Dipping valleys, tree lined cliff faces and snow peaked mountains all with the sun beating and bouncing off them. And Geneva was the lucky city we choose to rest our weary and sweaty bodies (boys not me) for the evening. I’m going to take a wild guess though that we are not actually in Geneva but in the ghetto outskirts by the looks of the gypsy camps and number of people walking with a swagger and doing dodgy handshakes that could only be used to conceal some sort of contraban,

Our Sexy Bike Rack. Well Stacked Like the Guys LOL

Next stop Food and Board: McDonalds sorted us out foodwise and I managed to blag us a free room at Premiere Classe simply by using an online translator to state that ‘The four men I was with were cycling 1,100miles from Turin to wales in 10 days for charity.’ I was like a mute Scottish girl – a rare breed as many of you will know. But a rare breed that caught the attention of the french matradee. The room looks similar to a prison cell but hey beggers can’t be choosers and it was soooo nice of the hotel employees to give us free board. It saved us some much needed euros and gave our bodies a place to get a good nights rest ahead of tomorrows cycle.

Leaving at 7am and driving for 2.5hrs and then aim to start at 10am  from the Juventus stadium. Today was an easy day in light of what is in store for the guys! Please help us, help others and PLEASE DONATE HERE

Abs xx

Food Donations - MMM

We also managed to be lucky enought to get sponsored by Matrix Cycles who actually have several riders taking place in this years #tdf on their bikes. Matrix kindly designed, created and customised their first kit for us. we feel priviledged to have kit made for us by such a high calibre company – and I know our bums will be very grateful Day 2 or 3.

Then after all this excitement passed, Rhys then ran with the Olympic torch on saturday 26th May through Dinas Powys in wales. It was wicked to see and such a great achievement based on his other ultra endurance events for charity. We however, were not loving the 5.30am wake up to ensure we had a good spot to take some papparazzi shots of him.

Tonight abby and support driver Scott will be going to see #DavidGuetta (sure he will get them pumped for the cycle) and then we catch the 6.40am ferry from Dover to Calais and spend most of Satureday driving to Turin. Big Dogg Jenks thinks it may take around 20 hours. Hope not! We will be craving to get on our bikes if that is the case. Then on sunday from the Juventus stadium, we set off on what promises to be an epic, challenging and amazing trip.

All that is left to say is thank you to Scott’s referrals and Rhiannanon for the cake and food donations. Think Dom has almost eaten half of it already. and to please please please remember and DONATE. Help us, help others. you can either click HERE or text ITWA60 and amount to 70070.

Thanks and I hope you enjoy what we have instore as much as we will

The 1000TT Team x

I devised a little magical mystery tour through Cardiff and the vale of Glamorgan , so in the glorious sunshine myself, Dom, Rhys and Sammy set off accompanied by Shane Lloyd (who once cycled across  the US of A) and his mate Chris who is also a keen cyclist and as I later learned an avid mountain climber.

So with the cycle just over a week or so away it was imperative we got some more good miles under the belt – fortunately Wales has plenty of good hills for training on.

Heading off in the direction of Leckwith, we arrived at the first junction and had a faller as one of the lads failed to unclip there shoes and had a bout of a tumble, but we were off to a good start and the sign of things to come.

Heading down Leckwith hill I clocked out at 38.8mph but could have gone faster if I hadn’t braked (chickened out-the surface was bumpy), never mind  next time I’m hoping to beat my own descent PB off 42.4,mph- I’m sure one of those alpine mountains will provide the opportunity to do that.

At the next major junction more chaos arose as a hill start and mixture of traffic lights, sammy and cars resulted in Rhys falling over and doing his best speed bump impression , fortunately he has not injured his Olympic torch bearing arm (which coincidentally he is running with this Saturday at 7am in Dinas Powys-would be great if people could come down and show support for the awesome charity work he has done.)

Anyway continuing on with the ride we eventually arrived at Col d’Pentyrch a climb of about 2 miles at roughly a 10-12% gradient, good times and good training saw us climb this one at a decent rate, before heading down my personal favorite descent around the Cardiff area. It’s a mixture of straights and a couple of quick bends which if your not paying attention will see you into the hedge or wall. As we powered down towards the bottom, our first casualty off the day appeared, Shane and myself were moving at quite a speed –around 35mph id guess, Out of a nowhere a suicide squirrel saw an opportunity to attack, and attack it did. Flinging itself fearlessly at Shane’s front wheel it somersaulted around his spokes before giving up and running back into the hedgerow, disappointed not to have taken out at least one of us.

Crisis averted , we headed out west through St Brides and St Georges up the country lanes and onto the a48 at St Nicholas, upon where we were presented with a nasty headwind.

Headwinds suck, not only do they make cycling harder they also make you feel like like your ears are stuck behind a jet engine, can’t hear a bloody thing in them!!

Anyway after heading as far as the Loch Fyne restaurant, we turned to the south and headed through St Hilary, St Mary’s church and around the welsh equivalent of Top Gun (RAf ST Athan before heading past the misleadingly named Cardiff international Airport (which apparently only does flights to Benidorm and Angelsey) and finally came into Barry-bados.

Here things took a turn for the unexpected as another would be assassin tried to end my life. Pedaling quickly downhill I noticed to my left a teenager lurking in-between cars as I gathered momentum and reached roughly the legal speed limit for the road , the aforementioned assassin pounced , heading at speed towards me, the culprit ran smack bang into my side, knocking me sideways and taking all my effort to not fall off at 30mph I somehow managed to stay on and averted a potential fall into oncoming traffic or better still a wall. For the record the teenager was bounced off onto the floor before dusting ‘herself’ off and getting up to await the next target.

Whilst I make light of this situation , this could have been an absolutely horrendous collision-moronic behavior, no doubt done to impress her chavvy little friends.

Fortunately the rest of the ride home was less eventful and we agreed to reconvene for the next chapter of riding on Thursday night, hopefully this time the suicide squirrel and teenagers hit squads will leave us alone!!

The prep for the ride is going well and the mighty Col d’Izoard pass is now open and all we have to wait for now is the Col d’Agnel and the whole route will be passable. Can’t wait to get out there now and tackle the mountains!!

Talking of which our wonderful support chariot has now arrived –so a massive thank you to Tony Beard and the boys down at A2B motors in Barry for providing us with a awesome Volkswagen Sharan. It’s a great support vehicle to have and really help’s to make the whole event possible-so a great big thank you goes to them!!

If you like what we are doing and think that supporting those with cancer is something we all should be doing then spend a pound or two by sponsoring us at, its cheaper than your lunch and a lot more worthwhile!!

Cheers Scott

Surprise - Me Posing!

Must say I am loving this cycling at the moment, especially today with this AMAZING sunshine! I have finally bonded with my bike, even though I am still waiting for the first crash/fall – secretly hoping I am the lucky one out of the group and avoid being almost swallowed up by a “river” as Sammy puts it or avoiding mountain bikers whizzing round blind corners.

I am more of a runner than a cyclist and preparing for this challenge was the first time I have EVER got on a road bike. In all fairness, hats off to all the cyclists out there. Cycling is a completely different discipline to running and you get pains you never knew you could get, but I am seriously relishing this challenge. It is out of my comfort zone, like the 2000 mile run was to my brother Scott but I know we are both as strong minded and determined as each other and know I will triumph here as he did in the states. I just can not wait to get out on the roads of europe and raise a shed load of money for our two awesome charities! PLEASE DONATE

On top of that, I get to complete an awesome challenge with three awesome chaps, Scott’s my brother and the mastermind behind all of this, the oldest and the most experienced on a bike, Doms a ‘bug man’ with a strong will and determination to never give up, then there’s Sammy! The liverwire of the team, the guy you could never predict, the only thing I am sure about with him is that he wont give up and will go for as long as it takes! Anyway, not long now and I hope you could possibly dig deep and donate to the charities! At the end of the day this is for them! Help us help others!

Adios Rhyso!x

Rhys (I'm addicted to my phone) Jenkins

As we had some lovely weather I decided to peel myself away from the beach and work on my cycling, as well as working on removing some of last nights alcohol and hazzy memmories.  Myself and Rhys decided to hit the Taff trail to take in some idilic views and scenery.  It would apper 85% of Cardiff’s cyclers had the same idea. Along with dog walkers (what is it about my back tyre that makes dogs want to chase it and bite it??)  runners and everything in between.  It was still a pleasent ride and the challenge of weaving around everyone was helping Rhys with his bike control now the stabisers are off.  

Lush scenery

Dusted off and clipped back in we hit Caerphilly mountain, nice incline to start off with but then it turned on us, and here was us thinking we would have a nice pleasant and peaceful ride ahead of us. It ended up like trying to cycle up a wall, Rhys powered ahead but slowed slightly as the incline got worse – much to my delight.  With the top in sight and some words of encouragment from some pedestrains, we managed to overtake and we had made it TRIUMPH (albeit I was thinking this is nothing compared to what we have ahead of us in a few weeks time). All that was left to do was to take some victorous photo’s (check em out), then  head down, bums up and enjoy the hills back down and home.

Me reinforcing we cycled a mountain

And guys reading this, if you haven’t donated already, please do. Even £1 would make a difference. Text ITWA60 and the amount to 70070 or visit www.justgiving.com/1000tt or www.justgiving.com/1000tt2. To date we have ONLY raised £225