We came, you gave, we rode
Ben on Wednesday 28 July
Sunday 25th July dawned grey. The big day, for the nine Enotria colleagues who were setting off from Enfield in North London to ride to Cambridge. A sigh of relief that it (at least) wasn’t going to be fiercely hot from start to finish. We had been kindly kitted out by one of our Italian suppliers who already sponsor a ‘pro’ cycling team in Italy. Judging by the size of the outfits they were a team of boys!
Anyway, once squeezed into the lycra, we were ready to roll. Danyel had turned up on his ‘washing machine’ – a single speed fixed gear in glowing white (with gold bits). You can imagine the heads turning as he rode past. To be fair to him, he didn’t slacken on the bike – even though its fixed gear meant that he had to pedal even going downhill. 
Any notion of team spirit – or even team orders – soon disappeared, as did half the group on their speedy road bikes into the distance. The rest of us rode on at a slightly more leisurely pace. Stop one was at 20 miles – thought to myself, ‘nearly half way, doesn’t feel too bad.’ Resumed and almost immediately encountered two huge hills. I thought Cambridgeshire was flat. But evidently the way there is not. Cycled through Much Hadham – funny name, pretty village. Sometime later made a second stop – still feeling ok. It wasn’t til about mile 44 that things started to ache – and you can imagine which things. Later, my mileometer told we had less than 9 miles to go – and then I spied a sign saying ‘Ten miles to go!’ Oh joy. Eventually we saw a sign for Cambridge! And we were on the A Road. Cycling on an A Road when you’ve been riding for over 3 hours isn’t a lot of fun. But then (I’d say suddenly but it wasn’t, more like finally) we were in Cambridge itself, and there was the finish line. Andy’s wife and family had laid on a fantastic spread for us – much appreciated given the unprecedented calorie burn we’d just undertaken. Cambridge in the sun was very pleasant – and we’d done it! Not too stiff for the train journey home –I even had enough puff to cycle back home from Liverpool Street. Thanks to everyone who supported us so generously. We raised over £6,000 for brain tumour research. You can see more pictures (if you feel like you want to!) here