The Larks, Will Coyne and Terry Allen on a Sunday morning Bike ride

Evening all. I've just woke up from a two hour knap after a tough day riding. It takes it out of ya you know.

Will (@Will_coyne), Mick (@L4rk1n) and Myself (@larks99) had planned all week to hit the road and get some miles in on the bikes after we had to work last weekend (gutted) and missed what turned out to be a brilliant effort and humorous ride to say the least by all accounts. Well done lads!

Anyway we planned to go out at 9am sharp and do about 20 miles. I woke up a little late at 8.30am and Mick was still in bed. Mick late never..hahah. So i let Will know we was running a little late and 9.30am start was agreed. First thing i done when i woke up was had a look out the window to see what the weather was doing. It looked a little wet with grey clouds all over, but i could see the sun was trying to get through. To be honest it would of had to have been bad weather to have stopped us going out!

I started tweeting that we was going out and got a few messages back from me old pal Brian (@bcfcboz) saying take it easy out there and another from one of our supporters saying it was pi55ing down wherever she was. I tweeted back that i'm sure it will stay dry for us, Harry will make sure of that :0).

Its now 9.30am and were ready and waiting for Will to turn up in his ballet tights and his favourite lycra top. The kid loves his lycra you know! So he turns up about 10mins late in his van with his big eskimo hat on with big fluffy ears and asks me do you think this will fit under my bike helmet.....Kids hey!!

We finally set off after sorting our endomondo's out and Mick's moaning about how cold it is and our usual photo shoot outside the house..thanks Emma. We start at a steady pace and Mick was right it was absolutely Polar bears out there. By the time we got to McDonalds Mick wanted to turn back. We try and follow the route we did before with Brian, Benno (@benno112) and the other lads. We find Elmdon park easy enough and think we doing OK following the route only to find that we come out of one of the country lanes the wrong way from the way we did it before, so from then on it was a case of guess work and just clock up the miles. The first few miles were tough in the weather conditions, but with Harry in mind we pushed on. On several occasions Will and Mick tell me what words of support Brian has for us through endomondo Pep talks. One of them being "how's the view of Micks arse" and another " i'm having a brew and a bacon buttie, what are you guys doings" thanks Bri..its all about the team work.

After about 8 miles in we were riding down one of the lanes when we saw a cyclist up ahead, it was an old man having a sunday morning cycle. Normally when we see other cyclist's out and about we give them a few tings on the bells to add a litte bit of fun to the rides. Micks loves to ring his bell as he has a special Tigger Bell which he loves...haha..That blokes troubled i tell you! Anyway back to the old guy. As we ride past this guy we have never met before or seen on any of our rides, we say the usual hello's and he we strike up conversation so we stop to have a chat with him. His name was Terry Allen and i don't think i'll forget that for a long time! (see pictures below) He tells us that he struggles to walk and he can only really get about by cycling. We tell him what we're doing, that we're doing a charity bike ride for a young boy that died of a brain tumour. Out of nowhere while shinning his apple with one hand he offers me his hand with £3.50 and says "its only a little bit but put this in the pot" What an absolute gent. This is another reason we are all doing this. He goes on to tell us that he grew up and used to live when on Blakenhale Road. The school harry attended and not far from where he lives. We were out in the middle of Barston somewhere. That made our day after that. An absolute stranger puts his hand his pocket just like that. Ill be adding Terry's contribution to our fund later tonight.


After that we were absolutely buzzing and the next few miles flew. We stopped off after 10 miles for a quick chat and a drink. We got lost quite a few time which was quite amusing i thought. Don't think mick was happy about it. We must of went through Knowle about 5 times. I think they thought we were the new Sunday police with all our high viz's on and out jet black bikes all the same. We thought it was quite funny as you do!

The last 5 miles were tough with hills everywhere and face winds slowing us down. On the last mile Will and myself went off up ahead and Mick followed close behind. We did nearly 26 miles in tough weather conditions, but the rain held off until we turned onto the road where we live and it started to rain and didn't stop all afternoon...Told you didn't I...thanks Harry.

We planned to do 20 miles, but i wanted to do 22 as its my lucky number. I promised to do and extra 2 for Vicki Allen for her generous donation yesterday. Many thanks again. And we did the other Mile and a bit for Terry Allen.. an absolutely great human being and real pleasure to have met. I hope we meet him again next year when we're down that way.

Sterling effort by all as usual.

Keep smiling :0)

Larks

P.S If you like what we're doing and want to support us pleasee donate what you can at http://justgiving.com/CyclingforHarry