The ABC30Challenge - Charity Ride
The reason for the Charity Ride was to raise funds and awareness of life limited children here in the southwest of the UK the charity is the Precious Lives Appeal who have raised funds to construct Cornwall’s first dedicated children’s hospice at the cost of £5,000,000 mostly from donations and events like ours. The government have only given 11% so the ordinary folk of Cornwall have taken up the challenge and succeeded.
This facility was much needed, being a peninsula county it was a long way for families to travel into the next county with youngsters often too sick to make the 2hour plus journey , the unit is now complete and will have its first intake in November.
During this time some of the children have sadly passed away before its doors opened but now the staff can welcome and give local youngsters the care that is much needed for their often short lives.
The webpage is www.abc30challenge.com and for donations please see www.chsw.org.uk
My trip started on the 30th of July from Lands end in Cornwall and finished at John o Groats in Scotland, 11 days later, the trip was very quick as each day was reasonable in distance- 65miles/day, so we could concentrate on the riding with 2 support vehicles carrying all of the spares and food we required from CNP Professional who also donated this help.
Several incidents happened - the first was a road closure for a gas main rupture in Shropshire, not what we needed after 80 miles at a high 21 mph average that day and humid too! The next day was again a repeat with the A49 trunk road closed for road repairs so it meant an extra 12 mile detour!!
The fastest day was from Stoodleigh in Devon to Bristol which at the end of the 76 miles was 22.4mph average the miles flew by assisted in no small part by the wheels which held their speed well and climbed well too, they were appreciated in headwinds and gave no cause for concern in cross winds at all.
The one and only puncture we suffered was on my back wheel on Beattock summit in Scotland. The back wheel dropped into a small pothole but the wheel stayed true with no signs o f buckling, after this day the weather turned bad with strong crosswinds and low cloud along with rain, temperatures dropped to 12c and made the days longer over exposed roads through he Scottish highlands.
The last day was again very windy over the exposed final 80 miles to John o Groats but the rain held off this undulating road with its two very severe climbs one at Helmsdale and the other at Berridale Braes at an average gradient of 16% were made worse by the strong cross winds but again my average was high and with the vehicles following us throughout the day it went without problems.
We arrived at the destination at 3pm on Tuesday the 9th for photos and a rest.
All in all I was impressed by the wheel sets and what they stood up to the roads varied in quality from smooth to badly poc marked surfaces and abuse from us with mad descents and late braking. For an all round set they would be good enough for most riders and I say this with a lot of experience, Token have made a solid piece of kit that took all that we could throw at them road, weather, abuse etc.
Andy Miners
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EXTREME BIKE 
