2020 Summary - 'Struth! We cycled to Australia!'
Pascal here. So that was 2020, not the best of years! At the start of the year, COVID wasn’t a thing, it was definitely a thing by the end of the year. We’ve not known a year like it really, but some careful planning has allowed us to achieve plenty of cycling goodness in the last 12 months nonetheless.
In amongst all the endless rearranging of activity plans and sitting in front of Zoom only dressed on the top half, Dan and I have actually managed to get some decent base fitness established. Between us, we managed to cycle a total of 14,000 km in 2020. That is equivalent to the distance between the UK and Australia – Struth! Fair go, mate! You flamin’ galah! You get the idea, no cultural appropriation offence meant….
In terms of time, this saw us sat in our saddles for a grand total of 600 hours, roughly equivalent to the length of time you now have to queue at a post office to send a parcel during COVID! We reckon this was time well spent (the bike riding, not the post office queue time...), it puts us in the perfect position to take our 2021 training to the next level, built on the solid base fitness foundation we have developed this year. On that front, our expedition physical trainer Tim has plans for us. It worries us when Tim provides us with training plans and goals, as they almost always result in very tired legs. Casting an eye over what he has in store for us over the next 7 months, as we build towards our July start date, it looks like 2021 will be a year filled with more very tired legs. And maybe some crying (internalised, most likely).
But that’s all for another blog, in the coming weeks we will be providing further detail on some of the ‘treats’ Tim has lined up for us. Throughout 2021, we will be releasing a weekly blog post, every Friday. Keep an eye out for updates on our training, info about some new kit we've added to our bikes, cycling book reviews, our fundraising efforts, and to find out which one of us has disappeared down a country road pothole that particular week....!
To summarise our 2020, ‘Struth, we cycled to Australia!’. Next year we shall cycle across America, we gonna be ballin’ y'all!
In the meantime, wishing one and all a wonderful 2021, filled with dreams being achieved and perhaps even some international travel!