With promises of sunshine and 20 degrees luck seemed to be on our side for the finale of the TCC Challenge but that all changed the night before the ride when we were putting up the colour coded arrows around the routes.

Dom and I had been up at Pacha in Victoria on the Saturday for the Pukka Up (Dom’s club promotion business) Ibiza launch party getting home at 7am the following day. 3 hours sleep later and we were in a car with Holly heading down to Clacton to help www.thetesticletour.com break a world record for the largest number of men standing in one place checking their testicles for abnormalities at the same time- certainly had more ‘normal mornings’ but all for a good cause; Holly and I have been asked to be trustees of the Testicle Tour when it’s established as a charity later on this year. Throughout the day the wind gradually picked up and by the time we’d spent 4 hours driving round the routes putting up the arrows it was clear that most of them would blow away by the morning!

People started to arrive and with a quick check of the tyres and a photo with the local paper we were off… all of us except for Batman that is (whose bat mobile broke down before we’d even left!) Dom lead the pack and I hung back with Batman, Batgirl & Robin with the intention of picking up anyone who got confused by the lack of arrows but by the time Batman got a replacement bike we were two hours behind the rest of the pack! We did manage to catch up with Amy, Alex & Andrew, some students from the college, though on one of their custard cream breaks. We soon began to realise that the 50 mile route wasn’t going to happen for us, Batman and Batgirl were having bike problems so we opted for the 25 mile route.

While we were plodding along Dom was up at the front of the pack with Dad being led by Holly’s step father, Phil and the Hadham Hamsters along with Charlie, Katy-Jane and her two friends she’d dragged along after convincing them to join her (while intoxicated) the night before. Holly and the rest of the people on the 10 mile route were arriving back at the hall with the exception of Ata who was determined to do the 50 mile route, he showed an amazing amount of passion and drive to continue evading a persuasive Holly to stay with her on the 10 mile route. The poor guy had to call it a day when the arrows got the better of him!

By now the smell of the BBQ was in the air for me and the bat crew, a right treat at the end of the ride- although it reminded me of the strung up sheep for Eid in Tunisia! Mum, Lynne and Molly all did a great job and helped us organise things back at the mission hall. The best snack was some of Cheryl’s mars bar slices, a calorie disaster but seriously delicious!

Fortunately fun was had by all on the day the only minor accident was Katy-Jane getting in a tangle on the loose stones as she turned into the mission hall for the finish- a minor graze but as she’d just achieved the 50 mile monster she didn’t seem too fussed. Holly’s step dad Phil got a bit too excited also when he went to meet the Hadham Hamsters for a ride the following week- he tripped over his bike on his way to the meet and cracked a rib! Nice one Phil.

As it stands after costs we’ve been working to approximately £60,000 of distributable funds;
- £42,000 has been donated to Macmillan which will be used to fund a Chemo Therapy nurse in Cumbria
- £9,000 to Orchid which will be used to support their cancer research lab and marketing material to raise further awareness of male cancer
- £4,500 to Willow Foundation to fund special days for seriously and terminally adults
- £4,500 to Starlight to fund special days and trips abroad for seriously ill children

Funds are still coming through in drips and drabs so the above amounts are likely to be slightly more but a huge heart filled thanks to everyone who has dug deep into their pockets to support our crazy challenge

So that’s the TCC Challenge all wrapped up. Going forward we will be assisting Darren & Richard with the fantastic work they do with the Testicle Tour (www.thetesticletour.com) and Holly & I have the honour of being Trustees to the charity. In the meantime please keep an eye on the facebook group ‘my cancer journey- TCC Challenge’ for photos of the May 31st bike ride and additional photos of us distributing the funds.

Thanks for your continued support and helping us to raise awareness over the importance of early cancer detection- DON’T BE BONKERS CHECK YOUR CONKERS!!

Jon & Dom.

jon@tccchallenge.co.uk
dom@tccchallenge.co.uk

I must admit when I came up with concept of cycling around the Tropic of Cancer for Cancer 18 months ago I didn’t know how far I’d get, I was unfit and undergoing radio therapy treatment. I didn’t even have a decent bike and began training on the same bike I had when I was 12! I was fortunate to have my fiancé Holly to give me strength and to keep the belief alive- not many women would put up with she has and my brother who helped ambition become reality, to be honest if he hadn’t have come I’d still be cycling around Dover somewhere looking for the ferry terminal!
As support grew for the challenge it all became very real and when our sponsors came aboard and people started to donate their hard earned cash we had more people relying on us which made us more determined to succeed! I thoroughly enjoyed building up the brand of the TCC Challenge alongside my brother and with the help of friends in India (Rohan Kapor, Kaylen Sen, Anthony Biswas) Sami and Fathi in Libya, the Tapken’s in Dubai, Susaina and Simon Powell in Hong Kong and Rich and Lizzy in Mexico we helped to raise awareness through media in 7 countries around the world.
6 months after leaving from the Bank of England here we are, in Cuba reunited with Holly drinking mojito’s! Huge heartfelt thanks to everyone who has supported the Tropic of Cancer for Cancer Challenge either directly or indirectly. Jon x

After only 3 months of being together Jon dropped the C word on me, so when he revealed his plans to cycle across the world with his brother i wasn’t shocked more relieved that Jon was so enthusiastic & not defeated after all he’d been through in the past 2 years. I suppose the selfish side of me wanted to discourage it & keep him to myself but knew that our love would be strong enough to handle being apart for so long. I was lucky as Jon kept me involved via text, email or video call as we were a team before he left & that would never change. I soaked myself in the TCC Challenge , organising events & generally plugging the arse out of the challenge. I found myself engrossed & obsessed & set myself daily challenges to achieve the ultimate for the boys. Now 6 months on i sit here in Cuba ( Very badly sunburnt) & with tears in my eyes i wonder what we the future will bring but one things for sure, i’ve got my man back!! Holly x

3rd April
We have been amazed how friendly Mexicans have been, and today was no exception as we tried to track down two cycle boxes for the journey home. Reception suggested we try the nearby shopping mall, and after wandering into a department store’s sports department, Enrique trekked across the parking lot to fetch us two brand new bikes, just so we could have the cardboard boxes for Ronnie and Reggie.
While we were laughing at two German lads by the pool who had clearly been out in the sun far too long (Sven and Helmut), they very kindly sent over two cold beers for us. Legends – and we thought they were after our sun loungers and towels! They were out for Spring Break, and made a few suggestions of places to try that evening.
Well, the Cancun strip is like a teen disco – on far too much Budweiser and Vodka energy mixes. So many good looking girls, but Jon and I felt well old, and probably the least stylish ones there – we’ve never been out clubbing in grey tracksuit bottoms before, so one too many tequilas later (3am) we headed off, ready for our flight tomorrow.

2nd April
Today’s the day – come rain or shine, wind or wild animals we are going to get to Cancun. Jon likened it to a spinning class in a steam room with sandpaper for pants, while my legs felt about as hollow as easter eggs. The road was massively boring, especially with hardly any traffic about (being Good Friday) – I was trying to see where the next iguana was going to jump out from!
About 100 Harley Davidson bikes screemed past which made things a bit more interesting, especially when we caught them all up at the toll, high fiving a few too! 10 miles later they raced past again, this time cheering us on, one bike even had a horse sound for his horn – brilliant!
I forgot to charge the ipod, so my planned tracks for our finish didn’t happen, but Jon was chilling to Erika Badu, as we both tried to absorb what we have just achieved over the last 8,300 miles. Luckily the hotel we booked was a really chilled budda influence, and we were upgraded to a MTV crib/ pimp room with a huge bath. Our plans of getting stuck into the Corona’s failed miserably, we managed two each before crashing out – still we have the last day of Spring Break tomorrow, and we can finally get a another break from cycling – I think we’ve earned it!

1st April
10 miles into today’s cycle, my energy level is rapidly dropping to zero, and my arse feels like I’ve been sitting on a seat of nails. Jon is now cycling on ahead and then having to wait 5 minutes for me to catch up. Listened to 3 Coldplay albums today, singing along (badly) which helped the next 30 miles pass by.
With my slow progress today another stint of night time cycling was inevitable (luckily only for about 45 minutes), but was proper scary stuff, with wild scank dogs, Larry the huge locust landing on my glove and Jon almost running over a 3ft live snake, which nearly made me fall off my bike!
Praying no last minute dogs would chase us, we found a nice hotel with a supermarket next door, and with a stunning Mexican girl on reception, she certainly took my mind off my creaking legs!

31st March
Now the hard work really begins. It’s what we’ve been training for. 313 miles in three days – brilliant! More dull toll road cycling, I kept myself interested thinking about American cheerleaders on Spring Break and counting road kill – two obvious extremes! One scank dog had been hit so hard that his teeth were 5 metres on from the rest of his splattered remains!
Still guzzling through the water, it gets hotter and less refreshing as the day goes on. Suddenly the dream of a full fat ice cold coke dilutes the cheerleader thoughts in my head!
Jon had another little wobble on the bike, but understandably so – he was in the zone listening to music (we are now sharing the ipod to keep us going), when an unexpected burrito munching bug flew straight into his spam. I saw the 3 inch monster tumble to the roadside, dazed and confused. Jon was more worried about his forehead, thinking that he would find bits of bug guts, but luckily just a little red mark!
We rolled into the outskirts of Merida, cutting short our cycle today (not looking forward to another 10 miles tomorrow), but found a good motel with a pool. Shame it was also the location for the annual mosquito conference with Pedro as chairman, and they were delighted to have two ‘neapolitan tanned’ volunteers for tonight’s banquet. They were completely un-phased by 2 smoking coils and the 18 degree air-conditioning, which meant a sleepless night for us both.

30th March
We opted for a shorter cycle today, rather than risk ending up in another nothing town. Campeche is a lovely Mayan influenced colonial town, and we found a cool little place which happened to have Man Utd vs Bayern on TV (shame the useless gits lost!). Nice to have another afternoon chilling out of the heat, and Jon was able to speak to Holly at a time other than 5am!
We found a traveller hostel for dinner, and amazed a group of German swingers with the amount of food we ordered!

29th March
It’s so frustrating when you get up to leave early, and then taking 3hrs to go. A right mince this morning – trying to help Jon by putting the offending inner tube to the side, he then picked it back up and put it on his bike. Funny as he realised, but was well pissed off at having to change a puncture for the second time and pump up tyres 3 times!
A long cycle aside the Gulf today, we keep having to remind ourselves how far round the Tropic of Cancer we have come. A mexico bike touring company has given us some invaluable advice on where to stay along this part of the route, and while Champoton was as hillbilly as they come, at least we found a cheap motel and restaurant next door (although the mother-in-law did have to nip off to the shops to get our food!) While we are working hard on the bikes, Holly is in full swing doing a fantastic job arranging diaries and events for when we get back to the UK.

28th March
A well earned rest day and another chance for washing the stiff sweaty cycle jerseys and Jon’s funky pants! Certainly not what staff wanted to see at the five star hotel was thermal cycle shorts hanging off the balcony!

27th March
If yesterday’s ride didn’t finish me off, another 110 plus miler today certainly will do. Bit of sat nav mincing, and trying to get round Toni’s 4×4 who desperately needed some parking lessons, but lucky we did have the route out of the city locked on the Garmin, and we were on our way.
I shouldn’t be so specific wanting a can of coke from a chilled refrigerator in a petrol station, as we decided to ignore the manky looking coolbox of a roadside seller. Because, 20 miles on, in the raw heat I was shaking through my lack of energy. The only option was some flea attacked mouldy orange drinks from El Rancho’s Culinary Disasters – we swerved that too! Luckily the next lookie lookie drinks dispenser we saw waving ice cold drinks in the air, thought all his Christmases had come at once when we nailed 4 cans in quick succession.
It still seemed like a long way as the sunlight faded, and when we stopped to put the lights on, we realised what we had been chewing on for the last 10 miles. Bugs – millions of them, swarming round our faces – we were quickly covered from head to toe. That will explain the menacing looking toll booth attendants in balaclavas, as we raced passed to the 3 mile bridge to Cuidad island. The dive bombing bugs onslaught intensified just before we left their mainland, and onto some cleaner sea air.
The first hotel we stumbled across happened to be a 5*. Oh well, needs must, but I wasn’t letting them charge me full rate. Actually I think they just wanted to get the dirty, sweaty, bug splatted person off their reception desk, and 50% off later it was a done deal. Meanwhile Jon had told Pedros the security man the whole challenge (between you and me he didn’t understand a word of what Jon was saying!) – “as long as he looks after the bikes bro, I don’t mind how your pigeon Spanish is coming on!”

26th March
A monster cycle today – 115 miles, and our ridiculous tans are coming on a treat. Our feet actually look like we’ve stood in a bucket of white emulsion! Heading for Villahermosa today, one of the bigger cities in Mexico, luckily all the truckers on fine form today, with more air horn encouragement.
Villahermosa is in the tabasco region, and we definitely noticed it at dinner with some more insanity sauces! We found an apartment style hotel, although Ronnie and Reggie were stuck in the parking lot, alongside some massive 4x4s.

25th March
Another long day – 95 miles to Minatitlan, but it seems now we can take these in our stride. Also amusing was the nickname we had for the town – “Mini tities”. The toll roads aren’t the most exciting, but getting us to Cancun quicker – still seems a long way when we spotted 1,100km sign to go!
We found a very over generous 4* hotel, but almost passed out in their sauna heated restaurant, after a cheeky Chicken Royale in Burger King. Well that almost didn’t happen as we were sharing the restaurant with 100 burrito munching Mexican kids, with the party girl serving burgers behind the counter. A big fat headache I could have done without!

24th March
We were looking forward more to this 1,200m descent, a bit shallower for my Miss Daisy cycling style over 70km, but it was a bit of an anti-climax as it just seemed flat. But we were rewarded with our first views of the Gulf of Mexico, and a smack of humidity on par with China, but with blazing sun thrown in too. It felt like our heads were in an oven on full wack. And this is also Pedro the mosquito’s heartland!
The long flat highway was tough, only a few bridges were helping protect us from the sun, and 7 litres (each) of water later we arrived at Cosamaloapan, hopefully our last hillbilly town. Hotel Central was more like a rough motel, doubling up as a car workshop, but at least we had our own rooms, and sanctuary from Jon’s arse trumpet all night!

23rd March
Boy we needed that rest day, and today we reach the huge milestone of no more hills! Bit of a trek out of the city of Puebla, but we are well at home now on these toll roads – despite the numerous no cycling signs! So we’ve been looking at our elevation charts, and we have 1,400m of descent as our reward. We thought it was going to be easier today, but no such luck. Our first punctures in Mexico struck twice on both bikes, from picking up little wire splinters off blown out truck tyres, and despite fixing Jon’s front pannier rack, it also broke off again, meaning I had to carry another one on the back of the bike.
And then a stomach rumble – shit – literally, as I dashed across a farmer’s field, looking out for snakes on the way. I’d done so well up to now, so it was gutting to have to go through my first outdoor poo, avoiding the cactus’s, and praying that no spiders fancied a bit of English rump!
Once the stomach settled, and we’d climbed back up to 8,000 feet (I thought these bitchin hills were over!), it was downhill all the way. The views were immense, and seemed much closer to us because the road was so steep, but there were worrying signs how dangerous it was as we saw a laden lorry lying 100m below, having smashed through the barriers probably just a day earlier. Then as I was nearing a hairpin corner at 25mph, there was a bang, followed by a screeching dragging gravel sound from the back of my bike. As I pulled up on the hard shoulder, a 4 inch nail had kebabed my rear tyre twice, jamming the brakes and ripping the mudguard. Luckily, another new inner tube later, and we were back on the descent, across sticky wet tar for good measure, before arriving in one hillbilly town, Orizaba and collapsing into a plate of tacos!

21st March
One thing about downhill is the wounding realisation that we now had to make our way back up to 7,300ft today to reach Puebla. The heat is back and cooking us every mile we cover. Finding another toll road, we put our heads down and pushed down the thighs at a dizzying 9mph into a headwind – rubbish! When a landcruiser pulled alongside, Jon thought they had run out of petrol. I was more annoyed that they had stopped my sluggish rhythm. It actually transpired that Davide and his girlfriend Anna spoke perfect English and he was really keen on cycling and triathlons and wanted to hear about our adventure. They were so nice, and started trying to contact some friends along our route to see if we might be able to stay with them. It was refreshing for us to be able to speak English again to other people, and they really wanted to help us in any way they could.
One of their friends, Berto, lived just outside Puebla and Davide said to give him a call when we were nearby. Unfortunately we couldn’t get through so soldiered onto Puebla and decided to settle on a hotel instead. At our last breather (god these hills are killing me), I noticed a worrying wobble on Ronnie’s crank – it looks like the bearings have gone, and after kicking ourselves for not getting the buckled wheel changed in Chiang Mai, I knew that we needed to get to a bike shop quickly.
We hooked back up with Davide and Anna at our hotel and they very kindly bought us dinner (at least we knew what we were ordering), as well as introducing us to Berto who came along too. And he knew a bike shop owner in Puebla, and arranged for them to look at the bike in the morning. Another amazing occurrence on our challenge.

20th March
Explaining to the ‘Rodge the Yank’ that we were now heading to Cuautla, all he said was good luck. And when stopping at the traffic lights a Mexican yute driver raised his eyebrows when we told him. “Bro this aint a game of tidily winks!” You see today we were cycling cross country over a mountain range, off the safely of the more steady inclines of the toll roads, and up to the highest point of the Tropic of Cancer for Cancer Challenge – 10,400 feet, or 2 miles above sea level!
Luckily, the Mexican gang member Alberto cycled with us for 10 miles out of Toluca, which really helped point us in the right direction. We would have been proper lost without him, even though we were worried as we weaved through little shortcuts of his home town. We are in hillbilly territory now and I wasn’t liking the hills either, and we weirdly found ourselves in a Saturday morning cycle race. There were a few kids there who should have taken it a bit easy on the burritos, and Jon was loving racing them, until the map flew off his bike and got proper ‘trucked’ by about 5 artics!
He then got carried away and raced passed the junction we needed to turn left at. I was not happy having to chase him downhill, and then having to cycle back. Jon then lost concentration trying to straighten the tent and faceplanted the asphalt. Luckily he was going slowly uphill, but it was a stark reminder that even with just 12 cycling days left, we can’t take our eyes off the ball.
We are having to dig deep, harder than any training we have done, taking each 100ft of assent at a time, and after what seemed like an eternity (and several buckets of sweat later, we reached the magical 10,400ft peak! If we were in Europe now this would be a ski resort! Now it’s all downhill right? Wrong! We turned the corner and the best view in the world greeted us. We were literally up in the clouds and could see for miles across Mexico. Awesome! Squealing down the 1500ft descent (our brakes are cooked now!), Jon mentioned that we still had another pimple of a hill to do (250m) to get back to the toll road. More like a big angry puss-dripping hill bro, it nearly finished us both off. We managed 50m at a time, this was the steepest hill of the challenge – even a bloke on his rusty bike walked up the hill quicker than me!
But yes, we were on the toll road again, and had 35km of downhill. The view I can only describe as looking out of a plane window with your feet on the ground. It made you dizzy trying to take it all in. We could see two different vast plateaus, about 6000ft below us, and it was downhill all the way. This is without a doubt the most exhilarating cycling road on the planet, just trying to take it all in blew our minds! We just made it to Cuautla before dark, nailed a fajita feast and collapsed into our beds with the views of the day whirling around in our heads.

19th March
Left the stunning courtyard of the town centre hotel early, and headed off to Toluca. A 500m assent woke us up pretty sharpesh, but I was still struggling as Jon tanked on ahead. However the scenery was inspiring me on; the road weaved steeply up through pine forests, and the massive rigs gave us airhorn encouragement as we sweated like Mexicans in a chilli face off!
Toluca is one of the highest cities in Mexico at 2,700m, and 900m higher than our training in the Alps! And approaching the industrial city, we saw snow covered mountains glistening in the afternoon sunlight. Every day Mexico’s magical landscape continues.
Now onto Lonely Planet – we’ve downloaded about 10 chapters on the relevant parts of Mexico and we aimed for a hotel, El Gran, in the centre of Toluca, lured with the offer of free wifi. But could we find it? No chance, and even a taxi escort with the most useless cabbie I’ve ever met proved fruitless. Anyway, after a lot of huffing and puffing (just cycled 84 miles), pushing our bikes through the busy centre, we found the ‘renamed’ hotel (thanks useless LP), and Jon excelled himself in the first Mexican hotel negotiation.

18th March
3 days now without the right food was taking it’s toll on us, fortunately we did manage to find an internet cafe last night and re planned our route, we found a town with a choice of 5 hotels for tonight which must also mean good restaurants. We were right. We found a cool little authentic hotel cheap as chips with a good cafe restaurant on site, we also plotted a shorter cycle today which meant that we could eat twice after lunch and have a much needed rest. We filled our boots with delicious tacos, burritos, soup, cakes. It was awesome. We then retired to the room to catch a film on the laptop just in time too because it absolutely chucked it down.

17th March
After two days of not eating proper food we made the executive decision to stop short of another potential hill billy town and get to the slightly bigger town of Cuitzeo, well it was in bold on the map so it must be better right? Well yes and no. Again there was only one hotel and again the only thing we could find to eat was crap, nice crap granted, burgers with cheese, bacon and inferno insanity sauce but still not the right food for us. The cool colonial town was charasmatic where the streets were rows of terraced buildings and every one with the exception of the church was painted red & white. There was no advertising or shop signs anywhere and the only thing that distinguished the shops from one another was either by peering in or by the writing above the entrance which was the same small size and same font as the next shop.

The hotel we found was basic but good for one night. It was run by a Mexican/American family and the son was about Dom’s age, he gave us some advice on our route past Mexico City, we concluded that it’d be best to drop south from Toluca to Cuernavaca then onto Puebla. Mexico City is one of if not the biggest city in the world and skimming the outskirts on the toll road would be bonkers; lots of fly overs, junctions, traffic. We’d be knocked off for sure. That’s not even taking into account that it’s also one of the most dangerous cities on the planet.

16th March
Did some work this morning to catch up; Holly is going great guns on arranging PR for our return including a 6 sheet advert at Bank tube station! We went to town to grab our usual sandwich bits but realised after an hour back on the road that we forgot to get cash, this could be a problem. I found the cycle tough today, the pizza from last night didn’t sit well in my stomach causing me to loose my appetite which in turn drained my energy. Reluctantly I forced a tuna sarnie down which did actually help a little and gave me a much needed energy boost.

We ploughed on to a small ‘hill billy’ town called Panindicuaro within the bleakness of the hills, the next big town was beyond our cycling reach for the day. We did manage to find one rather shabby family run hotel but after having stayed in some less than impressive hotels in India it was fine. The town had one cash point which ironically didn’t work, so there we were in the middle of nowhere with only 100 pesos on us, the hotel was 300 and we needed to eat. We were in a bit of a jam.

We got Rich to send us a message in Spanish so we could show matey chops but he was too leathered on tequila to know what was going on although we did manage to understand that he could give us a lift to the next town in the morning. That left us with just enough money for a couple of firecracker inferno burgers from across the street, not ideal as we needed proper food but beggars can’t be choosers.

15th March
When we arrived in La Barca we thought we’d found a right touch in finding a hotel right on the toll road even better that it had wifi. Trouble was as it was a bank holiday weekend their restaurant wasn’t open and this was the same in the town. We did manage to get some pizzas though which isn’t the best food for two hungry cyclists but much better than some of the options in China. The pizzas weren’t great and didn’t sit well in my stomach, fortunately Dom was ok but I didn’t get much sleep and only a day after recovering from the dodgy mayo it was an episode I could do without.

13th March
Cycling over the cobbled streets on the way out of Tequila, people were still on it from the previous night, falling about all over the place. I saw one guy stumble across the road to his pick-up truck and get in the driver’s seat – I even noticed his wife in the passenger seat- crazy!

Rich’s wife Lizzy met us outside the city to guide us in – the poor girl didn’t know what she had let herself in for, with lorries and other traffic getting rowdy beeping their horns at her for driving slowly behind us! It was also a new experience for Rich who found it all really stressful trying to look out for his wife and also to hold onto his pants while he tried to avoid passing vehicles.

The evening was a little more relaxed and Dom was able to get some much needed rest, he enjoyed being the centre of attention at a table with Lizzy’s mum, her friend and her sister who wanted to know all about the challenge while Rich and I tried (being the operative word) to get the BBQ going- we had to use some petrol to give it a jump start in the end. Rich’s friend Stefan and his wife Marisol came along too – he had arranged the media in Tepic so it was great to thank him. We tried to go into town for a drink but lasted about 45 minutes before deciding to call it a night – party animals! I had a looming case of gut rot which kept me up all night, not much fun.

12th March
We were going to cycle the 85 miles to Guadalajara but Dom was even worse today. The last thing we want is to burn out so close to the finish so we made the call to stop in Tequila and make it a 45 miler, a good job too as we did 2,700 feet of ascents which took us up to our highest point yet of 5,000 feet.
As we rolled into Tequila the smell was recognisable straight away and took me back to my uni days; Tequila Tuesdays down at Casablanca.

We found a cushdy little Mexican restaurant for dinner and feasted on tequila chicken and cactus. On the way back we stopped off at a tequila bar for a rather generous measure which set us up nicely for a good sleep unfortunately though a group of rowdy teenage Mexicans on the lash were in the room next door and the ceiling fan didn’t work, also didn’t help having to cuddle up to Dom in his pants.

11th March
Rich arrived at our hotel an hour early (we all got confused with the time difference); it was really good to see a friendly face and a good boost for him to see some friends from England. He moved out to Mexico a few months ago after marrying a Mexican, Lizzy, she’s awesome and they make a great couple.

One of Rich’s friends had arranged a radio interview for us but she couldn’t do it any earlier than 11.30am – a little bit concerned about some inevitable night time cycling but hey it was good to raise further awareness in Mexico right? After paying Jose the cabbie to guide us across Tepic we arrived at the radio station to find we were to be interviewed by a group of very fiery self proclaimed porn stars. this should be fun! Fortunately they had a translator and the interview went well although I did catch Dom losing track a couple of times focusing on silicone! Everyone at the station wanted their picture taken which was a good ego boost and then we heard they arranged a TV interview for us too, more concerned about the time but we carried on, Rich got a little nervous as he was the designated translator but he pulled it off. Barnaby Bear even got his TV debut.

After the interviews it was a quick dash to Walmart (so good to be reunited again with western supermarkets, no offence China) where we embarrassed ourselves again by turning a row of trolleys outside into a banquet bar! Stocked up on food we were on the road by 2.30pm and on we ploughed. Dom was still pretty low on energy and clearly needs a rest but we decided to press on and take it steady. We called it a day in a town called Jala about 10km short of our destination as we were cycling in the dark and Dom was pushing himself beyond his comfort zone. Not the best place to stop but it’s only for one night we told ourselves.
This small town can be described as a trucker hillbilly wasteland and we later found out there is active witches who live there! As we cycled in we were going to ask for directions from a petrol station but when we saw it was being raided by police with AK-47s we thought it probably wasn’t the best idea. We found a dodgy motel with strange splattered blood stains on the sheets and I drew the short straw with a pillow that looked like it had skid marks on – think I’ll use a rolled up towel then! Dom and Rich went in search of food and I decided to guard the stuff in the room, they found a burger stall and amazed the folk there (who had never met English people) when they ordered 9 burgers for 3 people. It was great to have Rich with us and a good morale boost with us, also a bit of a bonus that he can speak a bit of Spanish.
As a treat we gave him a taste of home with an episode of Ramsay’s Nightmares on the laptop. I was happy (despite the poo pillow) as I managed to finish the TCC Challenge promotional video – not going to win any Oscars but conveys the right impression- you can see it on our media section its titled ‘my cancer journey- tcc challenge’.

10th March
Rich confirmed that we are allowed to cycle along the toll roads, so Jon wanted to get straight on it to Tepic. I was a bit more reluctant, knowing that we had another 80 miles to go today and didn’t want the mince of getting turned away from the toll booth. Well we should have just jumped on, as we spent the next 20 miles shitting ourselves as we saw dead and live 5ft snakes in the grass verges, cat sized iguanas, birds the size of small dinosaurs (nicknamed Terance the Terradactor ) and becoming acquainted with some seriously ‘small cock’ Mexican bus drivers.
Once we were on the toll road, the bikes were purring and after a few police cars and army trucks zipped past with no problem our confidence grew. We knew from looking at the elevation this morning that the big arsed 900m climb was coming, and sure enough we hit the start of it just after lunch, after hearing the big arctic lorries crunching gearboxes . It nearly finished me off, as I found myself really tired and low in energy, sweating like I was in a sauna, and while Jon powered on, the hotel on the hilltop couldn’t arrive quick enough. I’m sure a good dinner and sleep will sort me out and I’ll be back on track tomorrow.

9th March
So first day of cycling in Mexico – the finishing line is in sight, but we still have a long way to go. And cycling out of Mazatlan, past all the police and army vehicles, I’m not sure this is going to be easy! Actually we find out later that Mazatlan is quite a dangerous place (outside the tourist area), so I think we were cycling through the outskirts as a drugs bust was going down.
And boy is it hot – Rich (Jon’s friend) did warn us, but with the training of Thailand and Laos we thought we would be used to the heat. Well this is another level. 36 degrees today and cycling along the Highway 15 Libre, we got through 7 litres of water each! The scenery was stunning, but with the mountains looming in the background, we knew they were getting ready to batter us in the coming days. We still managed 100 miles today, but we could barely keep our eyes open as we rolled into Acaponeta, along the cobbled streets into a typically authentic Mexican town centre. Even eating was a struggle, and this was certainly a warning sign that Mexico is definitely going to be the toughest leg yet.

8th March
We scheduled a day off today, to try and get acclimatised to another country, and first task was to see how did the bikes fared on 3 planes, 16 hours of flying, and five different nationalities of luggage handlers. Not great was our assessment as we un bended pannier racks and mudguards, hoping that they will carry us through to Cancun.
The tourist area of Mazatlan is really quite nice – lots of restaurants along the beach side, and they have these novelty golf cart taxis, pimped to the max with neon lights, bass boxes and alloys! I wonder what St. Andrews would think about these at the next Open!

7th March
The next leg of the adventure was to fly to Mazatlan (right on the Tropic of Cancer), so we could start cycling across Mexico. After some repairs to the bike boxes (3 rolls of parcel tape from reception), we then had all the same ball ache of checking in our luggage, trying to avoid paying for excess luggage. Luckily Barry, ‘the baggage hander from Manchester’ sorted us right out, saving us about $200 – nice one Bazza!
Arriving in Mexico was unnerving – we had been warned about being ripped off, so were on guard when we needed 3 porters to carry all our luggage to the taxi. But all ok and we headed to our hotel in the tourist area, not before getting a look at the rougher end of Mazatlan, which is where we have to cycle! Crashed out in the hotel, while watching the Oscars which was cool as we had been standing in the same spot the day before!

6th March
This will be interesting! Our luggage seems to multiply every time we have to go to an airport, and the complimentary shuttle bus driver from Novotel wasn’t best pleased that he was also being used as a parcel lorry today! At Hong Kong airport, the China Airways check-in staff informed us that we didn’t have the right documents to travel to the USA, and needed to use the internet to download the required forms. Luckily she was really helpful and let me use their office to do this. An hour later and all sorted, we then confused the hell out of all the staff with the number of bags we had (8 plus 3 bike boxes, total weight around 80kgs!), which was a right touch as we avoided all excess baggage charges!
Our 13 hour flight left at 1pm, via Tapei where we had to go through security again (it isn’t easy with our hand luggage in binliners), before boarding a connection to Los Angeles. Weirdly we landed at midday, so in fact had gone 13 hours back in time! But our heads were saying it was 2am, so when Jon faced some sarcastic power hungry yank at customs, it didn’t please him that he was whistled at and directed to unpack all his bags for a pointless security check.
So to avoid the jetlag, we had to stay awake for the afternoon, so I thought it would be a good idea to head to Sunset Boulevard, as they were setting up for the Oscars the following night. Well with 3 buses and 3 metros just to get there, we were seeing stars already in our heads, and after a good old American burger and chocolate milkshake it was curtains!

4th March
Headed over to another PHD office this morning and was cool to meet everyone there, although sadly missed Hannah who I used to work with in London. Next stop was the bike shop for a well overdue service, and met Bikeman (aka Ian) who looked a little like Bob Geldolf with no front teeth!
Then down to Holiday Inn where we were meeting Ruhan’s sister, Susiana, (who we met in Mumbai) as she lives in Hong Kong. We were a bit worried that we were going to have another whirlwind of press and appointments, but it was all quite relaxed as we headed to Kowloon Cricket Club for lunch. Back at her house she had made a birthday cake for me, and we had a quick press interview for Kee Magazine (fashion style mag), then a photoshoot using Hong Kong skyline as a backdrop.
Next we went up to the famous peak mountain for the amazing views of Hong Kong, but because of the mist, couldn’t see 10 meters in front of us! Cutting our losses, we headed down and across to harbourside to see the famous symphony of lights show which they have every night in Hong Kong harbor. This is more like it. The only word to describe Hong Kong at night is dazzling. All the LED advertising banners alongside the illuminated skyscrapers, again I just have to remind myself how privileged and fortunate we are to be doing this challenge.
Time to put on the party outfits, we got ready to hit some of Hong Kong’s best night spots – in our flip flops, matching tracksuit bottoms and t-shirts – I can’t wait to wear some decent jeans and shoes – I feel like an utter pikey, and it’s not helped by being alongside smart businessmen and secretaries. We ended up in a newly opened club called Lakage, and it can’t quite decide whether it wants to be a club or a strip joint. Well at least the free drinks, stunning blonde and flexible brunette cage dancers certainly helped with the birthday entertainment!

3rd March
“Where is everyone”, was our first thoughts when we arrived at the ferry terminal. Jon even managed to walk through a restricted area with the video camera before someone sparked into life. It was a wicked feeling arriving in Hong Kong, with the bikes still intact, and knowing that we had gunned 700 miles in 9 days. My first complimentary hotel blag at the Novotel was certainly up to my hotel standards, so thank you to Mandy and Shane for arranging this for us and the photoshoot outside.

2nd March
Sweeping past the south China hills, we were very glad to be following the river (and staying at sea level) on another 100 mile day today! Our chains are squeaking worst than ever, so it’s good that there aren’t any Laos style hills in the way – just keeping our fingers crossed that they hold out.
Bit more navigation required today, crossing over highways on the route into Jiangmen, and with no English on the road signs, we are doing more symbol matching. Actually I think Jon was studying them a bit too closely as he was nearly taken out by a bus on a roundabout, while trying to stop his completely bald front tyre sliding on the wet road.
Luckily we found the Overseas Capital hotel, and they spoke English which was great, so when they pointed the bikes to the elevator there was no misunderstanding. The fully loaded bikes were coming up to the 7th floor with us tonight! And they also had a western revolving restaurant. Fill your boots, although Dougie, the annoying Ozzie almost prevented us from eating our food when it arrived. “Struth fellas, I didn’t know all this food was for yooou!” – yes mate and if you got out of our faces, we might actually get a chance to tuck in!
We also had a bit of luck on the ferry front. The hotel had a travel bureau and we established that a ferry left from Jiangmen to Hong Kong every day at 9am and 2pm, which would avoid an inevitable nightmare of trying to find the port in the next city tomorrow. 2pm it is then, and just a 10 mile cycle tomorrow now. To celebrate we tried going to a couple of bars in the city – the first one was a Karaoke bar, with a very bad Chinese singer slaughtering Careless Whisper, and the next “Babyfeel” had a P Diddy’s Chinese cousin MC’ing to Bulgarian pop music. We were mildly amused by an Ashley Thornton lookalike, before we decided that we had seen enough for one night!

1st March
Pinch punch first of the month, and what more we can say that we will finish the challenge next month now (hopefully all going well). 82 miles today, and shouldn’t be a repeat of yesterday as we are on the right road already. Pretty non eventful day cycling, although we just have to get our heads down and focus on getting to Hong Kong for my birthday. But when a clap of thunder sounded from the heavy skies above, we knew we were in for a soaking! The last two hours of the day were spent in torrential rain, so when we got to Yangjiang thought we deserved another nice business hotel.
Receptionists must hate us (especially Chinese ones). I filmed Jon walking in like a bedraggled cat, trying to persuade them to let us check in before we paid the deposit, by gesturing in a ‘stacking shelf style’, that we would take our luggage to the room first. And they certainly didn’t appreciate Ronnie and Reggie being wheeled across their pristine marble floor and into the manager’s office (I think that’s where they wanted us to store them, but something might have got lost in translation!)
Safely in the room, the next task was another struggle on the dinner front in the hotel restaurant. No English menus in sight, we were seated on a round table in the middle of this enormous, crowded dining hall – I don’t think we could have attracted any more attention than if we had just walked in naked with one strategically placed sock! They could see us struggling with the chopsticks, so a full cutlery set soon followed, and we thought the hotel owner was going to start showing us how to eat our food when he came and sat at our table. He was almost surprised that we didn’t talk to him in Chinese, and without having a clue what we were saying thought he should go and do some hotel management; “good idea mate!”

28th February
At least they got the club sandwiches right today, although it did take all the willpower to get up and leave this lush 5* hotel for yet more cycling – 4 more days in fact until we can have our rest day. But I made a school boy error when proudly showing off the satnav to a gathering crowd outside the hotel as we prepared to leave. All we needed to do was follow the G325 for 55 miles and we’d reach tonight’s city. Not quite!
See the satnav guided us into the city centre, where it then told us to cross an estuary (and there wasn’t a bridge in sight) – really should have asked the hotel which was the best way to go. 22 miles of detour later via a crumbling road bridge, a rough deserted island suburb and a nuclear power station, we rejoined the G325, just 3 miles on from the hotel. Twats!
The language barriers aren’t getting any easier either. We did find a hotel in Shuidong (not the scheduled stop, but close enough), although we were both nearly blown off our bikes by 100 meter strip of the mother of all thunder firecrackers as we approached the city. We needed the full vocabulary of the iphone to check into this hotel, and when we went in search of food, we found a restaurant, but it was lots of private dining rooms. The teenage waitresses didn’t know what to when we tried to order, so the manager had to personally help us order some rice and pork. Actually it was Jon’s turn for the fan club tonight, they all wanted his picture on their mobile phones, and whooped for joy when Jon posed for a few photos as we left!

27th February
Chilli beef noodles for breakfast – I don’t think this is the right diet of touring cyclists! Quite frankly it is pretty wrong – where’s Mr Kellogg when you need him! As we thought our clothes were still wet, so this meant no padded shorts or gloves. We both soon got blisters on our hands and Dom on his bum- nice! After 40 miles the gloves and shorts were dry enough to wear, no privacy in sight we got changed by the side of the road Dom was stood in his pants when a Chinese geography teacher pulled up for a chat – proper funny even managed to whip out the video camera!
As we got close to Zhangjiang, we saw a sign for the ‘England Holidays Hotel’ and thought we’ll have some of that! I’m not a gambling man but they must speak English… we were wrong. It took Dom an iPhone, pen and paper diagrams and sketches with 4 reception staff, a porter and a hotel manager to get us a room and ordering food wasn’t much easier, 6 people took the order but they still got it wrong! Get me to Hong Kong!!

26th February
Woke up to the news from Holly and Cathy raised over £40,000 at the Blue Crest Capital fundraising party thanks to some great auction prizes and some very generous personal donations. Buzzing from the loot raised we peddled fast discussing ideas and really happy that with the help of holly, family and friends we have now raised about 60% of our target. The TCC Challenge is proving to be a great success but we’ve got to careful not to jump the gun, still a long way to go yet.
It was supposed to be a short cycle today but we got slowed down by shit roads, we tried to blag ourway onto the smart new freeway to give Ronnie and Reggie some love but the Chinese officials at the toll booth weren’t having it and sent us back onto the crappy road.
We were a bit worried about hotel situ tonight as we thought it would be a very small city, actually turned out it wasn’t but as we cycled in we didn’t know that and took the first hotel we found, squat toilet bed bugs and all. It was so humid the TV made very concerning noises and the floor of the hotel was really slippery. Our clothes were still disgusting from our filthy ride to Mong Cai so we tried in vain to wash them but as soon as we hung them up we knew they wouldn’t dry in time. It took us 2 & 1/2 hours to find food tonight; despite having the iPhone app at the ready restaurants were saying they didn’t have rice noodles or chicken and we kept getting moved on with people pointing further down the street. I think it was because they couldn’t be arsed with the hassle of serving two English jokers. After turning our noses up at a chicken feet noodle bar we found a hotel with a restaurant and filled up on rice and dim sum, Dom caused quite a stir again and soon had a group of girls around him at the table.

25th February
Still well muddy we brushed the worse off the panniers with the hotel towels and then headed down to give Ronnie and Reggie a hose down. We were both down to about 2 gears each as the gear cassettes were so caked in mud. The hotel manager wasn’t overly impressed when we pulled a hose from round the back and asked him to turn it on, reluctantly he let us carry on despite making a muddy mess of his driveway, the real fireworks went off when his wife checked the room when we checked out- she was screaming at the top of her Vietnamese lungs with two black with mud and dirt towels in her hand. She threw them down on the ground next to us and wiggled her finger to say ‘no chance’. We gave her the equivalent to £1 and made a quick exit towards the Chinese border.
As we thought massive communication barrier in China, really glad we got the mandarin translator which is going to prove our saviour. Found a bargain luxury hotel for £18 only problem was no dinner available because of a wedding, we had to use our best language skills to get a taxi to another hotel with a restaurant. The language barrier didn’t get much better the staff didn’t know what we were going on about so they wheeled out a trolley of food and we picked out what we wanted!

23rd February
Hurrah – on with the cycling today Turkish! Just a small matter of 100 miles and navigating through a million motorbikes on a gloomy day in Hanoi. Thank you to all the staff at Moevenpick – we were probably their most demanding guests yet, and the cherry on top had to be us making sandwiches at the breakfast buffet alongside posh Americans on their Asia cruises.
We were really noticing the humidity today, so the pollution and dirt from the roads stuck to us like glue, but we made good ground and especially helped by the gaggles of giggling school girls we passed on the way.
The town of Halong looked bleak when we arrived, and didn’t improve after we found our hotel. Searching for food, all we could find was ropey pavement kitchens (stoves, woks and a few dirty chairs) and a fish restaurant which didn’t have a menu, just a few buckets of live fish on the roadside who didn’t look particularly happy about their impending slaughter. I don’t fancy naming my fish before eating it! We didn’t fancy either, so had to make do with the worst fried chicken we’ve ever had, and then supplemented with tuna sandwiches and crisps in the room – basic!

20th – 22nd February
We don’t want to moan – there are definitely worst places we could be waiting for a wheel than at a 5* hotel, and with concierge at the ready, we certainly utilised their services. From sending someone around Hanoi looking for a bike shop who could change the gear cassette onto the new wheel, collecting buckets and sponges to wash the bikes, and helping with directions for the tenth time, we were soon the talk of the hotel staff!
We used Sunday to do a bit of sightseeing – never seen so many motorbikes as we visited the ancient literature museum and Ho Ming’s temple (old ruler), upset some ladies carrying baskets of bananas by getting photos with them, and then sought sanctuary in the only place we could understand what we would be eating (we hope!) – KFC.
We successfully extended our stay by speaking to the manager (we were taking the mick out of his pastel pink golf outfit at breakfast yesterday!), and he arranged a quick photoshoot for us before we leave tomorrow.

18th – 19th February
We were slightly relived when our lift arrived to take us across the border, although we spent the first 3 hours of the journey gazing out of the window at the perfect sweeping cycling roads which followed a windy river through the hills. Passing through the villages we saw crowds of kids knowing that two badly tanned cyclists would certainly brighten their day. We should be cycling – this sucks! No “sabaidees” or warm smiles – instead we were narrowly missing squashing goats, babies, chickens and pigs. I gasped as we actually went over the top of a black puppy, fortunately the high wheel base of our 4×4 meant that the puppy could see another day.
As fate would have it the conditions soon turned nasty, when we arrived to a road submerged in water and we had to cross with the help of a tugboat. From there, the road went from bad to worst, and we were now not only glad we weren’t cycling, but simply wouldn’t have been able to. Thick sand and rocks covered the road for the next 15 miles, and then the road literally ran out! Even the 4×4 was struggling – we were in amongst diggers and labourers, who were still carving the road through the hills.
Lots of lost brain cells later from banging our heads on the rollcage, we made it to the Vietnam border, where we stood shivering while trying to explain why we had two passports each. People travelling by bus, stood by fires made from bits of cardboard lying around, as they tried to keep warm in the damp, cold mountain air, while staring with bemusement at two badly tanned cyclists in shorts and t-shirts! Bonkers conkers!
Our driver took us as far as Dien Bien Phu, the first town inside the border where we could catch a connecting bus to Hanoi. Keen to get the hellish journey done as quickly as possible, we jumped straight on a bus. Unfortunately this meant no time to get food, just enough time to get some cash out and take a quick leek in what was undoubtedly the worst toilet I have ever seen. It looked like a herd of elephants had passed through, following a hearty feast.
The bus journey wasn’t much better – crying babies, old Vietnamese men hocking up greenies and seriously annoying grinding pop music blasting out of the speakers. It was clear any kind of sleep was out of the question. Despite not being entirely sure what the exchange rate was, Dom began arguing (rightly so) with them trying to charge us the same price as a seat for each bicycle, but it turned out to be an hour long, language stalemate over £3.
At least dinner was included – we stopped at a roadside shack, sheltering from the rain with rice and a few other dishes laid out. One of them looked a lot like sliced spring roll, so I tucked in to discover that it was a finally sliced chicken, bones and all! Another dish was some unidentifiable rubbery meat – best avoided. Our luck did change when I received a text confirming that the Tapkens had arranged a room for us at the 5* Hanoi Moevenpick – get in!
We were dumped at Hanoi bus station and not knowing where in the city we were, and how far from the hotel, we found ourselves in our next mission of trying to arrange a large taxi at 4am, and we were pooped! All we could see was pony little Daihatsus which would have struggled with our tent, let alone with two bicycles and 8 items of luggage! Luckily we were helped by a Vietnamese girl who said she was trying to improve her English, but I think that was an excuse as she clearly fancied Dom. And after chasing a 7 seater taxi down the road in our flip flops, we got ourselves to the hotel, and just in time for their international breakfast buffet – fan-kin-tastic.
The only small problem was that the expected wheel hadn’t been delivered yet – at least its Friday, so should turn up this morning. Wrong! We’re still hitting hurdles – because of Chinese New Year, customs weren’t working today, and although we can see that the wheel has arrived in Hanoi (via Manchester, Frankfurt, Hong Kong and Bangkok) it can’t be delivered until Monday. This is so frustrating – we just want to get on with the cycling!

17th February
A forced rest day meant we could catch up on some admin (especially route plan Mexico in detail), but what we thought would be an easy solution of getting a bus to Hanoi wasn’t! Struggling through the language barrier at the Tourist Information office, with lots of scribbled maps and pointing, we established that we would need to catch 3 different buses to get to Hanoi and Ronnie and Reggie would be on three different bouncing, banging roofs. This is going to trash them.
So our other option would be to get a taxi – surely we could negotiate a deal with a tutuk or a people carrier! Well they didn’t have a Timbuktu what we were going on about – god this is hard work! Luckily a cycle shop came to the rescue with the owner’s nephew agreeing that he would drive us in a 4×4 jeep to Dien Bien Phu where we could get one direct bus to Hanoi. But not without having to settle on paying $250 – well annoying knowing that the buses are only about $40, but at least the bikes should be in one piece.

16th February
A monster of a day with 4,200ft of assent, so we started early, and we were actually cold for the first time in a couple of months when we noticed a big drop in temperature. Every bump and dip in the road was even more noticeable as I tentatively tried to protect Ronnie’s cracking wheel, but a third of the way when we turned off the asphalt and onto unpaved road, with Ronnie’s spokes creaking up the inclines, our worst fears were realised that this would be our last day of cycling in Laos. Such a shame, especially with all the kids running through their villages smiling and shouting bye bye as we cycle past – really gives us such a lift.
We no longing were hoping to wing it to Hanoi, now we’d be lucky to see it through the day! Another puncture for Ronnie wasn’t helped when a Spanish cyclist stopped at the worst possible time to investigate, but we did take some comfort knowing that he was the guy we’d heard about who couldn’t make it up a hill 2 days earlier (which we nailed) and had to lie down on the pavement waiting for a lift. The last 20km of unpaved rocky road went on and on, and resembled trying to cycle along a train track – not the best place for our touring bikes.
Arriving at the hotel, we needed some quick thinking to arrange for a new wheel to be sent from UK to Hanoi – they are stored at Jeremy’s, but unfortunately it couldn’t be picked up today, so DHL were booked for tomorrow, and we took a gamble on being able to stay at Moevenpick, putting the package for the attention of the general manager! He who dares…

15th February
Today we had a short ride to Luang Martha but not a good start after some puncture mincing and then had to make do with some vegetable noodles for breakfast. Jon was happy though because he got some gold footage of about 100 school children with colourful sun umbrellas and even managed to “lao five” a monk! The comedy moment of the day was when Jon pulled over to speak to a 75 year old Ali G style cyclist with luminous shorts and shades to match with a wheelie suitcase as his rear pannier. Later we were still kicking ourselves for not getting a photo but were too busy laughing.
Shame the luxury guesthouse was full but at least we got them working when they offered to still do our laundry – little did they know, “that is some seriously funky sh*t in there love!” Picking up an email from our bike mechanic, Jeremy after we asked his advice about the buckle, he said “please don’t ride that wheel anymore, it’s definitely been compromised & could totally fail at any moment.” We tried in vain to get a new wheel for Ronnie but it clearly wasn’t happening as the only places available were mountain bike rental shops. We are going to give it another day and assess from there.
As our energy levels were low we headed off for some much needed food – in fact we ordered so much food that chef had to come out for a tea break half way through!

We stopped briefly to chat to two Spanish cyclists (www.cycletherapy.blogspot.com), but then off we went on the final bitch of the day, rising to 1,200m, and the highest point on the TCC Challenge, although the sandpit hill, water-truck and steamroller almost finshed Jon off.
We made it to Vieng Phouka and found a cool guesthouse (huts overlooking river), although I’ve had a warmer wash in plunge pools. We also felt pretty pleased with ourselves as one traveller explained that the last cyclist to make the same journey we had just done, needed a lift over the last hill – what a lightweight!

13th February
Picked Ronnie up from the bike shop, I did try again to ask the twenty something Thai bike mechanic whether it would make it to Hanoi, but couldn’t understand and had the added amusement that he was wearing a kids Liverpool shirt, which looked more like a crop top!
At least we thought that two travelling girls should know where to go for the boat across the river to Laos. Well they didn’t! They were Oz students (Kat and Laura), travelling around Asia – luckily we did find out where to go and packed all our stuff onto a narrow long boat. One passenger (a kind of mix between Hulk and Jaws), had clearly spent the last week at the Hall of Opium, and didn’t know what day of the week it was! Ronnie and Reggie almost had their own joke of tripping him into the river!

We are feeling a bit James Bond as we now have two passports each (the new ones have our Vietnam and Chinese visas in), so we tried using them to get into Laos to make our next border crossing easier. Well we caused a right pickle. Jon told the customs man that we had lost our previous passports (not very clever), and then they thought that we had a set of fake passports. Luckily we quickly changed our story and an hour later we were in Laos (on our old passports – note – we need to explain situation in full at the Vietnam border). Now on our way to spend over a million in our next country – 13,000 Laos Kip to 1 pound!
Felt a bit like two travellers in the afternoon as we hung out with Kat and Laura, and although we were seriously tempted to go on the Gibbon experience they had booked for the following day (zip wire entrance, treehouses and campfires), we had to remind ourselves that we are here to cycle, and have one monstrous day of cycling tomorrow. Ordering food at the restaurant was funny too. We wanted to be prepared, so ordered dinner, breakfast and lunch – they couldn’t believe the amount of food – even granny had to get off her rocking chair in the corner to help, while the 8 year old son jumped on a moped to zip off and get our sandwich fillings!

12th February
Really tough ride to the Thailand/Laos border at Chiang Khong today which easily surpassed Wednesdays day of hillage, we had to tackle these hills in short bursts then had to flop over the handle bars, pant for a few seconds and crack on. We were helped on the sugar levels with some sour sweets sent to us by Cadbury (ok so we didn’t give all of them to the Kolkata orphans) and were given sympathetic waves and often chuckles of ‘rather you than me pal’ of passing Thai moped drivers. To give you an idea of how slow we were going we only just managed to overtake a farmer with his herd of cows. The climbs were on par with the tour de france training climbs we did in the alps- seriously tough work especially each carrying about 30 kilos of luggage on the bike and with the added spanner in the works of the heat too.

The climbs also took their toll on Ronnie whose wheel is getting worse, Dom had to detach his rear brake as the wheel had re-buckled and had a nasty wobble, he limped to Chiang Khong and managed to find a small and rather limited bike shop before it shut. Although they spoke no English Dom managed to get them to look into it and have it back to us for 10am the following day, not looking good for Ronnie to hold out to Hong Kong which is still 3 weeks away, not even Hanoi (Vietnam’s capital) our next big city we’re due to reach on 22nd Feb-this could be a serious problem.

Staying at the same hotel was a group of happy go lucky British motorcross drivers aka The Chiang Mai Road Warriors- annual trips organised by Chris and Steve. Every year they go to the far east for a couple of weeks of motorcycle madness. They were really impressed with route through the hills as well as our challenge and the story behind it- they grouped together and very kindly donated us around ฃ160. Steve gave us some good advice about the roads in Laos and places where we could stay he also very kindly gave us some US dollars which would help us get a visa in Laos much easier. The hotel was right on the Mekhong River which was really scenic- just 300 metres to the other side was Laos and country number 11.

11th February
A short 40 mile ride today to Chiang Rai meant that we could ping out lots of emails and upload a few more photos, it would be nice to get out and explore the cities a bit more but no time for that today. Found a nice little Italian restaurant for dinner where we were served by a way over the top camp Thai waiter which we found rather amusing and continued to impersonate him on the way home.

10th February
So our first days cycling in Thailand and initial impressions are all good- smooth roads, people only too happy to give a smile and a wave, no rubbish or cows wondering in the middle of the road- the main hurdle we’re tackling now is the climate, 36oC and 86% humidity! At least the morning cycle was flat so we had the breeze to cool us down but the afternoon was where the hills came, arguably the steepest climbs of the TCC Challenge so far these were monsters. Not like other mountain roads where they bend and weave working their way up slowly, no, these mothers went straight up. At the top was the highest natural hot spring in Thailand so we parked the bikes up and took a couple of photos, a friendly Thai chap offered us a bottle of water and a banana (we must have looked shagged) stupidly we left the bikes against a wall around the spring and soon realised that poor Ronnie and Reggie were getting soaked- probably not the cleverest place to park but they soon dried out. We clocked 46 mph coming down the hill which was lush but the assents weren’t done with us yet. We were heading for a resort called Suan Thip some 70 miles from Chiang Mei to break down the long journey to Chaing Rai but the last 10 miles was all up hill which nearly killed us. We finally got to www.suanthipresort.com and just for a final nail in the coffin the reception was up a final steep hill.

Suan Thip is a stunning mountain retreat, where the bungalows are built sympathetically on steep slopes around a forest, so the balconies are like tree houses. An air of calm and serenity greets you here, which we think sets the tone for Northern Thailand as a whole – a hidden emerald gem and a real treat to find after such a tough cycle. The manager kindly gave us a special TCC charity rate to fit into our budget and even threw in a complimentary authentic Thai a la carte meal which I’d say was the best meal of the TCC Challenge so far.
The problem we had was with our little annoying winged friend. Vijay was still held up at Bangkok airport so he seized his opportunity to continue the mosquito offensive by getting a Thai bride, a quick exchange of vows over the phone and the plan was set, he briefed Ping Pong to launch a full scale attack on us in Thailand and she and her posse caught up with us at Suan Thip. She spent the night munching away at our feet (rather you than me love) although we gave as good as we got and managed to decorate the wall of the room with a few of her friends!

9th February
Today was an internet day, plotting our route through Thailand and up towards the Tropic of Cancer. Dom’s still having issues installing the Garmin World maps program given to us by dad’s partner, Sue frustrating as it’s conflicting with some other free mapping software we tried to install and can’t find the source file. Had a great photo outside the Amari Rincome hotel with some of the staff for their website (and ours- see our gallery).
Nice to have a couple of days away from Vijay the mosquito- he must have got held up at immigration coming into Thailand, hopefully he’s been sent packing.

8th February
We’ve been looking forward to a fairly chilled day, the main thing we had to do was give Ronnie and Reggie some bike love. After somehow using some wizardry to fit them into 3 kids bike boxes we had to reassemble them from scratch and spent the morning doing so in the hotel’s tennis court keeping our fingers and toes crossed that the baggage handlers in Kolkata hadn’t man handled them. After that it was off to a bike shop nearby for some repairs; we needed a replacement wire for my handlebar pannier and the wheels needed some straightening after suffering a hammering on the Indian roads. One nasty buckle on Ronnie didn’t look too great following another prang from a van which also had a hairline crack in it. They managed to straighten out the buckle and reassured us that it would last to Hong Kong (when we can get a spare sent out) so we kept our fingers and toes crossed once more and headed back to the hotel.

We chilled by the pool for a couple of hours in the afternoon (not quite enough to rid ourselves of the two tone tans- we still look like a tub of white & dark chocolate swirl ice cream) before heading out for a bit of Chaing Mei nightlife. Dom had been eager to ride in a Tuk Tuk since we got to India and now was our chance, this wasn’t any Tuk Tuk though we nick named it disco Tuk Tuk, it was like something out of Pimp my Ride- 12 inch alloys, a big bore exhaust, multi coloured flashing lights and even the seat backs were replaced by speakers and subs.

We found a cool little restaurant by the river- great to have free reign on the menu again and not have to dodge salad, meat or fish. I couldn’t help but notice two old boys with a young Thai girl on the table next to us, there is a lot of old white men with a young Thai girlfriends around but it was the first time I’d seen two men and one girl- they must have been using moneysavingexpert.com to keep the budget down on their holiday! After dinner we headed over the road and saw a really good band doing loads of awesome covers also took a chance to wash down a couple of vodkas mixed with M150 (the rocket fuel energy mixer banned from most European countries.
The Tuk Tuk we got home wasn’t so racy and struggled over speed bumps and hump back bridges, we thought we might have to get out and push but made it back home, eventually.

A quick transfer in Bangkok, and it wasn’t looking good with the connection as they had mislaid one of our bags. Some frantic calls later, they had tracked it down and we were on our way to Chiang Mai. We were looking forward to our stay at the Amari Rincome Hotel, which had been arranged through their PR company. 4* deluxe room with wi-fi and a hot power shower, now we are talking!

6th February
Our ongoing Nokia mince is finally over. The impounded Nokia 6710 Navigator by the jobsworth parcel company (an Indian one isn’t pretty) is now safely in our hands. Thank you to Angus at Wunderman, Young and Rubican and Nokia for providing us with a device holding all key city maps, which will certainly help us when we arrive in Hong Kong.
Next stop was a bike shop for some packing for Ronnie and Reggie. It looked like another Egyptian nightmare of cereal box packaging, until we stumbled upon an 80 year old bike shop came to the rescue. Actually the manager had seen us on TV and was pleased to help.

Saying goodbye to Anthony, he was a bit more chilled today, although still insisted walking very slowly all the way round the stadium to get a street tea – our stomachs have just about got used to this drink. We hope he can arrange a big car to the airport tomorrow otherwise we’ll need to go tutuk customising!

5th February
Anthony was running an hour late, not ideal with our schedule today, but explained it was his drivers fault. Not surprising seeing how the traffic is here – it feels like we’ve spent 3½ days of our 4 Kolkata days stuck in a traffic jam!
First stop was Mothers House, Jon upset a nun within about 30 seconds  of arriving by taking her photo, but we felt a huge sense of peace standing next to where this great woman was buried. Next stop was one of her centres for the retarded and mentally handicapped people, who would otherwise be suffering out on the streets. Rows of beds lined up in the large dorms, certainly not the nicest place I’ve visited, but at least it was clean and again very peaceful – in contrast to the mayhem of Kolkata’s streets outside the walls.

Back in the car we realised that we were in the midst of another fully absorbing whirlwind of a day – all traffic jam eyes on our car, I really did feel like a celeb. Rocking up at a children’s orphanage, all the frantic phone calls received by Anthony and his assistant (I’ve named Chubbs, as his cheeks are always packed with tobacco) made sense. We walked into a room packed with about 100 children, patiently sitting on the floor waiting to be given a present from a huge santa style sack at the front. We were honoured with flowers and a Bindi, and then had the privilege of handing out the bags of presents to the kids. Complete bedlam was an understatement, but what an amazing moment.
If that didn’t push the kids hyperactivity into overdrive, we then went outside to hand out bars of Dairy Milk, Wispas and Natural Confectionary sweets to hundreds of outstretched arms, before being quickly ushered back into our car and some relative calm! Thank you to PHD and Cadburys for arranging this (we did stash some bars for us too!)

Back to Chubbs – his cheeks are so full of this mouth tobacco (oral cancer is the biggest cancer problem in India), that he could barely speak in case his red saliva dribbled out of his mouth. Every now and again a bucket full of his red spit was projected out of the car window! We just had enough time to woof down some rice and ropey old goat/ chicken or something else (which we obviously left), before getting back to the stadium to collect our bikes for the press conference. We opted to load up the bikes with our luggage before following our driver into the traffic chaos. He informed us that it was just 2km down the road. Well 3 motorway junctions, two flyovers, 45 potholes, several cows, a two wheeled tutuk (work that one out) and a 10 lane roundabout which the police stopped just for us, we arrived 40 minutes late at the entrance of Kolkata Press club, for our press conference. About 40 photographers and cameramen packed the driveway, and before Jon could make it inside, he had to battle 5 TV mics!

The press conference was arranged by Picasona, a healthcare company responsible for funding new hospitals with cancer wards in Kolkata. This was the best conference yet as we were able to really push home why investment and education into early cancer detection is so important, especially testicular cancer. There were top doctors, a bishops and the former Indian Davis cup player/ coach (not my most intelligent question when I asked if he had ever seen a match at Wimbledon – he probably played in several!)

Hold onto your pants bro – the press conference finished after dark and we had to make the same journey back to the stadium – certainly up there with the scariest cycle on the challenge (although Cairo still tops it!)

3rd and 4th February
Today was my birthday and after completing the huge milestone of cycling across India, we felt worthy of a double celebration courtesy of Mum and Dad. We headed south from Kolkata for one night and two days of safaris by boat in the world famous Sunderbans, a vast network of narrow rivers and mangroves. The land is dead flat so in low tide a muddy forest floor is revealed, home to tigers, monkeys, deer, wild boar, crocodiles and many species of birds. But once high tide reaches, much of the visible land submerges, forcing all the wildlife deep into the forest. The tigers often swim between the islands, but sighting are still rare, they have a taste for the ocassional human when they fancy something different, and the last death was just a week before we arrived – a local fisherman was seen as easy prey.

The camp was all-inclusive, we took that literally and were keen to get our monies worth. So we turned up with a dustbin bag full of our funky washing, which hadn’t been washed properly since Nagpur. You should have seen their faces when they opened the bag to reveal filthy diesel covered cycle jerseys, salty sweaty shorts and crusty socks. As one guy examined the clothes (at full arms length) he said something in Bengali to his colleague, tears rolling down his face from the odour, I think it translated to something along the lines of “Ganesh, get the masks and that industrial strength powder, cancel your plans for tonight this might take a while”.

Dom had already negotiated 20% off the cost of the tour, but we caused further bemusement when we only had half the cash on us, miles from any ATM. We agreed to settle the remainder back in Kolkata where there could be room for further negotiation. The camp was awesome, it had won a number of awards for creating jobs, being eco friendly and preserving the natural habitat.
The local villagers put on a special play for us before dinner, telling us a mythical story about some prince who didn’t wish to share his birthright land, at least I think that was what it was about, as it was all in Bengali.

The bungalows were comfortable, Vijay and his army were kept at bay by the trusty mosquito nets, although there was an annoying 500 decibel frog outside our room, but that didn’t stop the best night sleep we both had in ages. Probably helped by the two large bottles of strong kingfisher to celebrate my birthday!

We did get a great shot of a tiger swimming (ok, so it was a picture hanging on the wall of our bungalow, but it came out really well), saw lizards, crocodiles, kingfishers, hawks, deer and wild boar. An amazing two days, we have to say a big thank you to Help Tourism (www.helptourism.com ) for their generous charity discount, and it was great to learn more about their conservation projects across India, when we arrived back at their office in Kolkata.

2nd February
Got up early today, food parcels at the ready, excited at a monumental milestone of reaching Kolkata. Along the way we amused ourselves by shouting “small cock” at any beeping moped driver, but after at least 100 went past, it became a tad boring! 70 miles later and we hit the outskirts – one word – mayhem! We were meeting our contact (Anthony) at 4pm at Salt Lake stadium which was a good spot that all the taxi drivers knew, and arrived early about 2.45pm.

Wembley stadium it wasn’t, although there was almost the same police presence at the main gate. This was one crumbling football stadium (worse than any I had seen in Argentina or Brazil), but we were told the accommodation was good, so we held our breath as Anthony guided us through the damp corridors to the state Youth Hostel. Actually there was a match on (which explains the police presence), but 1,000 rupees a night, you are having a laugh mate!

We bit our lips as we were very appreciative that Anthony had rearranged his work schedule to meet us. And slowly it sunk in how respectful we should be. This very old formal gentleman, worked with/ and was a very good friend with Mother Teresa and is now president of her International Awards Committee. Amazing. An old school Roman Catholic, he said that God’s wish was to clear his diary of appointments today so he could met us – our late Grandfather would have been so proud.

Later that evening, two of our parcels arrived from England. It was the consignment from Cadburys, packed with Dairy Milk, Wispas and Natural Confectionary Sweets, and our visas for the next countries. Thank you to Tommy, Charlotte and the Cadburys client – you made my day and Jon has some chocolate for his birthday tomorrow. We do have to try and save some, as Anthony is arranging for us to see all the areas of Mother Teresa’s work, and two hospitals on 5th Feb when we return from Sunderbans.

1st February
There was another guest who was staying at the resthouse, and he told us that we must inform the local police when entering West Bengal as it is a very dangerous stretch of road. After volunteering Jon to go inside the police station, they were grateful to us for letting them know and off we went. A few kilometres on we could see why. Passing the riot policevans, burnt out lorries and cars littered the road, which was tightly lined by very dense forest, and we put 2 and 2 together. Renaming it “hijack highway”, we were pleased not be cycling this at night.

As it was a shorter ride today to Kharangpur, we got there about lunchtime, and after dismissing one hotel which was like a truckers knocking shop, we found ourselves in a very raw town, with lots of creative descriptions of lodging. Our first hotel mincing in India isn’t bad, and luckily we found a nice garden restaurant and motel shortly after.

31st January
Bit worried about today’s cycle. We need to cover 94 miles to get to a town where we think there might be a hotel. Everyone we’ve asked has said yes, but we now know that the Indians say yes to everything!
We set off early, with the committee of hotel workers asking loads of questions – I think it was about 6 staff to 1 guest. We were also loaded with our veg bryriani food parcels, which we are getting the hang of, but they kicked off about an accidently smashed sprite bottle, and tried to charge a security deposit – jokers – in no uncertain terms we told them no!

Jon’s turn to struggle a bit, especially as we hit the worse type of hills for him – long straight gradual inclines, but after lunch make up for it with great downhill through thick rainforest today. The road opened up into a dry, rugged landscape with jagged rocks lining the road. And perfect perches for the wild monkeys. I was actually quite nervous that one would jump up on the panniers, as a few hissed and made snarling faces as we raced past. A little like our first day of the challenge cycling through areas of Kent, avoiding the chavs and their pushchairs!

When a motorcycle pulled alongside, we thought it was another “heading for Kolkata, from Bombay, with my brother mate”, but actually turned out to be our shinning light. Although my initial impressions were cold after he gobbed out some pan spit (looks like blood) onto the road in front of me, Kumar guided us 1km to a government resthouse and showed us where some restaurants were on his motorbike – legend. At only 150rupees a night (£2.50) it was our best deal yet, although another visit from the cops meant more explanations of exactly what we were thinking to cycle the National Highway 6 across India.

30th January
We braced ourselves for the monster hill climb today, which we had seen on the veloroute.org map three weeks ago. The breathtaking scenery continued, and even when we started climbing up the 1km elevation, and the blue coloured mountains rolled into the distance, our love for India grew even stronger.
A small village didn’t know what had hit them when we stopped to get some well earnt sprite, although I don’t think kiosk man was too happy that I dumped our 8 empty water bottles and lunchtime rubbish on his sprite crates!

Racing down the hills to sea level, we found a government hotel on outskirts, but I don’t think they’ve had any guests before. They didn’t know what to do, 6 people hanging about were trying to help, but being more annoying than anything, I felt sick and faint and just wanted to collapse in the room. And then no power for an hour – brilliant, so we sat in the dark waiting for something to happen. Luckily the one redeeming point of another shabby digs was that they had sat TV, so able to watch the Dark Knight in English!

28th January
Lots of people turned up at 7.30 this morning to see us off, including the electrical store owner and one of the cops from last night. Even the mayor turned up! And everyone wanted more photos! Today we were heading for Sambalpur, but as the Italians had been road surfacing some Indian bridges, our progress was slowed up.
This is real India, with lush forest lining the road, monkeys bouncing over the tarmac, lots of hillside temples, and loads of rice fields. And the friendliness continues – we even got a keyring from a petrol station, despite handing him a bag full of our rubbish!

27th January
Not a good start – Kalyan very kindly guided us out of the city, but after leaving him we realised we had left the map behind at his house. At least it is one road (national highway 6) to Kolkata so we should be alright.
First stop was Arang (about 40km), where Kalyan’s brother lived. He is a doctor and we met at his pharmacy. The celebrity status continued with people crowding round, recognising us from the paper, and the first person diagnosed with cancer in the town even popped in to say hello. We had a quick veggie lunch at his place, and then off we went, with 6 hours to cover 72 miles to Sarai Puri before sunset.
Around 5pm and still with 14 miles to go, a police Jeep pulled alongside, with the chief asking where we were going. We pulled over and it transpired that he had seen us on TV being given our honour by the Cultural Minister and wanted to help. What a touch – he was in charge of Sarai Puri and we said we were looking for the resthouse. Our understanding was that he would go on ahead and show where to go when we reached the town.
3km to go, and a shout from a roadside restaurant (shack), and the police chief and his officer were waiting for us. This celebrity status is really growing on me. On his instruction people gathered around giving us tea, biscuits and water while we told him about our travels. We thought this was the guesthouse, and were preparing for a war with Vijay and his mosquito mates, but they said we still had 3km to go. On with the bike lights, the police put their lights on and we had our very own escort.

We pulled up the driveway to a crowd of 10 helpers – the chief wanted his photo first, so we all sat on the Jeep’s bonnet. (last time I tried to do that on a police car I almost got arrested!) You see, this guesthouse is for government officials and ministers. It was like our own private house. Then we were asked what we like to drink (alcohol), Jon opted for whisky, me for beer, and off one of the helpers went. Platters of fruit were laid out, and another helper took our dinner order. Chief and his officer were loving it, looking after us, seeing all the photos of our travels, and at dinner were especially interested in our Garmin calorie counter. It turned out that chief was into his fitness, and despite a rounded belly bursting through his rollneck jumper, was very pleased with himself doing 8km of powerwalking a day. He demonstrated this by marching round the table like an Indian Benny Hill. I say blame the iphone, which regularly appears at the dinner table, for what happened next. Jon’s latest ‘app’ is a health calculator, and chief wanted to see how fit he actually was. Plugging in his height and weight, Jon already knew that the result wasn’t going to be pretty. “Too Fat” was its verdict for chief, and the whole dinner table burst out laughing! Possibly the funniest reaction I’ve seen on a persons face for a long time, chief was well put out, and before deciding we should all call it a night, did another 10 laps of power walking around the dinner table, trying in earnest to suck his belly in.

26th January
Today was India Republic day, the anniversary of the date where India officially achieved its independence. Kalyan rocked up at our hotel with an abundance of newspapers under his arm, we took our breakfast and went through the articles following the press conference. We managed to get coverage in every major media publication in Chhattisgarh – in total 22 newspapers and 7 TV channels including local, national and international. We were soon recognised by people who had read the articles and either wanted a photo or an autograph- very weird.
The days schedule was much less frantic than yesterday and we took some time to visit a cultural site before the evening event. Kalyan had arranged for us to receive an honour from the Chief Minister in front of 50,000 people; BONKERS doesn’t quite sum it up. Kalyan had briefed me in that I should explain the link between him and I, I had asked Ruhan if he knew anyone in Raipur and he put me in touch with Kalyan, a music director who had worked with Lata Mangueska (India’s most famous signer), I was given a few names to memorise and we had been learning a Chhattisgarhi phrase to say so my head was full to bursting.
We were given seats near the front and when I heard ‘cycle’ mentioned I knew we’d be up. Kalyan got on the mic and said a few words in Chhattisgarhi then invited us up onto the stage. I used to get so nervous speaking publicly even to small rooms of 10 people and before this challenge I would have crumbled for sure but I did my thing told them the message we are sending out is that if you feel something is out of the ordinary, not quite right or you’ve noticed something strange then speak to a medical professional, early detection is vital. You should also speak to family, friends, colleagues anyone you trust, the worst thing you can do is try to fight cancer alone and the most important thing is positivity no matter what your situation positivity is the secret. Dom also said a few words then we said the one phrase we had learned ‘Sable Baria Chhattisgarhi’ which means Chhattisgarh is number one! The audience applauded and cheered and we were shown back to our seats but the crazyness just got more extreme. Soon after we sat down an entire class of public school children came up to us and touched our feet (a sign of respect to elders) and gave us more flowers to wear round our necks. We watched a bit of the show, some children had arranged a dance routine telling the story of Indian independence, and then left. With the show still going on in full swing when we stood up every man and his dog wanted their photo taken with us- we tried to please everyone but after a dozen or so photos we headed past the stage to where the car was parked. Funnily enough the car had been boxed in which left us like sitting ducks to the rapidly expanding crowds, neither of us minded though, it was our moment.  One lady came up and congratulated us on a ‘wonderful thing’ that we are doing and said how proud of ourselves we should be and another teenage boy had bought all the newspapers we were in and stood and starred in admiration. Despite our heads inflating bigger than the elephant man it really makes it all worthwhile when people can see and respect that you’re doing a good thing and that they understand your message. The most random thing though had to be when a girl asked us to sign her hand!
Over dinner Kalyan and Krishna talked about how they would like to make an album with Holly and Ruhan to raise further awareness in India- definitely something to look into once the cycling is finished. I’ve been blown over by India and am really keen to come back to do some charity work (but not without Holly next time).

25th January
Kalyan had planned the whole days schedule precisely, not even enough time to scratch our arse. Ruhan had told him that we needed maximum awareness in the media and boy did Kalyan come through with some magic. The day started with a live news program where we were connected to a studio in New Delhi- even though the anchor was translating everything I was saying into Hindi without any problems Dom annoyingly kept tapping my leg telling me to slow down which knocked my concentration, fortunately I didn’t trip over my words and the piece came across well. From there it was onto Raipur’s cancer hospital; Mekahara Government Medical Institute where we met some of the cancer patients and spoke to Dr Choudhary; if you think your job is hectic then think again, this guy sees 300 cancer patients everyday!
The biggest cancer problem in India is mouth cancer from people chewing tobacco, but Dr Choudhary also pointed out that there is a need for sanitation awareness as women who are diagnosed with cervical cancer has often stemmed from sexual transmitted diseases from poor hygiene.
After the hospital it was off to press club for our news conference. We received another honour, as well as the traditional bouquet we were each given a trophy, and I was also presented with a fantastic art piece. (see gallery)
Next it was a visit to the India National Congress Party, for yet another honour. Kalyan has been telling everyone that Holly is a famous pop singer in the UK, as big as Michael Jackson! Congress wanted to hear some of her music which captured their full attention – Holly would have loved it. I was also asked to play one of Holly’s tracks on TV talkshow interview later that day. We really need to do some Indian homework – Dom was caught out by Bollywood, and we both know diddily squat about cricket.
Another random one was the evening function we attended – a kids painting competition. Again we were invited up on stage to receive…wait for it…yet another honour – this time from the Cultural Minister. So a brilliant day of publicity for the Tropic of Cancer for Cancer Challenge, and full credit to Mr Kalyan Sen for his coordination. The poor guy was shattered after running around with us all day, and having to translate everything.
 
24th January
Woke up by the world’s noisiest chef literally throwing pans around the kitchen next to our room!. At least we only had a 45 mile morning cycle to Raipur where we had arranged to stay with one of Ruhan Kapoor’s friends, Kalyan Sen. We later found out that Ruhan had asked Kalyan to arrange lots of publicity for us – little did we know…
Trying to understand the directions from Kalyan, we managed to negotiate the tight bustling streets lined with jewellery shops, and meet with him outside the local police station. He was a big friendly greying Indian, with a very relaxed attitude. He had recovered from throat cancer two years ago, and showed us this massive scar on his neck, and with both his parents sadly passing away from cancer, our challenge was very close to his heart. He lived in a large music academy which his father had set up in the 1950s, and after being shown around (also had an auditorium for 1,500 people attached), time for a quick cup of tea and biscuits and then it was off on our press schedule!
First stop was a folk music festival at the school his late father set up. The performers had to contend with two dirty cyclists rocking up and distracting the whole audience. We saw three children perform traditional songs, and when they finished, we had to sign autographs and their school books with our words of wisdom – weird!
We did a quick TV and press interview there, and then lunch was brought in for us – we had to hide away to have a break from the autographs! Kalyan then took us to a pan stall – this is like an Indian mouthwash (weird stones with a brown leaf cover which you are meant to chew), which is very popular – no surprise with the amount of spicy food they eat. Well you should have seen what it did to the pan seller – he would have been less stained if he had tipped a tin of Ronseal wood stain over his head! Needless to say my one went straight in the rubbish bucket, but Jon was happy munching away on old stained leaves for a good 5 minutes.

Then the most random press we have done on the challenge so far. We headed down to the Raipur Flower Show, where we were going to meet the Raipur Mayor and receive an award. We sat at the back, but spent 10 minutes splatting Vijay’s mates, and then over the mic “will Mr Jon and Mr Dom please come up to the stage”. Talk about embarrassing, we sat up on stage with the Mayor and four other judges, while about 100 people came up to collect different awards and trophies for their flower displays. We felt like a couple of prize lemon plants, and then we were invited to say a few words to the audience of around 400! Jon volunteered me, so I reluctantly took the mic, and then had to make up how proud everyone should be of their work, my first impressions of Raipur, and how much my mother would like the plants and flowers on display! Certainly not a highlight of my public speaking career, the interpreter had a bit of a job translating that lot!
We rounded off one manic day with a lovely vegetarian meal (can’t wait until we can eat some red meat again!)  

23rd January
4am and shouting kids, tearing up and down the corridors. Brilliant, nothing like a bit of Indian parental control! So that’s where the packed tutuk of people stayed last night. We counted at least 20 people in one room, and I’m sure that is one funky town bathroom!
The hotel was all locked up, so we got our own back as we wanted to leave at 7am, waking up all the staff to unlock the shutters. Cycling off into the morning mist, the scene was stunning, with the sun rising ahead. Lots of cycling through forest today, so we needed eyes for any threatening wildlife as well as those w**ker bus drivers!
We found a cheap hotel just before Raj Nandgaon, but the owner took it upon himself to befriend us, and when he saw the screensaver on Jon’s phone (Holly in a couple of small bits of fabric), he wanted to talk about her. Jon was not amused and in the end, we had to tell him to do one, so we could get some peace and quiet!

22nd January
Short cycle to Bhandara today, managed to find an uber cheap hotel next to an internet cafe on the national highway 6 (the road we’re following all the way to Kolkata). As I was checking in I noticed two western guys with a laptop, Dom started talking to them and it turned out Franz and William were travelling across India on motorbikes promoting womens football. Franz had been in India for a couple of years teaching kids in villages how to play football. Their masterplan was  arranging 20 womens matches across India, and then take this key development case to FIFAs head office in May before the World Cup. Ironically they had travelled along the national highway 6 in the other direction so we were able to swap some advice on what lies ahead.
In the evening we were just chilling in our stable, when a knock at the door led to 6 policemen inviting them into our room. They wanted to know what we were doing, and then proceeded to go through our bags. One bloke tried to look like he knew how to use a computer in front of his captain, but just about succeeded to open up my documents. Actually, it turned out that they were local political people, nervous of four westerners arriving in their small town.

20th January
Today was a much welcomed rest day and a much needed clothes washing day, we spent the day in our pants drafting emails while our clothes were being washed. At one point I had to go downstairs to send an important email (much to Dom’s amusement) in my thermal cycle shorts as that was the only clothing I had. Hard to sleep in the evening due to political rallies, a generator outside our room, a night club below us and a dodgy live PA in the restaurant nearby.

19th January
Woke up bright and early in preparation for a long cycle to Nagpur, I was a little nervous setting out to do 100 miles in the heat and with the poor quality of roads (not to mention the super dangerous truck and bus drivers slowing us down) but we were able to leave promptly just after 7am so we made good ground before lunch. Despite Dom nervously ordering some takeaway lunch at the hotel (we weren’t convinced that they understood Dom’s nut allergy and our limited Hindi to ask for nuts in our food) the veg biriyani we ordered went down a treat and fortunately contained no nuts (excuse the pun!). We had a speedy lunch because we very quickly attracted another crowd of mopeds, lorry drivers and rik shaws. One girl got off her moped and kept asking where we were going, Dom’s chat got her so excited she nearly wet herself, he had to let her down gently when she invited him to meet her parents; ‘whoa that’s jumping the gun a little bit’ but I think Dom’s saving himself for a certain lady in Dubai.
Actually made it to Nagpur in good time and a friendly Indian old chap who bared a striking resemblance to Mr Mnuaggi from Karate Kid guided us through the traffic chaos to our hotel, another £10 delight and another dilemma of pouring a jug of hot water over your head for any kind of warmth in the shower but good to have reached central India.

18th January
So off we left the hotel in Akola but it wasn’t without another several hundred photos with various staff members while we tried to eat breakfast and while we packed up our bikes. They enjoyed trying on our shades and helmets and taking more photos which we found good fun and have got some photos too for your amusement.
The hotel made us some veg sarnies for lunch but we had to dig half of it out as it contained salad; cucumber and lettuce. Not that we’re salad dodgers but you need to stay away from salad, dairy, only eat peelable fruit such as bananas and definitely avoid meat. The trouble is india is prone to many power cuts so you can’t guarantee meat and dairy has been stored properly, the last thing we want is to have to hold up for a week in a dodgy one star hotel like the one in Khangaon and nurse a round of Delhi belly, some foods are best avoided.
We found a good spot in the shade under a tree for lunch being careful not to tread on any snakes- another thing we certainly don’t want is a nasty snake bite miles away from any medical care. It was nice to find some shade, the heat has picked up since UAE and it’s now consistently 32oC + during the day. It doesn’t feel so bad when you’re riding but it hits you like a train when you stop. As we are now pretty much heading due east the sun stays on one side of us all day, as if we don’t look stupid enough already with our cycle jersey tan lines now we look like a strawberry and cream as well. One side of Dom’s face is really red and his sunglasses marks make him look like a teenage mutant ninja turtle, the fingerless gloves have left an interesting two tone on his hands too! I can’t talk I’m equally as bad, I wish I would have had more hair cut off in Bombay, the wings of my mullet are now so bad when my helmet pushes my hair down at the back it looks like I’ve got bunches!
One sight which did make me feel sad was a dead monkey on the road, it must have just been hit by a lorry minutes earlier because there was fresh blood pouring the monkey’s head. A posse of monkies was gathered round looking on from nearby trees obviously grieving for the loss of their friend.
As we approached Amravati two students on a moped pulled alongside Dom and started chatting away, they took a couple of photos of us and even asked for our autographs, we obliged and in return they escorted us to our hotel which we’d never have found without them- touch
It was my turn for the hotel blag and successfully negotiated a 25% discount- kind of feel like you’re robbing them when it’s only £10 a night but hey it means more for charity so what the hell. When I came back out to tell Dom it was fine he was crowded round by about 20 people, being offered cups of tea and all sorts, Dom’s definitely the more in demand of the two of us on the potential fame front- perhaps Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was big in India a few years back!

17th January
We thought we had an cunning plan by returning to the hotel restaurant from last night for breakfast. The muppets at our hotel had safely locked our bikes in a room, but couldn’t find the key which annoyed Jon immensely! Anyway all the other hotel could offer was bread and jam – toast and tea was well out of the question due to a powercut. The manager was screaming at a porter and making a real scene – comedy moment! At least we had a short ride today to Akola. We arrived at our recommended hotel at lunchtime, after being mobbed 3 times asking for directions, and I simply went in to do my usual hotel blag/ negotiation. Next thing we know it is bedlam.
We had a crowd of 25 people surrounding us, with all the hotel staff wanting photos of us on their phones. A local TV station came down to film us, and the wedding photographer from the party next door even wanted some snaps! Eventually we got some peace and quiet in our hotel room, but not for long. Chilling out over a curry in a restaurant, the waiters suddenly turned up the TV, and there we were being interviewed and me talking very very slowly! See the video here – www.youtube.com/tccchallenge  

16th January
Starting at 7am, we had some bread and honey in the room, and tried to cover 25 miles before stopping for an early brunch. Pulling into the roadside café, we soon had a village of people all wanting photos with Ronnie and Reggie (not us!) and asking how much they cost. We have the universal answer now of “they were free”, which avoids too much envy. Getting used to the Indians saying yes to everything, we ordered a substantial amount of food, and 10 minutes later we got a lovely starter. We said same again, but that was that on their menu front! Crisps, biscuits and bread rolls kept us going on the 82 mile ride today.
Pulling into Khangaon, we arrived at a hotel for a princely sum of £8 a night. Yes, it was that bad. Kim and Aggie would have struggled with the bathroom, and power shower round 2 was cold water in a glass. We found a restaurant for dinner at the hotel we should have gone to – far more presentable and only £2 more!
We crashed out at 9pm as no wall sockets worked, but our eyes were streaming from the three mosquito coils we had burning – Abdul the mossie’s Indian cousin, Vijay didn’t know what had hit him, although he did get his own back on our feet the next morning!

15th January
A better night sleep after the rough camping, this roadside hotel even made us lunch – well tomato splattered something! We headed for Jalgaon, but as the good roads left us, we had to cycle along single carriageway, tree lined roads with more trucks than the M1. They were slowing down for no-one especially two sunburnt Englishmen, so we kept having to jump off the road and onto the littered gravel verge. But it is the bus drivers which are the worst – they think they are in sports cars and the buses are treated accordingly! We both saw a good sign which made us think – “there are those who are destined to succeed and most who are determined to succeed” – Jon and I would say we are the latter, although with some of the remarkable things which have happened to us so far, maybe there is also something in the former.
Heading into Jalgaon, we experienced how hectic an Indian city is on bikes. Luckily we had a hotel recommended near the railway station, so weaved through the sea of tutuks trying not to be mobbed by all the onlookers, and avoiding the odd cow and goat walking themselves to market. We settled on Bombay Palace for our curry, and while waiting for the food wondered if we had made the right decision. As coming from the toilet was the sound similar to ripping cardboard and whooping cough, this man had nearly brought up his lung lining. I think he had a few too many chillis, so we emphasized “Tikki Nahi” to the waiter (not spicy!) A couple of 8% Kingfishers for 50p each helped keep everything flowing smoothly!
On the way back to the hotel we tried to track down an internet café. I tried to ask at a few places but with no luck, so Jon popped into a restaurant, and did a keyboard impression on the table. The manager then said “of course sir. We have nann, roti or chipatis!” Funny!

14th January
About 85 miles to cycle today to Dhule, but unfortunately we were cycling a bit blind without sat nav. The scenery was amazing, with the road climbing over arid, rocky hills and then weaving down into the valley below. Not making the same mistake as yesterday, we parked up at the most presentable restaurant we could find (Little Chef it wasn’t, this place barely had walls). Ordering curries at lunchtime for some afternoon cycling isn’t a great idea, but this is our staple diet for the next 20 days!
More comedy on the roads, and it wasn’t the meandering cows that had us laughing today. It was how/ what Indian people use their mopeds for. A family of four with their two young kids at the front, acting as airbags for their parents, driving the wrong way down a dual carriageway! There were two farmers carrying a very wriggly goat, a granddad with his zimmer frame on the back, and to top it off, a family of 3 using their moped to tow a fully grown reluctant bull – he didn’t look particularly happy with the situation!
And the road safety signs are classic – “be smooth on my curves”, “shortcuts cut life short” and “slow is a four letter word, so is life”

13th January
“Just a short ride today bro to Nashrik”, Famous last words! Still getting used to the quality of Indian hotels, we headed for Ginger resort (Ruhan’s suggestion), about 35km away. Turning our noses up at all the hotels along the way, we realised at about 55km that we must have gone past it. Rubbish.
We were also getting used to road safety (or lack of!). Firstly a driving school jeep packed full of about 15 driving students swerved out in front of Jon. Then a lorry overtaking literally ran us off the road causing Jon to brake suddenly, causing me to crash into the back of him and fall off into its path, the back wheels skimming my cycle helmet!
A bit shaken up and kicking ourselves for skipping lunch and not taking an earlier hotel, we saw Renaissance Wines bar and family restaurant, which looked welcoming and 10 times more presentable than the other roadside shacks. We had lunch (4pm) while we pondered our next move, as the sun started to set. Jon cheekily suggested that we could pitch the tent in the restaurant grounds. Not such a stupid idea and 1 hour later the son of the restaurant owner (AB) confirmed it was ok, just at our own risk because of the snakes about! Brilliant – I really do love camping!