Cycle Across Wales 2007 (film)

September 18th, 2007 by mas | Filed under Africa & Overseas, Courses & Events.

At the end of August some of us took part in a sponsored cyle across North Wales, cycling from Chester to Anglesey over 5 days covering roughly 30 miles each day and camping along the route.

Eight of us set off to cycle and we were well supported by a couple of volunteers Becky somehow roped in to set up tents and drive the heavy kit from site to site.

This was the fifth sponsored cycle I’ve been involved with - the first one was in 1998 and was the idea of some young people I was working with who wanted to raise funds towards a disco project they were developing. Somehow since then I’ve escorted 80 or 90 people to spend a week cycling and sleeping in the outdoors. This was the first one that I haven’t actually organised though - this year Becky was responsible with my responsibility being mostly as the navigator.

I tried out using the video function on our camera to record an attempt at a video diary and it seems to have worked pretty well (the camera not my diary!!). This is very handy because often on events we end up carrying around all sorts of equipment and until now we’ve tended to stick to camcorders for film because we export most footage to DVD. Recently though we’ve decided instead to start making more use of online video storage and start making films available through our website so the quality of the footage isn’t such an issue.

The cycle itself went very well. Despite the (justifiable) complaints about sore backsides, and endless hills an event like this is very rewarding - not just in completing the challenge but the process of doing something that takes you away from the office/school/college and computers/phones and so on.

During the week we discussed a new approach for next years cycle - we’ve decided not to organise a sponsored cycle but instead to offer the opportunity for practitioners to join us for a cycle as a networking event with a difference. There will be a small fee to come along from which profits will continue to be put towards out overseas work.

We’re also changing the country we cycle across for 2008 to England. Details of how to register will be available early in the new year but its likely to be held in August and there will probably be options to join us for a short stay (3 days) or to join us for the whole 6 days (depending on the final route we decide on!). IN future years we’re also planning to tackle Scotland and Ireland before returning to Wales.