21 days in July – the 2005 Douglas Bader Foundation E2E ride re-blogged

This morning we rode into the Bristol Disablement Centre in convoy with our blue Bader T-shirts on – very disciplined and arriving bang on time. Rhona was ecstatic. Rhona drives one of the support vehicles – she left us today but we’re counting on her coming back for the last week. She’s the wife of the team mechanic Nigel who I have an amusing picture of, but I need to wait until we’ve put some distance between us and a certain Somerset cycle path before uploading it…

Now, one for the ladies. Simon McCorkindale, star of the medical soap Casualty, came along to the Bristol Disablement Centre with David, the Chairman of the Douglas Bader Foundation. Andy Wilson of Otto Bock “snapped” him for me during the picture call, see below. Kiera bumped into a school friend who is a patient amputee at the centre – small world!

Soon we were on our way joined by Ian, a below knee amputee from Nailsea. He rode with us as far as Chepstow, and is flanked below by Richard and Nathan. This is a rare picture of above knee amputee Nathan riding a bike – he’s so damn quick I can never catch him with the camera!

From Chepstow we had a long, long, long climb out and on to Symonds Yat and the peregrins. I was keen to push on from here because my wife Brigitte and daughter Catherine were meeting me at Hereford – along with four cases of beer, much of it from the excellent Wychwood Brewery in Witney (thanks Heather). A happy reunion :o)

Six counties done (I think), tomorrow Shropshire…

Into the swing of it now – a well oiled machine :o)