Just got home, and back to wifi. Update and report will follow but I managed to pick up some sort of bug and spent the last night calling for my friends Ralph and Huwie ! So give it 24 hours.

Debrief is coming but were having probs with the wifi, I cam connect the iPad but not the laptop so I.m having difficulty uploading photos. Looking into it today, hope to make progress on it shortly. Yesterday was a steady day lounging around Barmouth and on the beach. I don’t think Ellie’s had sore muscles like that in a very long time!

We made it, Ellie had been a star, a prouder dad you will not find, an details tomorrow, but one little bit of info, THAT last climb between Mallwyd and Dolgellau, she smashed it!
Go Ellie,

Hi all, its not actually Drillski here its another Drillski junior. They have just set off for the seaside at precisely 8:00ish. I will hopefully be bringing you updates as they go along.
There is a link to the route further up in the thread and if you haven’t yet please do visit the justgiving page in the op and donate whatever you can. I know that every penny will be put to an excellent use.

it’ll be broadcast on BBC Radio Stoke at 17:40 friday evening, and again 07:05 on saturday morning, DAB or 94.6 & 104.1 FM

That’s the accomadation booked then, seafront B&B at Barmouth, 2 nights, thanks to the logistics team ( aka MrsDrillski). Any preferences/local knowledge in terms of recommended chippies? I think we’ll be in need of some quality cod & chips come Saturday night.

Route stats summary and profile:

[/url] Biketoaster Route[/url] by Drillski[/url], on Flickr[/img]

Bearnecessities, thats very kind of you. We would absolutely love to see anyone who’s out and about, it’d make it even more of an adventure ( we’re really starting to look forward to it now). MrsDrillski will be setting off a couple of hours later ( silver galaxy) and she’s going to be bringing spares/kit as we (subject to sorting accommodation) will be stopping over for a few days after and I’ll be hoping to introduce Ellie to the joys of CyB, and the Marin, plus hopefully more subject to getting a pass out from MrsDrillski.
But If you’re around let me know

Basically Its Stafford to Newport, Wellington, Shrewsbury via back roads, and the old railway line. Then back roads from Shrewsbury to Llanerfyl, bypassing Welshpool and LLanfair on teh north side, and the busy but narrow A458, then the A458 to Mallwyd, A470 to Dolgellau and onto the old south side of the estuary railway line, and finally across on the railway bridge to the North side and Barmouth, and chips!
Haven’t quite got as far as sorting timings accurately yet, but on recent performance we are hoping to be able to average between 12.5 and 14 mph, which isn’t exactly earth shattering but we should be able to maintain it on the mountain bikes. Little climb before Dolgellau to a place called Tabor for a sting in the tail. Ellie will love that when she’s 100 miles in!

route here, hopefully.

https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Weston,+Staffordshire,+United+Kingdom&daddr=Barmouth,+UK&hl=en&ll=52.609719,-2.894897&spn=0.955661,2.705383&sll=52.749543,-3.044689&sspn=0.952605,2.705383&geocode=FTFPJgMd-v_g_yn7Fvy7lnJ6SDHkXk_zQ6CKmQ%3BFbl8JAMd5BvC_ylDiCnRnHhlSDHM-KMMo4IadA&oq=Barmouth&t=h&dirflg=b&mra=ltm&z=9&lci=bike

Thanks guys, that’s over £10 per mile now, fantastic.
We are hoping to do live updates en route, if possible, but neither of us have smart phones so it might be a bit second hand . I think we’ll be ordering one of these yellow night vision jerseys[/url] as MrsDrillski was getting a bit concerned about most of our kit being a bit low vis for all the road work so if you see a pair of banana coloured mountain bikers, please give us a wave 😀

Bearnecessities, did you and everyone else see/like the revised video?

Support has been fantastic folks, thank you all so much. And Ellie has bagged herself a radio interview with BBC Radio Stoke for the day before we go!

Just seven days to go now! Starting to look at weather forecasts….

is it time to start a “what tyres for riding 110 miles to Barmouth?” thread?

Hi Jekkyl, may well do that.
She does already volunteer to Chase Trails too though. For Example, As you go through the final rock armoured rollers on Follow the Dog, the third drainagesump from the end, on the right, was dug by Ellie (with a little help from me, mostly supervising in this photo it seems)!

http://chasetrails.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-min=2011-01-01T00:00:00Z&updated-max=2012-01-01T00:00:00Z&max-results=50

so shes handy with a shovel as well as a hardtail

Ok so, we went back to the drawing board a bit and changed quite alot, added some new footage, re-edited and here’s Ellies Revised Extended Directors Cut!

Please take a moment to watch if you can, and leave her a brief comment. You wouldn’t believe how committed to this she is now. Thanks STW

thanks Folks! I think the fact that it doesn’t appear in teh preview window, only the submittted post was throwing me a bit and overthinking it!cheers, and please watch!
Have a good day

ok george, can you tell me how you did that….. its driving me nuts!

ellies vid

ellies video

youtube. i must be missing something basic.

I can paste a photo, a link to a video, but seem unabel to embed a video
Durrrrrr!

trying to embed a video into a post so it appearsin a window, but i’m struggling. i can see how to post a link, ut not how to embed it, Anyone help?

will do BN, and thank for taking her to the £500 mark! How about Nicki Minaj “Lets go to the Beach” for the soundtrack, as that’s where she’s headed?

hmm, all this training is great, but you’re putting in more miles than me ( Dad!) and now i’m looking at replacing your suspension bearings and bushes……hmmmmm. I guess its my turn to be the support team now, hehehe!

cheers, thats about what i thought. thanks.
off to order bearing now! The ammount of miles she’s putting in training at the moment the current set have gone down hill fast! Its in good cause though … fundraising for terminally ill children

updates and photos due later I believe when she gets in. upping the training miles this week again: she’s getting more miles in than me at the moment, but then I did have a touch of man flu last week 😳

[/url]
image[/url] by Drillski[/url], on Flickr

She’s toughening up quite nicley I’d have to say: she got bitten by a farm dog on a recent training ride, an alsatian, thankfully not too badly, but still managed another 25 miles after that point.
Thats my girl!
Bruise looked much more impressive the a day or two later that when this was taken.

Epicyclo – start off easy (and not technical) with the promise of cheesy chips at a half-way pub. Let them decide route / distance and date in advance so they call the shots. If they’ve got a mate who may be interested, get them along as well

Yep, did that too , but made the mistake of doing this when she had been riding for a few months. What this meant was that, basically, she invited her friend along for a ride around Follow the Dog, only for us to set off together, and for Ellie to zoom off in her newfound confidence and leave her mate pootling along with her dad, i.e. me! It wouldn’t have been so bad, but in the first section it loops back on itself and passes the outbound trail, so she saw us lagging….. And then steamed on anyway! Nice!
Not long after that she started night riding. She rode every week that winter, usually at night, come hell or high water, and it was a nice moment when she had had to pass up one of her regular rides due to other commitments, and had not ridden that week when she started shuffling other stuff to make sure she got her ride in, as she was missing it.

Thanks everyone for your support, and kind comments. It really means a lot to Ellie, but it means even more to the children, and their families at the Donna Louise Trust hospice for life limited and end of life children.

STW ………. There when it matters.

The old railway line used to be a bit of a disaster zone from Gnosall westwards, but its been in improved over the last few years. There’s just about a mile or so that isn’t surfaced and can be a bit soft or muddy in the wrong conditions. From Newport we take the minor roads towards trench lock, and from there along the Austrians route towards Wrockwardine. And then back again. On occasions we put in an ascent of then Wrekin at this halfway point.

She did 50 miles today. A good run out to Telford and back. Bodes well , she just needs more experience on busy roads, to avoid some of the ” lemming ” moments we had today at junctions!

Thanks guys! 🙂 Very proud dad here.

Hi, Yep Daughter dear is here on recomendation from me. Ive been a STWer since way before the big hack and forum revamp years ago. Shes been an occasional reader since shes started riding ( i think the first thing she read was Agent Picolax!). She wanted to know what I had done to fund raise previously, and i suggested posting here, as people had been very supportive here, both with donations and advice, when i did my first 24 hour solo at SITS back in 2009, when we managed to raise over 3k for the same cause. Yeah I can understand a little suspicion I guess. I i tell her we on the STW forums are pretty much all extreme right/left wingers, raving liberals, and prone to spontaneous electronic outbursts, but that when a fellow STWer really needed help or support, that there was no place better to be.
Anyway, seems she might be turning into a chip off the old block with the endurance events, especially as shes racked up more miles than me for the last two weeks in a row. Strange mix of emotions when she went off on her own for the first time the other week, and came back beaming having done 30 mile on her own!

Great thing you’re doing there, fantastic to see young people doing this sort of thing. 15 years old, You go girl!

Another reason no to get the authorities involved if possible is that this farm house has been just revealed as being sat on the northbound track of The proposed route of HS2 so a home of many generations is now slated for demolition and compulsory purchase, so they’re not having a good year so far.

I went back that day and had a word with the owner, ( it was the farms dogs, for clarity, just beyond the yard on this occasion) , who is also the farm owner. He was very reasonable, surprised, and apologised. He understood the seriousness of the situation, and he agreed that something would have to be done. Sadly I suspect the future may not look too rosy for those two dogs. I did consider reporting it to the police, and generally I would, but in this case decided to wait until I had spoken to the owner, and am satisfied that he understands the need for action. I shall be out that way on the bike tomorrow and again over the weekend, as its only about a mile and a half from home, and is on the main transit route from home to the (cannock) chase off road, so I will be in a fairly unique position to monitor the situation to a degree myself. Should there be an incident again this week end, or the dogs not seem secure when I go through, then, yes, plod will definitely be involved.

As I live in this largely agricultural community, and have done for generations, I do believe that it is better to at least try to sort out issues between yourselves before starting to involve the authorities: after all, most people are very hardworking responsible individuals, and farmers more than most. Added to that, this farmer has always had the most excellently maintained rights of way, with well maintained ans sometimes replaced st
Styles and gates, so is worthy of this approach I feel, as the dogs are certainly not this way because they are encouraged to be so to keep people “Orf moi land!” so to speak.
The dogs were fine with me when I arrived on foot, in fact were lovely, they just have some kind of seriuos issue with bikes ( father in law had a similar issue with one olf his spaniels with motorcycles), and as, looking at the tracks on this route over the yeas, I think me and a mate are almost the only cyclists who seem to use this bridle path on wheels, it is not leaving a lot of other people open to problems. I must admit though that this isi my main concern though, that by not reporting it, if it get reported subsequently by someone else it would be treated as a first incident unless the owner came clean, and though he seemed a very decent young chap, he is only human after all.

I also live on a public footpath , and have a dog that barks at sometimes passers by, though he’s thankfully never shown any interest in chasing anyone, and he’s only after attention thank goodness, but it makes me a bit more sympathetic to the issues of living on a RoW.

Hence posting on here, wanting to know if on the of chance any one reading this had had a similar problem at this farm, in case the owner was indeed trying to pull the wool over my eyes and it had indeed happened before. Turns out that my buddy was chased that morning, but nothing worse.

I shall go out his way again a few times over the weekend and see how things lie. I have the photos, and am quite prepared to contact plod still, if necesary.

Eagle Lead Commander General

Life can seem pretty harsh at times.
At times, sometimes what seems like long, non ending times it makes you wonder how things will ever actually get better. And do you know what makes them get better? Money? A change in fortunes? Luck? ……..no.
It starts to get better when you talk to someone, about how you are feeling, and how you can’t see a way forward, and how frightened you are by that.
So start talking. Here’s a great start,
Now try talking to these people…..Samaritans 08457 909090
http://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help-you/contact-us

I can assure you they are good people.