Five lunatics, two dodgy knees and 'Bradley 'effin Wiggins

Okay so here we are, our third blog with a month of the mission gone and its flown by faster than Bradley Wiggins on speed.

Sat here typing this were finding it hard to believe we've gone from experiencing more rain than the Indian monsoon season to fending off hoards of biting mosquitoes around camp after a sweaty 50 miles hard cycling. This is because we're currently at Nick's penthouse apartment on the French/German border complete with a Sauna, Swimming pool and so much food being consumed that it'd make Rik Waller wince, therefore its hard not to feel like Lord Farquaad of the manor as we gaze over the local hills whilst tucking into a bratwurst sandwich
As most of you will know the Mission Oz team ran into a bit of trouble in the form of 'dodgy knees' which decided to stop Luke and Ste in their tracks. As Jamie, Mac and Sam took the ferry across the channel with Paris in their sights the 'B-Team' i.e Luke and Ste stayed in Ashford in Kent to recieve Physiotherapy treatment from some extremely kind physio's at a huge discount.

*A-Team Perspective*
Meanwhile the A-team were in pursuit to watch the one, the only, Bradley Wiggins compete in the final Time Trial of the Tour de France near Paris. With time on our hands and Bastille day approaching we thought the obvious solution was to 'get on it' with the French for their national celebrations. With our one and only set of going out clothes (the one bomb) waiting for us at the bottom of our panniers we booked into a B+B, sank a few Biere Speciales and headed into the local town with our appearances socially intact after a clean shower and shave. One hour and four laps of the town later it was like a wild west scene with nothing but a lone tumble weed rolling slowly across the town square. Turns out we were one day late for the Bastille day shenanigans. Kebab and bed before midnight it was!

Cracking onto Chartres near Paris we experienced our first rainless day of the mission, yeeeehaarrrrr. So with our gore-tex jackets gladly stuffed back in our panniers we arrived at the local municipal campsite in Chartres meeting up with Jamie's folks. With time to kill we embraced ourselves in some 'missionary down time' whilst we waited for the B-team who were still playing around with knee straps and hot water bottles.

*B-Team perspective*
Right so apparantly we arethe "B Team" and the others are the "A Team" In our opinion the 'A' in team should stand for audacious! Now lets not get personal about it but we dont like jealous people. Its just unfortunate that the "A Team" didnt recieve 1st class physio treatment from Amy and Eve (cheers girls), or the fact that they had to cram themselves into a tent whilst we had ample amounts of space. Enough to swing a cat as the saying goes... Or is it the fact that we won the rock, paper, scissors championships for the speaker?? Or was it the fact that they bought a s**t map of france and hence decided to zig-zag there way from Calais to Chartres haha. Just as a final point, as if the other four points werent damming enough we stumbked upon a barn party! It just so happens that it was the same night they tucked themselves into bed after a failed bastille day party attempt. Congratulations to Charl and Naomi on there engagement, and thank you for the constant supply of champagne and biere from 'Patey Boissons'. We will hold you to your promise of a party on the way home! Anyway enough of the banterous arguments the boys are all back together and morale is as high as ever.

After the amalgamation in Chartres our lives were now focused on one name. You guessed, it Bradley Wiggins. Being avid Mr. Wiggins fans after following him on previous Tour de France visits we couldn't possibly miss this opportunity to see him be the first Brit to don the yellow jersey on the champs elysees in its 109 year history. To see him win the time-trial sent us into a state which can only be likened to the film 'football factory' with various chants and cheering annoying many a french citizen. This was all the day after we had been drinking with a bunch of crazy brummies who, although they didn't take part in the drunken chants about Bradley on our walk back to the campsite, were happy to push Ste (TinTin) naked in a shopping trolley along the road after a dispute with a nightclub bouncer who used the unorthodox bucket water over head tactic to dispell his savage victim. The following day brought cheshire cat-like smiles to our faces after an awesome photo was taken with the team and Bradley before the final run into Paris. If it couldnt get any better tears were brought to our faces as we sang the national anthem at ear piercing volume along with the massive following of Brits all watching Bradley on the podium. Absoloute icing on the cake. Luke who was sporting Bradley like sideboards carefully groomed for weeks in the run up to Paris quotes 'Bradley Wiggins is without question the greatest sportsman ever to grace the universe'. He even admitted after his displeased response to being woke up he had dreamed that he and Bradley had dined together (in dinner suits wearing matching bow ties) with Luke whispering 'sweet nothings' into his ear! It was also nice to meet Steve Brady and Russ Barrow along the tour route who treated us to a restaurant meal and plenty of beers. Two diamond geezers!

After the hype of Bradley and Paris it was time to head east towards Prague. With a five day heat wave blasting over the country it was our first taste of proper sun. This forced us to look for fresh streams to wash off the hundrends (literally) of tiny harvest flies clinging to our sweat soaked bodies. This culminated in a thunderstorm that zeus himself would have shit himself at (videos to come). Cracking on we ticked off our 1000th mile which shortly delievered us to our present location. On the final day to the border tensions were high in the last 5km with the greatly sought after Germany sign which provides bags of braggin rights. But the sign never came and after a destroying the last bit of energy that our legs had to give we soon learnt that a Germany sign didn't exist. Gutted.


We'd also like to take this opportunity to thanks the following people for their outstanding hospitality and generosity. Amy and Eve, top class physio's. Charl, Naomi and the other mad hatters at the barn dance. Jamie's Ma and Pa, thanks for the food! Steve and Russ- Legends. 'The Brummies', unbelievable banter. Nick (another one of Don Richardson's mafia friends) you're a hero. Klaus, thanks for the hospitality, you're house is amazing aswell as your bar!

Finally, a big thanks for all the donations so far and for following our progress. To donate go to www.virginmoneygiving.com

Thanks

The team

English leg

First of all, we would all like to say a massive thank you to all our family and friends who came to the fox covert to see us off. Your support is hugely appreciated.

The main focus of our first blog is to say thank you to everyone for looking after us during our first leg, being England. Also to highlight the extreme arrogance of thinking we didn't require any prior training before setting off on an around the world cycle ride.

As you all probably know it hasn't been the sunniest of weeks, to that end we didn't manage to make It through a full day without getting wet. However spirits remained high and we still managed to score a prime steak in a bun at the east Rounton village barbecue. So many thanks to the people of east Rounton who warmly invited us in and let Ste do what he does best....TALK. After giving the villagers a politician like speech we started to bang in the miles. We cracked 60 odd miles on our first day and eventually made it to the town of Tadcaster famous for the John and Sam Smith brewery's. So it goes without saying we did what we do best and sampled the local ales.

We rose the next day with moderately sore legs un aware of the day we were about to embark on. The target for the day was to make it to Sheffield to see our dear friend Jordan Langton aka 'the douchebag'. From whom we had been promised hot showers, big scran and comfy bed each in his new pad. So we hit the road and immediately hit what was to be the hardest day of riding of the first week. Main components of this difficult day were 50 miles of hills with our heavily laden bikes and heavy rain all day. We eventually made it into Sheffield to the douchebags at which we ate our body weight in delicious food he made for us and re-administered ourselves ready for the next day of riding. We would all like to say a huge thank you to Jordan for taking us in and looking after us on such a bleak day. Top man!

Again we cracked on, nothing substantial happened the next day and we made camp in a farmers field after another day of 50 and woke the next morning sore which seemed to be the trending pattern for the first week. We cycled ten miles into another famous town.... Melton Mowbray. For breakfast we had a pie eating competition of which a video will follow. The standings were 1st- Jamie Davison, 2nd- Thomas Mcpartland, 3rd- Sam Richardson, 4th- Luke Rock. Later on that day we stopped at a sainsburys for some tea. Jamie bought himself some beef jerky, he obviously thought it didn't have quite the taste he was after. So he decided to use the packet of silica powder to season it, as we all know the silica powder is use to keep the moisture out of the meat and is toxic and should never be consumed, evidently jamie didnt realise this and ignored the clear 'do not eat' bold lettering on the packet instead he thought it would make as a a good substitute for pepper. That night we camped in a kind woman's garden, which we shared with her pet goose and her dogs. We also had our first test run of the whisperlite stove and a kit review video will follow.

The next morning we woke up to two surprises. The first, mac showering naked under the woman's garden hose. Then a phone call from Chris Richardson himself telling us he had a great friend who lived 20 miles from London near St. Albans who would be happy to put us up for the night. We cycled hard all day In the blazing sunshine interrupted a few times with a little bit of our good friend Ronald rain. We stopped Just shy of letty green In Wellwyn Garden City for some late lunch before the last three miles to Dave and Jens. We pulled into the gorgeous estate where they live which is inside the polo clubs grounds. Jen pulled in shortly behind us with bags of food and drink for a barbecue they had planned for us. So again we did what we do best and sank a few beers, a few bottles of wine and a delicious barbecue put on by Jen and Dave. We had a great night with them. Lots of laughs and Ste bit off a bit more than he could chew receiving a massage from Jens physio friend Susie for his sore knee. So another huge thankyou to Dave and Jen Burns, we had a brilliant night.

The next morning we woke up to a rainstorm, we had some breakfast croissants and coffee, watched the news and weather, this told us about more rain all day. Jen told us about a sneaky cycle path which would take us all the way into London running along a canal. We packed up, left and took the advice. We rode about ten miles on the cole green way cycle route, however it didn't look like we had been cycling, it looked like we had been mud wrestling with our bikes in a swamp. We consulted the map and realised at Jens and Daves by road we were 22 miles from London. once we had wrestled through the swamp for ten miles we were still 22 miles from London. We thought it may be more productive to get on a tarmac road and bang in some fast miles cause we were all eager to get to London apart from Luke, he wanted to stay on the dirt track and play mountain biking with his 60kg touring bike. Once we got to London, we were met by a huge dish of pasta cooked previously by Joe Richardson, Sams brother which was spot on. Joe and Rosie (Sams aunty) soon followed with gifts. Joe brought beers and Rosie brought enough Clinique products to last the whole mission. Needless to say Mac was over the moon. We all got ready and went out on Shoreditch high street. We met the Davison tribe including Jamie, Patrick (big Pod), Chris and Phil. So they were out in force. Phil aka Donald Trump got us a table in a club with a 300 pound bottle of grey goose sitting on it which was the size of Ste. The next morning we made a trip to the Breakfast Club to try and cure our hangovers. Later we went back out drinking, surprise surprise. We went to a Thai restaurant called Busabi and then met our old friend Evan Herbert for a few shandies. We decided to stay an extra few nights and we have decided to set off tomorrow mid day to head towards the continent in search of the elusive sun.