As young kids myself and John have always like cycling either on the road or off road, living on top of a steep hill that backed on to a country park was great fun, with many hours spent on our bike throughout our childhood.
Cycling a long distance was something I never really enjoyed doing I was more of a 20 mile rider. My strongest part of cycling was the amount of power I can put through the pedals, as my dad would regularly remind me.
A story that is often brought up. Dad was driving home one sunny afternoon and came a cross a pedal in the road, and thought to his self, fancy a pedal laying in the road, in his mind he thought I bet that is Daniel’s!
Anyway as it turned out he came around the corner and guess who was there, me trying out a new technique, cycling my bike with only 1 pedal, as for some unknown reason the pedal just broke! The story’s are endless of myself and my brothers and bikes.
The Event This will be the biggest challenge to date cycling 200 miles within 1 day on the 15th of June starting at Didcot Oxfordshire to finish on the beach Newgale Pembrokeshire west coast of wales.
We will be setting off around 04:30 and aiming for around 19:00 to the final destination.
We have carefully planned the best route to allow us to stay safe on the road, this route will be taking us some challenging climbs, but also some beautiful scenery like Brecon beacons and surrounding towns/villages.
The weather will play a massive factor on this challenge the rain and wind and of course the heat. A strong head wind can result in burning excessive amount of energy to overcome the wind speed.
The rain will make the cycle ride a lot more uncomfortable becoming cold and wet is no fun, and of course the heat brings a lot of factors for example dehydration cramps and heat exhaustion.
We will have radio contact with the support vehicle just incase we have any problems with mechanical failure or in need of some energy.
With regular meet ups along the journey for photos and followers to be updated. I will have live track for family and friends to be able to see our progress thanks to Garmin and Strava.
Preparation & Training:
The commitment and preparation that goes in to first of all getting a team together and persuading them that it can be done. Working out the best route to travel for bikes and support vehicle.
Putting training plans together and most importantly getting out on bikes at every opportunity available. Having my works full support on fundraising and raising the awareness, the list is endless.
Contacting local business for sponsoring of vehicle livery/ nutrition and lots more. I am very fortunate that I live in a lovely part of the country with a mixed variety of hills descent’s and country roads.
Myself and John are in are final stages of training for our ride. We have covered numerous miles over the last few months to train and to adapt our body’s to deal with long periods of time in the saddle, we have achieved some long distance rides in the scorching heat which was exciting but also very challenging.
John spends a long period of time on his turbo trainer using virtual training programs, as well as road cycling and commuting, working it all around his busy schedule as a Director of a Bespoke furniture makers.
He has still managed to cover 1700 miles so far this year all in preparation for this ride.
John has now taken up running in preparation for the Oxford Half Marathon, and is very excited on achieving this new challenge.
A key part of our training program is nutrition, this involves consuming a large amount of calories to sustain our best performance.
Myself working as a serving firefighter on blue watch Didcot, I challenge my body and mind on a daily basis cycling and cross lifting and also running. i also spend a lot of my time eating and regularly get told by my colleague’s I’m like an animal grazing!
As well as having a young family it can become difficult to structure my training plans. With a recent visit to Brighton for a long family weekend i managed to bring along my bike’s, as a result i fitted my daughter Georgina seat to the bike and of we headed down the cycle track on the beach.
on the odd occasion i have forgotten she was out with me for the ride until I hear her shout “DADDY SLOW DOWN”! Whoops.
Well the 15th of June is only around the corner, so please wish me and John luck, and a big thank you for all the help that has gone in to organising this challenge along with many others, family and friends and of course max’s family Dave, Shira & Molly for being a part of a incredible inspirational charity max’s foundation.
This gives me great pleasure to say a huge thank you to some amazing support and some local business for their generosity and help
The Heart Warriors Team:
Riders:
Name: Daniel Preston
Age: 32 years old
Hobbies: Anything outdoors
Occupation: Firefighter
Favorite food: Chicken and Rice
Name: John Preston
Age: 30 years old
Hobbies: Cycling & Running
Occupation: Director of bespoke furniture Maker
Favorite food: Roast Dinner
Support Driver:
Name: Derek Preston (Dad)
Age: 66 years old
Hobbies: Anything involving his Motorcycle
Occupation: Retired (Grampy day care)
Favourite food: Biscuits
Support Driver:
Name: George Preston
Age: 29 years old
Hobbies: Reading listening to music engineering workshop
Occupation: Motorcycle Engineer
Favorite food: Biscuits