It’s the season for giving and, in this spirit, it’s only right to highlight an activity taking place between now and Christmas in support of an extremely worthy cause.  The latter is the Marie Carolan Fund (more details on that here) while the former is a sponsored bike ride by five lads which starts this Friday in London and is set to finish eight days and 800 kilometres (that’s 500 miles in old money) later in Belmullet.

As someone who knows all about taking the overland route back from London for the Christmas some years back, I can confirm what is screamingly obvious, i.e. that such an undertaking is not one for the faint-hearted.  I only ever undertook this trek with four wheels and a fair bit of horsepower under me and it was still a journey you were glad to get done with.  We’d normally head from London to Clare, leaving town well before rush hour to drive every inch of the M4 and a bit besides to get to Pembroke, then over four hours on the boat to Rosslare, followed by hours more driving, this time in the dark on unfamiliar Irish roads.

The lads are taking the Holyhead route – one I’ve done a few times too – and while it’s certainly a nice scenic journey (it’s the A5 all the way from Holyhead down to London, by the way, which partly explains why our lads colonised Kilburn: the High Road is where the A5 starts to meet central London), doing it on a bike in December will certainly be no picnic.  Those Belmullet men are certainly a breed apart!

But it is all in a good cause and if anyone wants to make a contribution to the Fund, there are a few ways to do it.  If you’re based in the UK, then you can make a lodgment direct to the Fund’s bank account (the details of which are on the image above – just click on it to enlarge it).  Alternatively, you can email them at themariecarolanfund@yahoo.co.uk or check out http://www.bebo.com/TheMarieCarolE.

On your bikes, lads!