Super Bag Packers

So to raise some cash me and a merry band of volunteers descended on the Morrisons of Preston to pack peoples bags and make them pay us for it. I found the most interesting part of the day was seeing peoples eccentricities, some people have very strict guidelines on what should be packed, some seperate items into bags that correspond with their cupboards, others with fresh, frozen and so on, and I'm sure some just have their own categorization that beggars belief.

Have a look at our video of our days exploits, hope you enjoy xx

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWCYtqrHst4

Video Blogs

Hi Yall

so we decided to make a video blog instead of just writing about what we are doing, so please check out our first upload.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFhhhzj2hwU

The three Amigos!!

Great news for the many miles for smiles group, we have anew recruit, let me introduce my very good friend Peter, the chap on the right. Pete has decided to take the plunge with us and help raise money for postpals, Pete is a lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire specialising ironically in "Slow Tourism". Of the three of us Pete is by far the most experienced cyclist, he has had a bike for at least 2 months :0).

The news of our trip is spreading through our friends and I'm hopeful we can snag a few more people to join us on our trip, i am already making people feel lazy.

http://www.everyclick.com/manymilesforsmiles This link is where you can go on and donate money to our chosen charity Post Pals, before donating please log onto http://www.postpals.co.uk and see what a worthy cause it is. If you want to wait for us to complete the challenge first you can pledge an amount, anything you can spare would be massively appreciated, the three of us will be getting together soon to think of fundraising events, I'm thinking with Darren's chef skills "Bake Sale" :).

Well i don't know about the other two but i started my training this week, i can only hope that i get some divine intervention because it has been hard, my first time on a bike (exercise bike) in years was "interesting" to say the least, however it did feel good to start it off, i know theres a long way to go but it is definitely hitting home how tough this is gunna be.

Start at the beginning

Well i should by start by telling you who we are, we are a couple of average Joe's who happen to be best of friends and fancied doing something that challenges us with the bonus of helping a worthy cause. We will start with me, I'm the handsome chap on the Right, I'm 26 and have just completed an Msc in Conservation Science, i have never been sporty except for a tad of rugby, as you can see from my "robust build" the challenge of this trip is all that bit harder. My small friend on the left is Darren, who will kill me for calling him small. Darren works for Morrison's and is currently training to be a baker, with him being in charge of donuts i feel our training may take a bit longer than expected, Darren has an adorable son named Samuel, who is also my godson. I think the thought of making a child smile when the circumstances call for tears is a big inspiration for us to try and complete this trip.

So lets talk about what we are doing, we plan to start in August 2011 from Lands End on the tip of England and make our way across the country, past Wales, through England, into Scotland and finish at the very tip at John O' Groats. We plan on taking 3 weeks cycling around 50 miles a day to complete the trip. The distance as the crow flies is around 600 miles, but with the route we hope to take and with the dreaded hills it will be more like 800.

Y0u would think that the type of person who would do such a trip would be an avid cyclist who enjoys pushing the limits of their endurance. However i don't actually own a bike, Darren has done some cycling in recent years but to be honest we are about as amature as you can get, i even googled adult stabilisers to see if they exist. I think the fact we are complete novices has made us more determined to undertake the journey.

I first heard about postpals on the Russel Howard show, a very good friend and I went to toys r us and bought several toys to send out, i thought the idea of the site was so simple and would actually make a genuine difference to someone with an illness. My hope is that we can get £1 for every mile we cycle, but more than that i hope we can spread the word as we cycle across Britain about this great cause, i hope we can inspire some people to pick up a pen and put a smile on someones face.

So Darren and myself will be updating this blog with how our training is going, what plans we have made and the events we will do in the meantime to raise some cash for a great cause, i hope you all enjoy following our hopefully successful progress.

lots of Love

Greg (Wiggins) & Darren (Armstrong)