Cycling across the Canaries on £20 - for charity

[rodgers73]

This May Day week I'm going to be taking on a bit of a budget challenge:

I'm going to be flying to Lanzarote with a bike that has cost me 99p to try and cycle across all 4 of the major Canary Islands taking in their highest ride-able peaks.

My budget for the trip (excluding the flights and the ferry fares) is going to be £20. If I can get to Playa De Las Americas on Tenerife via the highest bit of tarmac on Mt Teide I'll have made it.

Reckon I can do it? You can find out here - https://4canaries.wordpress.com/

And if any of you are blessed with deep pockets you might fancy sponsoring me. I'm raising money for Re-cycle Bikes a non-profit community enterprise that provides excellent repair and maintenance services to the public as well as subsidised or free bikes to less fortunate members of the community as well as asylum seekers and refugees in the Sheffield area.

My Just Giving site is here - https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Tom-Rodgers4

Thanks for reading and for any donations!

Tom

[Dman01]

Sounds like a great adventure, best of luck to you

Would also be interested in a post on how you manage to pick up a bike for 99p even for a charity expedition!

[rodgers73]

No worries! I got lucky on Ebay -

https://4canaries.wordpress.com/2017/01/17/off-to-a-flying-start/

An amazing haul of stuff - 3 bikes, 11 wheels, some spare bars and 2 saddles. Worth the drive to collect it!

[rodgers73]

I'll eventually do a post on the blog about what happened to the other stuff from the haul.

I fixed up the red and white MTB (at a cost of £65) and I'm planning riding that coast to coast on off road trails over Easter weekend.

The black and orange MTB will be my disposable steed for a Rome - Palermo ride later in the summer. Really looking forward to getting that one sorted. I expect around £50 should do it!

[bryn]

Good luck!

I was trying to read your blogs on the Rome ride, but couldn't access anything before Day 13.  Are earlier days still accessible anywhere?

Bryn

[rodgers73]

Hi Bryn,

Thanks very much!

Sorry you had trouble with the blog. I just checked and you should be able to access everything just by scrolling down the page. It may take few moments to load but it worked fine when I went on there just now.

Tom

[rodgers73]

Well that went well!

I came back from Tenerife on Sunday and the blog is now just about complete with the story of the ride

[bryn]

That was a wonderful account of your epic ride on your website Tom. 

I have walked, but never cycled, on all four of the islands you visited, and can't believe how cheaply you managed to survive.

The fact that you did it on a rescue-bike made it all the more noteworthy.  A bit of a lesson to those of us prone to discuss the finer points of the advantages of Campag Record over Shimano Dura Ace

Where next?

Bryn

[rodgers73]

Cheers Bryn,

Thanks also for the donation - very kind!

If you scroll back to the start of the blog you will see a black and orange MTB was amongst the eBay haul I picked up at Christmas. I'm going to be riding that from Rome to Palermo in July. I won't be doing it as a budget challenge but it shouldn't cost more than about £50 to get it ready to roll. I will abandon it at the end of the ride and fly back with the panniers and any parts I want to salvage (most likely the new tyres I've bought and the saddle I got from Recycle Bikes last weekend).

I also rode the red, black and white MTB coast to coast (Southport to Hornsea) at Easter. I had thought about keeping that one and doing a bit of off road riding but got bored of the idea (after spending £65 on the bits it needed). So before donating it to the charity I thought I'd do at least something with it. Giving it away was a good idea as it was a complete dog to ride!

I'll no doubt do a blog for the Italy ride so I'll add a link to that when I post an epilogue on the Canaries blog

Tom

[rodgers73]

Just realised a lot of that was repeating earlier posts! Oops!

[rodgers73]

The fact that you did it on a rescue-bike made it all the more noteworthy.  A bit of a lesson to those of us prone to discuss the finer points of the advantages of Campag Record over Shimano Dura Ace

I was most surprised by the brakes as I honestly thought they would struggle to stop me on any serious descent, but they were fine! The lumpy and out of true back wheel was a surprise too.