Biog

Rob Hopkins (‘Hoppo’)

Born and raised in the distinctive country air of Gloucestershire, you would expect Rob to be the outdoors type. Wrong. It is fair to say that Rob’s attitude to exercise and general healthy living was relaxed, much like his waistline. It is for this reason that many people (including his brother) are still betting on him not making it out of the Lands End car park. Undeterred, Rob has purchased his first bike since he was 15 and has been wobbling around the roads of Yorkshire for the past few months.

Training has not been easy for Rob as he tries to combine it with his hectic lifestyle of watching TV and going to the pub, but, other than the odd weekend reserved for stag dos, Rob has pushed himself and even managed to recently cycle from Coast to Coast (mostly in the slip stream of Sara’s back wheel!).

Rob put the Alzheimer’s Society forward as one of the four charities for the ride. Rob lost his Nan to Alzheimer’s 10 years before she died and has since seen his Gran be diagnosed with dementia. The Alzheimer’s Society not only provides funds for important research in the fight against this terrible illness, it also offers support for sufferers, their families and their carers.

 

Sara Bullivant (‘Bulli’)

Having always been the sporty type (clearly unlike Rob), when rumours started to circulate around their friends about this bike ride, the automatic response was usually “ah poor Hoppo”... Sara has gone to great lengths to dispel this misconception... it really should be “poor Bulli”!!

It took her a long time to come to terms with the mammoth challenge ahead, but as Rob’s persistence has obviously paid off, she has risen to the challenge. Not content with simply doing some cycling to train for this challenge, so she also completed the Leeds Half Marathon (in a respectable 2 hours), raising £500 for Macmillan Cancer Support in the process.

Brought up in the posh part of Essex (no, it’s true), you may be surprised to learn that up until February this year, Sara had never owned her own bike (surviving on youngest child hand-me-downs). After a few weeks with the stabilisers on, she is now full of confidence and raring to start her “biking holiday”.

Sara will again be raising money for Macmillan Cancer Support along with the rest of the team. Sara is keen to support Macmillan after she lost people close to her in the last year that all at some point have had to face dealing with cancer.

Macmillan does some great work supporting people faced with this challenge and therefore Sara wanted to give something back to support this worthwhile charity.

 

Doug Mckinnon

I hate Fat boy, let’s just get that bit out in the open, he is unfit, he eats too many kebabs and drinks way too much lager for a man of his age. When drinking a rather nice Saint Emilion grand cru (which his father had bought) he raised the LEGJOG issue as it is now referred to. After his old man and I had snorted the red amber down our noses it became clear that “Fat Boy” was indeed serious.

At this point it became doubly serious as Sara (the good looking part of the couple) joined in to say that she was also doing it. Now I suspected that Fat Boy had got this poor girl in some sort of head lock and threatened her with some sort of punishment which probably meant her having to match his consumption of Lager and Kebabs. Not to be put off Fat boy poured more of the said Saint Emillion Grand cru down my throat (again at his Fathers Expense) and convinced me to join them in this adventure.

 

So being an x Ironman (over 10 years ago) I now find myself back on the bike, I am swallowing fly’s again, I have convinced myself that the legs need to be shaved, and I’m cursing Fat Boy as I yet again climb another hill. My latest thoughts are of how he is less like Lance Armstrong and more like Louis Armstrong, its helping me get up the Beacon.

 

So my Charity, I have done a few things in my years, raised money for lots of good causes and been inspired by the work that others have done. It helps when the training is tough to be able to focus on something that helps you climb that hill or run that last Kilometre. So my Charity is MAAFRIKA TIKKUM, this charity is close to a friend of mine who inspires others by what he does to help children affected by Aids in South Africa. Over a few pints with him recently he explained the work the charity does, it was a story he told me that made me decide to do this MAAFRIKA TIKKUM. We all take a bike for granted, not the workers who help these disadvantaged children, they had to walk to the sites where they help educate and raise these kids. The last event he organised bought bikes for the volunteers; this transformed the days from a 3 hour walk to a gentle jaunt on a bike, a simple thing but effective thing. So as I’m climbing that impossible hill and thinking this is tough and I might have to get off and walk, I think how lucky I am to be able to do this and help make a difference.

 

All the charities we have chosen are dear to us and inspire us to do this biking challenge help us by sponsoring us and inspiring us to get from ‘End to End.’

The Support Team

Whilst it is possible to carry out the entire trip unsupported, no one in the team was willing to ruin the look of their shiny bikes with panniers and other unsightly bags (nothing to do with the extra weight of course), so a support team was needed.

 

Luckily, Rob’s parents Alan and Tina, and Doug’s wife Wendy, are easily swayed after a few glasses of wine and before they knew it they had agreed to drive a van loaded with inner tubes, maps and questionably smelling padded shorts the entire length of Britain, essentially twice.