Hi and welcome to my rather simple site supporting my Lands End to John O'Groats cycling challenge in aid of Action Medical Research.

That's me in the picture - riding a time trial this summer in my club colours - Wrekin Sport CC based here in Telford, Shropshire.  And when I'm not dressed in Lycra impersonating superman I look like the picture in the middle on the left.

Anyway - I've always liked challenging myself, and when the chance came up to cycle the End2End with AMR, I had to do it, still haven't quite realised what I'm doing yet!

The idea of the webpage is threefold - a bit of an experiment for me to have a go at just that - creating a web page, second, to keep those interested up to date with my training and events for the year, and thirdly as a place where I can thank my sponsors and advertise their services.

Yes - like many other good things I have to raise a ton of money £2000 minimum, so I am approaching my supplier contacts to give them the opportunity to come on board and stick their name on my kit for the year, if your interested in private sponsorship I have a webpage at
http://www.action.org.uk/sponsor/iantaylor and of course any donations are more than welcome. 

I plan to keep this site up to date with event details including my event programme for 2011, so keep in touch.

Thanks very much
Ian

Of course the main purpose for doing this is to raise as much money as I can for my charity - Action Medical Research - to find out more about them and their invaluable work for children click on their logo in the top right hand corner of any page.  For a personal pledge click on the "support me" box in the lower bar at the bottom of any page.

At work I am lucky enough to be in touch with a whole host of manufacturing companies in the aerospace industry, having spoken to some of them personally they have pledged to support me in my fund raising campaign, in return for which I will be wearing kit on the ride, during training and wherever possible for all my other events next season.  As soon as that is ready photos will be uploaded to this site.

For details of my event plan for next year scroll down to the events section below.  furthermore I will be trying to get as much publicity as possible for my ride in the trade press for all my supporters.  Below is the list of main sponsors and their activities, as more come on board this will be updated.  I know it goes without saying, but a great big thanks to them for all their support.

Right, I thought I'd better tell you something about the bike, mostly because I'm a tech head but thought you might be interested, and because this is what's going to take me all the way.

The bike is a Planet X Superlight Pro Carbon, 2007 model, so as you may have noticed the frame and forks are full carbon fibre.  The gearing throughout is Shimano Dura Ace (again 2007), which means that the gear shifters are built into the brake levers, but unlike the most modern Shimano units the gear cables are exposed.  The cables were replaced this month, and the original Shimano greys were swapped for Jagwire Pros in red, as were the brake lever hoods, the original black replaced for Hudz in Roubaix Red, these are slightly smaller, softer and have a better grip (in my opinion) than the originals.  The brakes themselves are Shimano 105, with soft red blocks, from SuperGrip and the chainset is an FSA Gossamer Compact (50/34 teeth), with integrated bottom bracket.

For most of my training I'll be using the original Planet X Superlight Model B wheels, with 32 spokes and Continental GP Force and Attack tyres, which has a Shimano 105 12-25 tooth 10 speed cassette, however I have some new best wheels - Xero Lite XR210s, which you can see in the lower picture, currently I have the Conti Force and Attack pair on, but will be changing these for Continental GP4000's in red in the next week.  I use a Shimano Ultegra casette on these in 11-23 tooth.

Last bits, the saddle is a Pro-Lite R-Send, which is bloomin comfy, seatpost stem and bars all Planet X originals, I use Elite bottle cages, and Deda bar tape, as I find this most comfy, and I'm currently using a Blackburn Wireless Computer.

The whole thing weighs in at under 18 pounds (8.18 kg). The spares pack (including wind cape) is another 1lb.