Our fundraising for our charities, Medecins Sans Frontieres and the Oxford Children's Hospital Campaign, currently stands at £18,500; with just 2 weeks to go until Beijing we are keen to get this over £20,000 by the time we arrive! To help things along, we have had a very generous offer to match any and all contributions from people who haven't donated before, up to a total of £1000. So if you have been reading this but haven't yet got around to contributing, now is a great time to donate as it will count double!

You can donate online by clicking on the links below. If you are a UK taxpayer you can also claim gift aid, which increases your donation by 28% at no cost to you.

Donate to Medecins Sans Frontieres
Donate to the Oxford Children's Hospital Campaign

You can also make a donation by cheque if you prefer. Simply fill out the Gift Aid form below, and post both form and cheque (payable to 'Chinacycle') to the address on the form.

Download a Gift Aid form

Many thanks for all your support!

On July 15th we, Bob and Joy Wilson, held a walking treasure hunt around our home village of East Hanney followed by cream teas, a barbeque, raffle, tombola and of course a bar. There were displays about Chinacycle, containing route maps, journals and over 300 photos, as well as the famous story of Patrick Coustre's meeting with the team on a cold January night in France. People crowded around them and came away amazed by the fantastic effort Chris Dave and George are putting into the venture.

It was difficult to keep track of how many visitors we had, but 30 teams enjoyed the thoroughly testing "Hunt" as set by Bob and Ros Biggs. The winning team were Dave, De, Juliet and Colin who achieved the highest points total as well as completed it in the fastest time of 1 hour 12 minutes.

Dave and Katy Wallis helped out tirelessly in the kitchen in between meeting lots of the Chinacycle Fan Club. The tombola and raffle tables were groaning with prizes, many of which were generously given by local businesses. A heap of burgers and sausages kindly donated by Dews Meadow Farm kept Chris and Paul busy on barbeque duty. Graham was manning the bar and Pam got stuck in helping wherever she could including supervision at the pool which was chock with children. Our now re-knowned ice-cream lady De Blomley moved among the guests plying her trade.

We were blessed with wonderful weather; a "perfick day". Overall it was a great success and more than 2,300 pounds was raised for MSF and CHOX! A big thank you to all the helpers and of course all those who came to support or sent in donations.

Take a look at the latest news coverage of the expedition in the gallery section. Complete with cheesy photos as always.

With everything now ready to go, we will be officially setting off for Beijing at 10am on Sunday 15th January from Trafalgar Square, London. All support welcome!

Last week we went on a highly successful two day 'shake down' ride in the Cotswolds. Setting off from Chris' house we rode around 50 miles up to Cheltenham where we camped in a random field.

That evening we feasted on frankfurter avec un sauce de tomate on a bed of pasta followed by pudding de riz served in a traditional tin can. After a few kumbia ya's round the camp fire we settled in for the night with Chris drawing the short straw and having to cuddle up to George in the two-man tent. Nevertheless they both emerged smiling the next day and after a highly efficient two hours of packing up the camp we rode home.

Take home points:

1). The Cotswolds are hilly
2). The Cotswolds are chilly
3). Chris has been stealth training
4). Dave needs to buy some kit
5). Pub lunches are good for morale but bad for mileage
6). Levels of faff must be cut down

Some very cheesy photos are now in the gallery section

Many thanks to Eversheds for donating a very generous £500 to the Oxford Children's Hospital Campaign.

We've opened a bank account now, in case you'd rather write a cheque than donate through the online site. Details are on the charities page.

With the new President's somewhat controversial outbursts and staff reorganisations of late, we've had to consider other possibilities in case travelling through Iran isn't possible. The most likely alternative would be to head north from Turkey into Georgia, then Azerbaijan, where we would take the Baku-Turkmenbashi ferry across the Caspian Sea to Turkmenistan, and pick up the route there. Suffice to say, we'll keep a close eye on how the situation develops, and make a decision closer to the time.

We've set up an online site for donations now at Just Giving - see the Charities page for more information. Your support would be much appreciated!

The website is now pretty much complete; we'll be adding more information over the coming months though, so keep checking back!