Unique Sponsorship Offer

Firstly, look at this...

This is the proof for our cycling jerseys to be worn on the event and any promotional work we do. How cool are they?!?!

To fund the production of these, we are offering any company the opportunity to purchase one of three advertising spaces. Hire-It is used here as an example but they are contributing to our fuel bill and won't be on here unless they pay us more!

The cost is £175. For this you will get either the front, the rear or both arms. We will wear the shirts for photoshoots and you will be personally presented with one of the shirts (Unworn!!) signed by the team. We will pose for any photos you wish to take.

To express an interest please contact Chris on chris@crazyhamstercrew.co.uk

Please be quick, we've got to go into production next week.

If you would like one of the shirts for yourself, they will be £45 which includes a donation to the charities. They will be available in any size you want. Get in touch quickly.

Training steps up a gear...

Get it? Get it? Steps up a gear? I'm wasted as an Analyst.

Well the weather was supposed to be rubbish today which is why I went out yesterday and I decorated my bathroom today. But taking an hour off to watch the final stage of the Tour inspired me to get out on the steed again. I'm just loving it. The weather has actually been fine all day so I decided to head south to Worcester doing a loop of the A449. It's one road round here that Telewest Cable haven't destroyed so was quite a smooth ride. 19K's each way which I duly dispatched in an hour and a quarter which I think is quite good going.

I've got footy on Monday and Wednesday but might have to sneak in a ride or two in between. Anyone would think that I'm trying to catch up with Millerz's K's whilst he's away on his summer training camp.

By the way, has anyone got a cure for the huge chafing that goes on in the "blokie" region - vaseline I'm guessing?! (Sorry Ladies!)

Weekend Update

Millerz phoned to say his knees were hurting and wouldn't be in attendance but I'd promised myself a ride today so I went out on my own. Millerz is off to his summer training camp in Spain tomorrow so I thought I'd pop over to see him off.

Now AA autoroute tells me it is 20k's from my house in Kidderminster to his just north of Bromsgrove. Well, I dispatched this in 37minutes. Couldn't believe it myself, the terrain is quite undulating with a few cheeky climbs. After admiring his new 50inch Plasma TV I set off home. Inspired by today's Tour de France time trial I nailed it.

I really scared some bloke on the A38 when i slip streamed his car and the chap in Bromsgrove who I overtook in the High Street looked less than impressed. But.... I got home in 30 mins! Mashed may I add!

I cannot believe how much my fitness is coming on now. This cycling lark is good stuff. I want more....oh, and a pair of Carbon wheels too!

*** BREAKING NEWS *** Doping scandal rocks The Crazy Hamster Crew

News is breaking this morning in relation to a potential doping scandal concerning team member Millerz.

The 33-year-old (Yeah whatever!) Brit has been at the centre of controversy during the Training since it was revealed he missed out-of-competition drugs tests.
Millerz looked odds-on to win the Tour after taking Wednesday's stage and increasing his lead over second-placed rider Chris.
But CHC have learnt he lied to them about his whereabouts in June.
Young Brit Chris now assumes the race lead with four days remaining.

Millerz admitted making a mistake in missing out-of-competition drugs tests but insisted he backed moves to make cycling drug-free.
As part of Tour de France policy, the race leader is tested after each stage and Millerz has worn Blue since his breakaway win in Droitwich last Sunday.

We would like to point out that at this stage these reports have eminated from the BBC news website and are at this stage unconfirmed. The Crazy Hamster Crew directors take all allegations of this nature seriously and an internal enquiry is to be held.

Comment from Millerz and the other members of the team will follow.

It's Sponsorship Time...

With a little over eight weeks to go, and training in full swing, it'a about time we started to get some dollar in the bag for the fine charities we're doing this for.

We have a fundraising site at www.justgiving.com/crazyhamstercrew. We're working on some raffle incentive where for every £2 donated online, you'll get a ticket for an opportunity to win some awesome prizes. Keep checking here for what they are but no.1 is a signed CrazyHamsterCrew t-shirt hmmmmmmmm!

Look, Gemma's supporting us...

If you think you can donate prizes then either email us, or just post them to the Hire-It address on the top left marked for CHRIS. Any companies helping out will get a personal mention here and if you send us your logo we'll put you on our T-Shirts.

That said, if you're a t-shirt printing firm and can help out here, please get in touch.

Please do all you can. The boys and I are grafting our socks of, getting soaking wet cramming training in where we can and you'll agree these are fantastic charities to support.

Keep checking the site, we aim to post every couple of days,

Chris

PS, when we break the £250 mark I'm going to upload some very funny photos of Andy that he think's I've destroyed. C'mon, get donating
PPS, If you're the 1000th Viewer, take a screen shot to prove it, press print screen and paste it into an email to one of us. You can have a CHC Tshirt too!

******NEWS FLASH******

Today, there has been a report that Lee has bought a copy of "Cycling Weekly" & started his training program.......
At first it was thought that this was a enormous hoax & a mentally ill person was detained for questioning. This is a magnificent day in history, keep watching this site for further details.

End of an era... (WSFC Students post here)

Well four days away in the mountains and the bike didn't even make it out of the car :o( Gutted. Well, only kind of. I went away, as I always do at this time of year, with my lovely students from Worcester Sixth Form College. I supervise their Gold Duke of Edinburgh's award expedition in the Rhinnog Mountains. This years trip went quite well, preparation lacked a bit but all the groups managed to complete their routes and passed their award. I guess they'll be reading this so - WELL DONE GUYS !!. The only problem for me was the fact that they all insisted on walking as late into the night as possible which meant I couldn't get out for a ride but never mind, I did a few hills on foot and the fresh air was great. I told them all to check out the blog so if you're a college student reading this, then add the site to your myspace/facebook/bebo and drop it out in conversation/email and start one of those chain texts I know you all do! Oh, and refrain from just one alcoholic beverage and sponsor us a couple of quid on our justgiving site!

Have a great summer, finish your DoE and enjoy work/uni. Make sure you comment on this post so I know you've checked it out. I'll cross reference posts against the list of those on the trip. God forbid anyone who doesn't look!!!!!

And the end of an era thing? well I've just given ten years service to the college. I volunteer which means I don't get paid. This trip has been my last :o(

The wanderer returns.....

Well, Chris is back from Germany and we are both off for the weekend for a spot of training. Chris will be camping ( i hope the weather improves) with his Duke of Edinburgh mob whilst I am having a couple of days away with the family, & my bike hopefully.
I've got to say that the last couple of rides have been in the recent inclement weather & i didn't realise how much fun it could be riding blind in torrential rain..... Just for the record, Chris & I were due to go for a leg stretch last night (thursday) but he bottled it due to the localised flooding. Needless to say, I still went out for the crack, insanity rules eh!

I'm craving training?

Well I'm back from my break and all sausage'd out. Those Germans really do know how to eat meat. For those adults of you out there please excuse any puns. I thought I'd have put on loads of weight but we must've walked a fair few K's each day which seems to have done the trick.

I saw a new bike which I'd like to add to my collection (after I get a BMX). Check this out, and look they've got one for Andy:

How cool are they?!? Also whilst enjoying a fine German Weissenbier at the Hofbrauhaus in Munich we bumped into some lovely peeps from the good ol' US of A. Not sure how I managed to slip the Crazy Hamster Crew into conversation but hopefully we should be getting some kids from a school in Michigan following our progress now. All support is greatly appreciated so please, post away!

Right, back to the serious stuff. We need sponsorship now. If you can give us some cash, see the details at the top of the page. If you know anyone in cycling shops, outdoor brands or energy drinks etc and can get them to send us promo stuff please get in touch. Also, see this Pearl Izumi "Ernie and Burt" top I found in Munich:

They only had it in Small and I need a Medium one! Help! We're going to be getting some crazyhamstercrew.co.uk branded t-shirts made soon so if any company sends us stuff, we'll stick your logo on and send you some photos.

Oh, and yeah...I'm desperate to get out cycling again. I never thought this "roady" bug would get me but it's certainly creeping up!! Roll on tomorrow night, I get to see my steed again.

Mid-week update

No rides planned this week as I'm off to Germany for a few days but I think we've got one scheduled for next Thursday. Andy's been polishing the bikes and I know Lee's been cycling to work so the training continues. I see Andy has added a moral boosting image of one of the hairpins - thanks mate.

Had to visit my Doc today for a cycling related injury (and he contributed to the progress of the team in a way only he'll know! - cheers Doc, legend) and he suggested a JustGiving website. I was under the impression that they charged but read the page for charities (doh!) so here is our link:

www.justgiving.com/crazyhamstercrew

It's not just the ride we're doing. You can see by the Blog we are putting in many hours training and hope to have some Crazy Hamster Merchandise to flog soon. We'll have some competitions too. We hope we're entertaining you and that you'll pop a few quid in the pot.

This link will raise money for Epilepsy in Action, we're also putting some cash to the British Heart Foundation as they started it all off with the 'Crew's first outing London-Paris 2006. Choose as you will.

Bikeys on tour

This weekend, the crazy hamster crew temporarily became the crazy Bikey crew as Millers and Chris went off to the peak district to do some training. We arrived on Saturday afternoon at a site a couple of miles up the road from Leek and soon began pedalling. We took the road to Buxton, a mere 7 miles away. Only it had this hill in between us and the yellow town:

(Click on it to look at it close up) but anyway, it was a climb of almost 270 metres over the first few K's. We were going up hill for almost half an hour!

"This is were the England cycle team train" Millerz quipped as we pitched up in Buxton. Oh did I mention it was pouring it down all the way and at times we couldn't see past the end of our brake levers?

Well, after a quick chow on a GO (made by SIS - now sponsor us!) bar, we headed back to the pickey van. We dispatched the whole trip in about 1hr and a quarter, a total of 27K's but it was the hill training were were there for.

Today, Sunday saw us get up and do a quick jaunt to stretch the legs, about 19K's with some hefty hill work again before we returned and exchanged some foil wrapped heather with Fiona in exchange for a full cooked breaky. Good on you Mrs M!

Oh and for the record, I refused to sleep in the pikey van and instead crashed in that tent thing on the side. But it was a fairly nice van. Mr and Mrs M must've worked hard selling scrap metal over the last few months to afford it!

Another training ride

Boo-yak-asha, 'ere mi now. Maximum rispek. Me an my homey Millerz jus knocked bak 39K's hof North Worcestershire's hugest terrain. Dispatched in 1hour35 dis iz anotha one hout hof da way. Perfomance iz improvin an' we evun got hollers an' whistles from catshill's fittest bitches on da jaunt bak to Chez Millerz.

It's da Peak District to chek forward to hat da weekend, we're off to somewhere near leek so chek hout fe us. We'll be da ones dyin hat da side hof da road hat da top hof da hills :o)

Chek yous soon. Rispek

Real roadies ride on sundays............

Well, it looks like the old man of the team (well, not that old), was the only one to get some mileage in over the weekend. Just got back from a 65km ride in around two & half hours & feeling pretty good.
Chris felt obliged to see his girlfriend as he appears to have neglected her a tad just lately. He will probably need the extra rest to prepare himself for our Peak adventure next weekend.

RAIN, RAIN & MORE RAIN.......

Well, what can I say. Last night Chris & I went for a short ride of around 26km. It was meant to be a 2 hour ride but due to the weather we had to change our plan. To say it was heavy rain is an understatement, it chucked it down for virtually all of the ride and we were soaked within about 30 seconds of starting.
Chris appears to have been sniffing something again as his legs seemed to have an endless supply of energy.....perhaps he's finally getting fit!!!!
Despite the conditions, it was a good spin out and I reckon we are actually on target the the final ride. The mileage is on the up and we are certainly attacking the hills with more vigour.
We are off to the Peak District next weekend for some "proper" hills, I suppose we will then see if the training is paying off.
As you can see in the photo, Chris never lets an opportunity pass to get himself on film even when wet and a little tired.
By the way, I had to clean and oil the bikes....god damm dirt monkeys just can't keep things clean.

27k's, one hour

Wow-wow-wee. Boy didn't we blast last night. Left my pad at 4.30 and returned at 5.30 having nailed 27k's of very mixed terrain. We headed out to Cutnall Green and then back though the lanes to Dodford, up into Chaddesley Wood, through Harvington and then I got a bit of pain in my groin. 5 Mins of stretching and then back on for home.

It was a great midweek ride which felt much longer. On our return I knocked up a super pasta dish to refuel and lubricate (ask millerz about the oil!).

Oh, and we managed to recruit a new member to the Crazy Hamster Team last night....more to follow at a later date (she's not cycling but will be playing a major part in the buildup).....