Onwards

At 6.09am on 11th July I set out on my challenge to ride from here in Ilkeston to Skegness and back in 1 day with only myself for company. I left Ilkeston very quietly and began what was to be one if the hardest days of my life. As I started out it felt good, and I mean really good as the pedals spun easily and the pace was quick. Over the last few months I had been training hard to get to where I was by going out most mornings and getting in around 20 miles, then at weekends I did 40 miles. However, the most I had done was last week when I undertook a 90 mile tour of Derbyshire. This was a reality check for me as it really took it out of me and made me aware of how much food and drink I would need to get this done.

After less than an hour I had passed by Nottingham and was well underway averaging around 17mph along the way. This, in itself, was a great pace and well over the expected 15mph I had planned on. Before I knew it I was passing by Bingham and well on my way to Newark. Despite the solitude of this challenge I was still feeling good as I new folks were following the updates via twitter but while the pedals kept spinning so easy the moral was high. After just 2 hours on the road I had passed Newark which meant I was well over 35 miles into my challenge with a total of 179 miles. This meant that I was well over a third of my way towards Skegness. After Newark it got a little more complicated as it meant negotiating some of the back roads and I wasn't familiar with which meant more frequent stops to check the map.

Throughout the journey I had been eating regular and stocking up on energy bars, gel packs both of which taste quite nasty and for the life of me I could not comprehend anyone eating these under any other circumstances. At the 50 mile mark I decided to take a well earned rest of around 15 minutes while I ate some more and restocked the water bottles with the extra water I had in the rucksack. One of the things you don't realise is that you really have to make sure you eat and drink LOTS when running any kind of distance on a bike. On average you will consume over 800 calories per hour and need to replace fluid at around 750ml per hour, this is not an easy thing to do.

Steaming ahead

As I carried on, I was still steaming ahead regularly thundering along at over 20mph which was awesome. At the time I put this down to the fact that the land was flat and I had spent the last few days stocking up on food by eating plenty, as well as continuing to stay fueled up on route. By 10.45am I saw a sign that read 17 mile to Skegness and I was truly amazed by the great time I had made, this meant that in 4hrs and 45 mins I had covered 71 miles which was far better than I had ever dreamed. I finally arrived at a rather busy and very hot Skegness at 12.02pm which meant that I had made it in just under 6 hrs, in actual riding time I had done it in 5hrs 6 minutes at an average of around 17.3mph.

There was no 2 ways about it I knew I had travelled 88 miles but I still felt good. However, in all my preparation with regard to food, drink, bike setup, money etc I had forgotten sunscreen.

While I admit, not the best looking legs around, they are bloody burnt to a crisp and today the sun burn hurts far more than the aching from all that cycling. Enough about that on with the story.

After less than 45 minutes of rest and stuffing my face with lots of sandwiches that i brought with me along with more energy bars and drinks it was time to go again. As soon as I started the journey back I realised what had happened on the way there. Without knowing it, I had been pushed along by a tail wind, when I say a tail wind I mean a 12+mph tail wind which had made it so much easier getting there. However, coming back this friendly tail wind became a vicious head wind which was hell bent on sapping every ounce of energy from my body. That combined with the less than aero dynamic rucksack, severe back ache and a very sore butt it was going to make it hard going.

Tough going

After a total of 120 miles I stopped again to buy more water as I knew I would not be seeing anything for the next 20+miles and I needed to make sure that I had enough fluid. At this point the average speed had dropped from 17.3mph down to a mere 15.7mph, for the most part I was only able to get up to 10-11mph which compared to the journey up was not so good. From this point on things started to get much more difficult as I found it hard to focus and concentrate on what I was doing. Throughout the journey out I had carefully tracked my fluid intake to make sure I was drinking regularly every 10-15 minutes. Now I was unable to remember when I last drank any fluid and it became more guess work than anything else which was not good as the temperature was around 26c out, though with the wind it didn't feel that hot.

It was shortly after this that I took a wrong turning which was to cost me over 5 miles of extra travelling and had it not been for my iPhone and Google Maps I would have continued on the wrong route. Before too much longer I was crossing the A15 and back toward Leadenham but I was really hurting now. I was having to stop every 45 minutes to give my bum and back a break as it was really starting to hurt now and I was having to stand on the bike and stretch every 5-10 minutes. I continued on through Leadenham and on toward the A17 heading back into Newark but turning the pedals now felt like running through treacle only it hurt more. Once on the A17 again I had to stop just 20 minutes after my last stop. The pain in my back was immense and mentally I was broken but I continued on despite the heavy traffic on the A17 on account of the Americana that was taking place. After a gruelling 7 miles more I came in towards Newark and I could take no more, I was broken and could not take any more. I sat at the side of the road trying to find some way to continue on the final 35 miles back to Ilkeston but it was 6pm, I was hurting, I was mentally beaten. No matter how I tried to break it down to smaller milestones they just looked to far to travel.

Defeat

I then called Julie to tell her that I could not continue on followed by a call to my Dad to ask for a ride home. So there I was sat at the side of the A46 waiting to be collected feeling thoroughly defeated and while completing 145 miles solo on a bike was no small feat it was not what I set out to do, and I cried. We've all seen programmes where people cross the finish line a cry through all the pent up emotion and personally I used to think 'what a load of b******s' thinking that people just don't do that, but that was exactly how I felt. The whole thing was just so enormous.

What did we learn?

So what did I learn from all of this? First and foremost never underestimate the challenge that you have ahead of you. Preparation is absolutely everything in these situations, a lesson which can carry you through into your professional life and one that I have learned the hard way. In retrospect I should have done more training of longer routes to ensure that I would be better prepared for the distance. Secondly, never underestimate the motivation that you get from working with others. This can be especially helpful when you are finding it the most difficult to push on.

Conclusion

I am still gutted that I did not complete the challenge especially as I was doing this for a very worthy charity. Some of the people I have spoken to have said that they will still donate the money as what was achieved was no small effort and for that I truly am thankful.

Would I do this again? Yes I definitely will, in fact I have already decided I want to go next spring. If anyone is interested in joining me next year then please let me know.

What would I do differently? I would get 1 or more people to come along on the challenge to help keep things motivated. Also, arrange for a "support vehicle" to accompany us on the trip to carry food and water for us. Carrying an extra 3-4kg on my back really did not help things.

Has this dose of reality changed my plans of doing end-to-end? I still want to go from John o Groats to Lands End in 5 days. What this challenge has taught me is that I will need to prepare much more for this challenge but it will be possible. I will also be looking for other people who are crazy enough to try this.

On a last note I would like to say a HUGE thank you for all of the support from everyone both in person and via Twitter. A thank you as always for my Dad coming out to collect me despite him having to miss the World Cup Final. Finally a last, but largest thank you of all for Me-Julie for all of her support before, during and after the challenge. I didn't take defeat too well, Julie has been a massive support for me and has helped me no end. So thank you to everyone.

- Rob

So here we are and on Sunday 11th July 2010 I will be making this epic journey and I still looking for sponsors for this moment of madness. Please take a moment to read a little about this below:

To whom it may concern,
Almost 4 years ago my son, Daniel, was born with a defect in his diaphragm which meant that his vital organs were in his chest crushing his heart and lungs. Thanks to pioneering surgery which was performed in London his chances were increased from 10% chance of survival to almost 50%. While these were still tough odd’s in a few short days he will be celebrating his 4th birthday thanks to the hard work of medical professionals. For the first 2 ½ years of his life he was in hospital spending time on a ventilator which allowed him to grow strong. Now that he is home safe and growing stronger and we wanted to do something to help a charity which helps families of children like Daniel, this is Breathe On UK.
I have decided to do a sponsored bike ride from Ilkeston to Ilkeston via Skegness in 1 day, around 185 miles.

I am asking you today if you can spare some money for a very worthy charity who support families when they need it most and who don’t attract the publicity that some of the larger originations do, any contribution would be greatly appreciated.

Why choose Breathe On UK?

Breathe On UK is a national charity dedicated to supporting the families and carers of young people who are life-dependent on mechanical breathing, or long term ventilation (LTV). Such a situation is recognised as being extremely traumatic and emotionally, physically, and financially demanding: often leading to both nervous breakdown and partnership failure.
Recent research and medical estimates indicate that more than 1,000 children in the UK exist with this condition and that the number is increasing by some 15 per cent annually. To date Breathe On UK has:
* Established a respite agreement in collaboration with the Association of Children's Hospices
* Been responsible for a bespoke oxygen delivery mask in conjunction with Respironics (Philips UK) which is now available off the shelf
* Worked together with Contact A Family - Legislation has now been passed to enable The Blue Badge to be given to families of LTV & Technology dependent young children under the age of two years.
* Provided Family liaison support in the South West Helped to re-create the statistics on families and children using tracheotomies

Many thanks

Rob Franklin
 

At this moment in time I have managed to secure £250 in sponsorship, most notable CompTIA as well as other individuals, and I would love to secure more than this for a very worthy charity. If you can afford to sponsor my pain on this event then I would really appreciate it as it will make the suffering all the more worthwhile You can contact me by emailing rob@freethecityone.co.uk

Thank for all the support

- Rob
 

But the end of Tuesday the handset had become very unresponsive. For example when you pressed the 'Power' button or the 'Home' button to wake it up, it would sometimes take 2-3 seconds for it to actually switch on. Also, when calls were coming in the screen would come on for a good 2 seconds before it would display the callers name or even start to ring. All of this was far too much when you use the phone as much as I do each day so I had to find a way to downgrade again.

After a little searching I found a process that claimed that it would to do the job and it did after I did it wrong a couple of time. This is what worked for me:

• Connect the iPhone to iTunes
• Put the phone into DFU mode
• Download Apple IOS3.1.3 or 3.1.2 (you can find this on a number of sites)
• In iTunes, hold {Option} and click Restore and point to the IOS file downloaded
• Allow it to restore. At the end it will error, this is normal
• Now use RecBoot to exit recovery mode (I had to use a Mac for this to work)
• Wait for your iPhone to boot up normally

A full video showing how to do this can be found here. This is not meant to be a 'step by step' guide on how to do as there are lots out there it is meant to be a brief guide. The information here is provided AS-IS.

Hopefully this will help others out there who are suffering with desparatly slow iPhone 3G handsets after the upgrade.

For those of you who would like to upgrade to the iPhone 4 but do not like the ridiculous handset prices from O2 et al then take a look at Tesco Mobile here as they have one of the best prices I have seen and if you didn't know they use O2's network anyway!!

- Rob

It got me thinking though of all of the 'first times' that we all have each and every day, not all of them are good but they are still 'first times' none the less. For example, there is the first time that you speak with a new prospect. For some people, this is easier than others but I think that for all of us most of those feelings are the same; you wonder if you will say and do the right things so that you can get the right response. Then you find you have said all the right things and you are going to meet them, for the 'first time', there is the feelings that lead up to that meeting; the stress of not wanting to be late; the time is not ideal but you can't rearrange as its the 'first meeting' etc.

All of these are 'first time' experiences and the fact is that no matter how old we get, how worldly we get or how experienced we are; there will always be 'first times' for the rest of our lives and this is something the treasure as it truly is a gift.

But remember, for each of those 'first times' you only get one chance at it being the 'first time' so make it count!!

- Rob

The thing is our youngest son was in hospital from birth until he was almost 3 years old (you can read about it here)and it brings a few things home to you. Firstly, there is ALWAYS someone worse off than you; Second, there are people out there that no matter how bad it gets they just battle on very seldom complaining. We had some great support for individuals as well as bodies that are involved in his particular illness. As a result I decided last year that I would do something to raise money this year for charity. I have now decided that I will be doing two things to raise money for a great charity who need some support; they are called Breathe On UK. They provide support for ventilated children and their families during some of the more stressful times which is when it is needed most. My chosen events are as follows:

1. Cycle ride from Ilkeston to Ilkeston via Skegness
The plan is sometime in June (to be decided) to cycle from Ilkeston across to the East Coast to Skegness, then turn around and come back again in the same day. This works out at around 200 miles which is not an easy thing but not impossible.

2. Beginners triathlon in August
The second event is a beginners Triathlon which has been organised by Erewash Borough Council and takes place in August this year. The event consists of a 400m swim, 10 mile cycle ride and a 3 mile run. Again not a simple feat for someone who is new to the event but again it's not impossible.

So that's the line up for this year, once I have all of the sponsor forms etc organised I will be asking for anyone willing to sponsor to contribute as this is a great charity that really needs some support. Thanks in advance for any support, I'm outta here now!

- Rob

I envy people who find it easy to get up early in the morning as this is always something I struggle with, don't get me wrong I always wake by 7.30am which some would consider early but I want to be getting up at 6am as there are things I like to do. Lots of people I know get up at 6am seemingly without any major hassles or struggles but do they? I do manage, for the most part, to get up at 6am as I love to cycle early in the morning before work and some would look and think that this comes natural and easy for me. Let me tell you now I REALLY struggle.

Human nature is to see the negatives, for example;

• But the bed is nice and warm and it's cold out there
• Just 5 more minutes..
• It's raining so I'll cycle tomorrow
• I didn't go to bed until late so I'll get up late

The fact is that getting up early sucks for me but if I want to do the things I want to do I have to find the things that get me going...maybe thats all you need too?

- Rob

Many years ago while I was working at a local Nottingham ISP I was asked to go on a radio show to discuss the dangers that the Internet presents to the younger generation. Evan all those years ago people were aware of the dangers but they still needed to be reminded of what to watch out for. Now lets roll forward some 8 years to the Facebook, MySpace and MSN generation where you are considered strange if you don't have a Facebook, MySpace or MSN account and to not be on the Internet makes you a 'dork'*.

So is the Internet any safer now that it was back then? No.

What we are seeing more of very passive behaviour on the part of parents and the role that they *must* play in order to keep their kids safe on the Internet. Now that may seem like a harsh statement and I would like to think that most parents are sensible but many aren't. Only today I heard that someone I know has just signed their son up to a free Live email account and then set them up with a Facebook account despite their son being below the age of 13 required by Facebook. Now we all know that there are kids out there below the age and the that is a fact but there are ways that this can be done *safely*, let me give an example.

Firstly if you wish to give your child an email account of any sort then you should setup the computer so that you get a copy of ANY emails that they get. This means that you can ensure that they are not talking to people that they shouldn't be that could bring them to harm. Second, if you are going to set them up with a service like Facebook ensure that you set it up under an email address that is delivered to YOU not to the child. That way if someone wants to add them as a friend then you will get to know about it so that you can make sure that they do REALLY know them and they are not just added them for the 'numbers'.  As adults there are a great many people that just anyone as a friend on Facebook as it is a 'numbers game' which is ok as we are mature enough to make that decision, but as a child then this *must* be policed by someone who is responsible. This does not even take into account ensuring that 'safe surfing' is taking place with kids.

The fact that someone in this day and age has setup an account without putting any measures in to place to ensure the child's safety is really bewildering and disturbing to say the least. In our house we have an ADSL router which has built in content filtering to ensure that all of the children are able to surf the Internet safely without exposure to 'unwanted' content. I have also setup OpenDNS to ensure that whatever the filter in the router does not pickup then OpenDNS will get it. The children's computers also run Interguard which allows me to monitor things that they do such as MSN, web mail as well as keystroke logging. This means that I can monitor things that they do without them knowing, not so I can play 'god' over what they do but so that I can be a responsible parent and ensure that they are safe. The last thing is, when old enough, they can go on Facebook but email notifications are sent to me or Jules so that we can make sure that they are not doing anything daft and the kids respect that.

I like to think that our children are quite 'savy' when it comes to computers and the Internet and they are but when they're chatting on MSN they have no idea that the person they are talking to is really who they claim they are...that's my job.

At the end of the day this is just my opinion for what it's worth and as much as I would love it to be, the world is not perfect but you can be damn sure I will do all I can to make my kids worth perfect. As always I welcome you're thoughts on this as opinions always vary.

- Rob

* not sure if the term dork still exists but it did in my day.

To cut a long storey short the two key things happened that sealed our fate to 6.5hrs in A+E and a lot of stress and arguments. The first thing was that the doctor did not contact the people we had clearly told him to speak with to get more information. Instead he just rang the on-call person which mean that the wrong information again was fed back. The second was that the carefully written procedures for handling Daniel and the care & oxygenation plans were not made accessible to all people that may be in contact with him. This mean that he was given all of the wrong treatment.

So what has this to do with my IT life? Simple.  The first lesson is when you are dealing with a client, new or existing, the most important thing to do is LISTEN. Let them talk, make notes and ask questions. This simple step alone can save you hours in wasted time and if the client is on a flat-fee contract this means money saved. Second lesson is as you begin to create business processes, checklist and procedures to run your business smoother make sure that everyone that needs to know they are there..know. After all you could have the best product/service on the planet but shouting about it in the middle of a dessert is not gonna do a great deal of good is it.

So to summarise; Stop, Listen then Talk....in that order then you can't go far wrong.

Any thoughts? I'd love to hear them.

- Rob

None the less the first person to that came to speak with me was Adam Harris from Bear-IT who came over to speak with me and discuss what I did. This totally opened my eyes to the fact that maybe, just maybe, those other IT companies were not so evil after all and that maybe, just maybe, there could be synergies between seemingly rival businesses. After this Adam invited me up to meet with him to discuss things further. I was told by another IT company that I was working with at the time not to discuss software and tools etc as they should be a closely guarded 'secret'. However, once I started talking with Adam I found that we all do the same things, same tools, same software just a different business with different faces. So I reciprocated the openness that was shown to me.

Fast forward on to the beginning of this year when I was approached by another IT consultant and fellow business owner from Birmingham. Richard Tubb from Netlink IT contacted me following some posts which I had made on Twitter. After reading Richard's blog it seemed clear that he had travelled the business path which I wanted to embark upon, making the move from being 'self-employed' to being a 'business owner', so we began to talk. Once again I was astounded at the openness of information that was being afforded to me by someone I had only known a short time. Things such as the type of tools to use, how to deliver the best customer experience, service management and delivery, all of which is normally hidden information within the IT trade. So why was all of this being given free of charge, without a catch or clause? Because Richard believed in the community and the power of working together instead of against each other. Now all of this collaboration what highlighted when in May 2009 I was drafted in by Richard and some of his peers to assist in a massive nationwide upgrade project for one of their clients, you can read all about it here. All in all there was 8 different IT businesses working together under on collaborative umbrella which meant that what was a massive project which included over a dozen servers, 200+ desktops across 13 sites was all made possible by the IT community working together instead of against each other.

It was once said by John Donne "No man is an island", and no truer word has been said. For those that run businesses it can be quite isolating but there are people out there who are willing to work with you and help you so don't be afraid to ask.

If you are interested in developing a strategic alliance with myself then please feel free to contact me at rob@potter-tate.co.uk. Alternatively if you have a storey you would like to share about how the community has helped you then send it over as it would be great to share.

- Rob