The Donation Post

Hi,

I am setting this post up so that it will now be the main Donating Post for anyone who would like to support me and the charities that I'm raising money for. This makes it easier for people to follow the link directly to a donate button, rather than trying to search for one throughout this blog.

If this is your first time here and your not sure what your donation would be going to then please Click Here to find out more about what a Tri-Dangerthon is and the 4 Charities that it's helping.

All that is left to say for this post is....

Please Donate as Much as You Can by clicking on the Donate Button below.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT

All the best,

Rich

India Trip Itinerary Days 7 to 13

Hi,

Here is the itinerary for the 2nd part of the journey, days 7 to 13.


Day 7
An early wake up call will be tough for some to deal with this morning as the aches and pains of the last few days start to take hold. Today is another long and demanding ride as we make our way to Mysore, ancient summer seat of the Raj. Mysore is a city much more used to tourists due to it’s regal status, proud history and beautiful buildings. Day 8
Mysore to Masinagudi is a beautiful and short day’s riding. It’s dense tiger reserves, huge wild elephant populations and friendly villagers make this a memorable and exhilarating place to ride. It’s the day’s destination however, that makes this such a special experience. The Jungle Hut guest house is nestled in the Mudumallai tiger reserve and the scenery and wildlife are out of this world.Day 9
Rest and recuperation at Jungle Hut, this off bike period will give us time to reflect on our very special surroundings and is also good for the bikes, as it gives the mechanics a proper chance to service them after their testing ride.

Day 10
We leave the beauty of Mudumallai behind and head off up the mountain to Ooty, once there we tackle one of the most amazing rides in India, another secret road that Enduro India have special permission to ride. This ‘road’ doesn’t appear on any maps and certain stages have been closed to foreigners since the 1960’s. Riding this road – and it’s 100 hairpin bends is one of the most amazing and challenging stages on the rally. Not to be rushed, riding on earth doesn’t get much better than this. Today sees us finish at Kodaikanal. Kodaikanal was the only American hill station under British rule and still maintains a strong international presence with it’s famous Kodai school. It’s also set up for tourists with shopping and email facilities available. The food here is also fantastic and there are many Tibetan immigrants. The road from Palani to Kodai is one of the most memorable on earth.

Day 11
First we leave Kodai and spend 2 hours descending the beautiful and high mountain. Then we hit the stunning wildlife sanctuary of Indira Gandhi and Chinnur, with their awesome switchbacks and great tarmac. The views here are wild in the extreme, we will never be far away from big cats, elephants, bears and Hyenas. After this stunning stage and just when you thought it couldn’t get any better we hit the tea country and Munnar national park.

Day 12
Today we have a nice easy ride through the tea towards the fragrant spice plantations of Thekkady. Nestled in the most amazing tiger reserve in south India is our hotel. Today is a true half day and that offers us the chance to go shopping, drink a cold beer or visit the stunningly beautiful Periyar tiger reserve.

Day 13
Today will be an emotional day as it's our last of riding. We travel past one of Indias biggest Arch Dams and tackle the tricky roads of the Idukki wildlife reserve towards our nights stop at the amazing city of Kottayam. I must be prepared for a very emotional ride in, on the now famous final stretch of Enduro India.


So they are the outline details of of where I am going to be each day to give you some idea of what I will be facing. My plan is to send Live feeds via #richinindia on twitter as often as possible throughout each day of my journey and to also post my thoughts and feelings of each days events on here at the end of every day, as long as we have internet connection available.

As always, please scroll down to the nearest Donate Button and give as much as you can to these fantastic causes. Thank You.

All the best

Rich

What's a Hashtag and How can you use it to Follow my Journey?

Hi Everyone,

Since I announced on twitter what the Hashtag would be to enable you to follow me on my journey through India, I have been asked What is a Hashtag and How do you use it? So here is an explanation and details to get you started -

Firstly if you haven't got an account on Twitter then you will need to sign up for one, it's free and easy. Once you have an account you can then follow me by clicking on 'follow me on twitter' half way down the right hand column on this blog.
So, what is a hashtag? It is a way of being able to organise specific topics and events on twitter into one group. Once a tweet includes a hashtag it can then be easily found by typing in the hashtag into 'twitter search' and anyone can send a tweet including the hashtag so that it shows up within that group. Let's just go back one step and explain what a tweet is for those that have just or are about to set up a twitter account. A tweet is a short message of no-more than 140 characters which is posted on your twitter page for anyone who is 'following' you to see. I'll leave it at that for now but just to let you know that you can send your tweets to other sites such as facebook, so they're a very handy way of typing a short message once and then having it displayed in numerous sites. Cool Eh!
Now that you know what a tweet is, what the heck do you tweet about? Well anything and everything. Let's give you a couple of examples - earlier I sent a tweet saying I was playing on the Wii with my son. Why? you may ask. I look at twitter as a way of 1. expressing myself 2. for others to get to know who I am, what I like and what I do and 3. providing information. By doing this, people will be able to relate to me, get to know me and trust me. From this point onwards a mutually beneficial relationship maybe formed for friendship, business or both. Once I have finished this post, I will then tweet that there is an update to my blog and you may be reading this due to the tweet I sent. So there are many different reasons why you would tweet and all I would say is embrace it, sign up to it and give it time. You will soon see the benefits.
Hopefully you now have a better understanding of twitter and tweets, so we'll now carry on with How to use Hastags. Let's take the hashtag I have created for my trip across India -

#richinindia - this can now be typed within a tweet, so that it will then be grouped with all the other tweets with that hashtag in. For example -

I may post a tweet - 'very hot today and covered 100 miles' this would just go out as a standard tweet and wouldn't be easily searchable or be assigned to anything specific. However if I typed - '#richinindia very hot today and covered 100 miles' this will now be assigned to the group of tweets that includes #richinindia. It will be easily searchable and anyone would be able to reply or add their own comment by including the same hashtag.

(side note: the hashtag may be typed anywhere within the tweet, not neccessarily at the beginning)

So that hopefully explains what are and how to use hashtags. If you're still unsure or are unable to find my stream of tweets with the #richinindia hashtag, then please get in touch and I'll do what I can to help.

Just to conlude, here is are the 4 steps you need to take to follow and interact with me -

1. sign up to Twitter
2. Follow me
3. type #richinindia into search on your twitter page
4. send a tweet with #richinindia included

I hope this helps and look forward to hearing from you on my journey.

All the best,

Rich

The India Trip Itinerary

Well I hope you have all had a fantastic Christmas and are gearing up to some spectacular New Year celebrations. I have had a lovely time with my family and this New Year we will be at my sister-in-laws with the kids, just having a good time and playing games. We will no doubt then watch the fireworks in London on the TV and then, dependant on children, either go home or celebrate some more.
One thing I would urge you all to do though is set at least one goal that you want to achieve in 2010 and then go out and make it happen. How do you think I ended up here? Without goals and then Action, you're dreams will always remain just that....dreams. So make 2010 the year that at least one of your dreams comes true! :-) To learn how to set your goals in such away that you have no choice but for them to happen see my blog www.richvincent.me where in the next couple of days I will be posting how I set mine and what they are for the coming year.

So on to the up coming trip and the final part of my Tri-Dangerthon. 2500km across India on a Royal Enfield Bullet motorcycle. Here is the itinerary for each day -


Day 1
Arrive in India and chill out for the rest of the day, meet the team in the evening.Day 2
Warm up day, this day enables us to get used to the Indian traffic and the idiosyncrasies of the Royal Enfield. Day 3
Today is designed to break us all in gently, this rally stage sees us tackle a beautiful and demanding stretch of the western Ghat mountain range on our way to Palolem, our first nights destination. Palolem is one of Indias most beautiful beach resorts; During the riding day we will encounter mountains every bit as spectacular as the Himalayas, just with lots and lots of forest and no snow peaks, due to the reduced altitude. Today is short in length to give us a chance to build confidence. It is a stunning and remote ride. Very rough accomodation and a breathtaking location tonight - the rally has begun. Day 4
The second day is longer and more demanding but feels no harder due to the fact we are becoming more confident on our bikes and the forest trails and mountain passes are becoming less daunting. Today’s ride is quite simply mind-blowing as we wind our way on and off road all the way over the mountains and back to our nights stop point at a truly secret cove, looking out to the Arabian sea. Day 5
Today we start off with a short stretch of highway, which by Indian standards is very quiet, we then take some beautiful winding roads up the mountains stopping for lunch at Indias highest waterfall; Jog Falls. Once we’re refreshed we’ll crack on towards our final nights stop, a bustling Indian city of Shimoga. Shimoga sees no tourists whatsoever, and therein lies it’s fascination for us – it is one of the rare places on earth you can see a city totally unaffected by tourism. It is eye opening and extremely friendly, it is probably one of the only places on earth where the owner of a petrol station asks you in for a coffee!Day 6
If there was an awards programme for the worlds best rides this day would be up right up there. It’s so good it’s almost too much for the mind to take in. We will bike up and down roads that haven’t been used by traffic for decades – at some stages we may have to send a chainsaw gang in before we tackle it, as nature has taken it’s hold so firmly. Cautious and progressive are the terms appropriate on these stages, as the scenery is awesome but the road conditions changeable. We finish this tough day with the sun setting behind us as we chase shadows all the way to the incredible mountain resort of Kalasa nestled in the vast Elephant area of Kudremukh National Park.

So that's the first 6 days of the trip, it sounds absolutely amazing doesn't it. I really can't wait but I'm also getting quite nervous and apprehensive, which is great, as I can now feel the adrenaline really starting to well up inside :-)

Please check back shortly for days 7 to 12 and details of how you can follow me on the whole journey!

All the best

Rich

PS Please scroll down to a DONATE button and show you're support by giving whatever you can. Thank You

Testing 1 2 3 Testing.....

Just playing with my new laptop and the connection to the net using my mobile phone. Getting ready for the trip and ensuring that I can connect using this method and type a blog. While I'm typing this I have disconnected so as not to use up too much time which will cost a fortune out in India! So I am now about to connect again and see if this post will then be uploaded.
Hopefully you will be reading this and it will have been successful :-)

I Hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and a very Happy New Year to you all.

All the best,

Rich

The Route Across India...

In Aid of
Hi All,

Well here is the first of details that I will be posting over the next few weeks about the trip that I will be taking across India In January 2010. This is the 3rd and final part of my Tri-Dangerthon and I can't believe what I year I have had with this and the fact that India is now only 1 month away!
Below is a map of the route that we will be taking over the 12 days of riding. We will be covering 2,500km on varied terrain. Some days we could be riding for up to 10 hours + and I just hope and pray that the little Royal Enfield's that we will be riding, hold out. The reason that these bikes have been chosen for the trip is that they are still built brand new in India today to the same design that they were when they were originally built in England back in the early 1900's. In fact, Royal Enfield built there first motorcyle in Redditch, Worcestershire in 1901 and they have been built continously until this day. This makes Royal Enfield the oldest motorcycle company in the world and the Royal Enfield Bullet (the bike that we will be riding) the longest production run model.
Of course and as always we don't want to forget the reasons why I'm doing this, so here are the links for you to check out the charities that I'm raising for -

Downs Syndrome Association / Unicef / Rainbow Childrens Charity / WCS

Please, please check out those links they are well worth looking at and then scroll down to any of the donate buttons throughout this blog to make your contribution. Thank You, it is very much appreciated.

click on image to enlarge

So that's the route and I'll be posting further details in the run up to the trip. I also hope to post at the end of each day while I'm out there, so that you can see how we're getting on and hear all about our challenges as they happen.

That's it for this time. I will be back between Christmas and New Year so all that leaves me to say is .....

Have a very Merry Christmas, eat, drink and be merry!!

Best wishes

Rich

It's Me...On The Radio!! :-)

In Aid of

Hi,

This is the interview of Moi on The Morning Show on BBC Radio Lincs, talking about my Tri-Dangerthon. While you're listening, why not take a look around the rest of this blog.

You can Donate by clicking on any of the donate buttons throughout this blog. Thank You.

All the best,

Rich