Assalamoaleikum and peace,


My name is Fazl Buchari and I do silly things at times. By doing silly things I hope to promote awareness and raise help for those less fortunate.

In around 2010 my squash champion buddy Faisal Raza and I had this random idea of cycling from London to Scotland self-supported. Didn’t have a clue how we’d do it. In fact, we didn’t even have bicycles. The thought was so random that we thought we could just simply hire bikes and roll them through the entire country. The only bikes I had ridden up until that point were bmx or mtb and motorbikes (fast ones). Sadly, for me my bestie Raja deserted us and went off to the ‘land of the brave’ so that trip never happened. It happened but within our tiny brains.

We still laugh about it when we speak on the phone. We don’t mention it often but it does come up and it’s always banter.

I’ve recently come across a youtube video from GCN where Hank and Mark did a relay from Lands End to John O’Groats in under 39 hour. Mad! watch the video here:
 


https://youtube.com/watch?v=iaXQlTZepf4>

The above has rekindled the desire to smash out an epic of our own. I just wish we had the resources and the team that Hank and Mark were lucky enough to have.

Banter until now! We recently made some very good friends around the country, courtesy of brothers on bikes cc that have an open invitation policy for cyclists from minority backgrounds. Some riders from Scotland. You see where this is going, I hope. So, we’ve had an invitation to join the cool cats from the north on a couple of rides at a weekend towards the end of July 2021. Naturally we accepted. Then came back the aforementioned crazy idea of London-Scotland by cycle. I mean if we are going to ride there why not ride it there too.

I decided to do it for Falastin 🇵🇸 and to promote awareness along the ride and through social media, raise funds for the suffering families.

This is about humans requiring basic necessities. This is our way to help the suffering and those brave volunteers on the ground by providing them with essentials. We have all seen the atrocities of late.


I dragged our captain, JBoB into this too (took some convincing). Our resident Radio1 Jamula agreed (he just says ‘ok’ without thinking what’s awaiting) and we might have our self-proclaimed professor Mangera joining us on this epic 680km self-supported ride from London to Glasgow. This is by no means a world record attempt or even something that’s superhuman, but it is very close to that for us little weekend cyclists 😅

Sheraz aka Dr Analysis very kindly sketched us a route. In total, approximately 5,300 metres of elevation over a distance of 680km.

Considering we will be using garmin bike computers we might take a few wrong turns, wahooligans eat your heart out!

That is by far the most climbing I’ll ever have done over a ride. Naturally we are simple and humble creatures so we have divided the route into two rides as riding through the night would not be sensible considering this is a self-supported effort. No support vehicles, no mechanics or any other form of help apart from the odd draft we might get from riders, vehicles going in the same direction. Yes, this will hurt a little.

Any supporters are welcome to join us en-route for a bit of support/cheerleading cheeky draft😉 if they wish - bring flags🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸!!! 
Please contact me for the route and I’ll have a gpx/strava route ready for you😎.

Day 1, our longest day in terms of distance, will begin in London, Woodford Green at The Castle. Start time be 4:00AM and the three or four of us will begin our journey to Glasgow via Cambridge, Peterborough, Lincoln, Scunthorpe, Selby, Boroughbridge, Ripon. We will attempt to cover approximately 390km getting over 1,750 metres of elevation along then way. Tough, long and exhausting but luckily not too steep. The idea is to rest our legs someplace in Ripon and crack on at first light. We may have razor sharp Riz cheering us on going through Cambridge and Jav and Jahan & Co through Peterborough then Ibn and Shafter headed towards York and from there on our resident Dr Analysis and maybe Altaf & Akybird unless they give us a kickstart on Day 2. International smiles!

Day 2 begins in Ripon and will take us through Leyburn, Kirkby Stephen, Penrith, Carlisle, Gretna, Lockerbie, Lesmahagow, Strathaven and finally East Kilbride. Majority of the climbing, a whopping 3,470 metres of hard yorkshire/dales climbing. That kettle be on constant.
Legs will burn, arms will ache, necks will get stiff and lower backs will cry. Dramatic enough? It’ll be tough but worth every meter out on tarmac thinking of how all of this may inspire others to get out and do similar challenges in aid of some less fortunate souls out there. We will end in Glasgow, hopefully grab munch to recover the much-depleted sources of energy and in sha Allah watch the support fund page.

Once rested for the day of Friday and Jummah prayers attended we will join the lovely chaps from Scotland to do a 150km ride on Saturday through the beautiful country side of Scotland and another 100km recovery ride on Sunday.

This ride will be mentally and physically a big challenge but it doesn’t compare to how scarred the people of Falastin are.

Please help and support our cause, whether by praying, sharing, contributing in any shape or form. Let’s get some joy across to those suffering families of Falastin 🇵🇸 every penny counts!

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