» Sponsors
These are our top 2 sponsors to date, we didn’t want to put either in second place so they share the glory at the top of our sponsors list.
Howies are a British clothing company, they do everything they can to be low-impact, ensure fair trading and produce high-quality clothes. Using organic materials wherever possible, Howies produce some great-looking clothes, at least I think they do and so does my brother. They have been our most generous sponsor, providing us with all our thermal layers for the trip, which are made of high-quality merino wool. They also made the effort to phone us to say that they really supported our trip and what it stands for, which is nice.
Cambridge Station Cycles are an independent cycle centre, just outside the city’s train station, they hire, sell and repair bikes. We went in to them just after we had our bikes stolen to look for replacements. Charlie, the owner, talked us through our options, managed to sort getting identical replacements sent out the same day (unheard of with Dawes), gave us huge discounts on the bikes and also gave us new, stronger locks and replacement fittings. They really did help us get back on the road, so to speak.
Celik’s mensroom hairdressers in Cambridge have kindly provided funds to assist with the cost of our new bikes following the theft of our first ones. It’s a hairdresser Tom has used all his life but don’t hold that against them, they do offer a range of styles and do a decent job with them, they are also extremely friendly in there.
Cycle Care in High Wycombe are certainly the highest quality bike shop in the Amersham area, selling good quality bikes. Simon allowed me to ‘play’ in the workshop for 2 weeks, getting experience with the mechanics of bikes before our trip, they also supplied us with our Dawes Ultra Galaxies, which were beautiful bikes that we really enjoyed for the short period that we had them.
Road Cycling UK and Bike Magic (owned by Magicalia) are popular online cycling magazines and have donated 2 cycling jerseys each to Tom and myself. They are also publishing articles and photos from our trip.
Klean Kanteens have kindly donated 4 stainless steel water bottles for us to use on our trip. The material is highly durable and unlike plastic bottles prevents leaching of chemicals into the drink.
Lyon equipment are the principal supplier of many outdoor brands in the UK and provided us with a decent price reduction on our Ortlieb panniers. Ortlieb are the popular choice among touring cyclists, they are totally waterproof and very durable.
Montane is a small British company that specialises in high quality, outdoor clothing made of their own innovative materials. They have provided us with our cycling under-shorts and my waterproof cycling jacket at very good prices.
UMF is a music festival in Finland, in fact it’s the music festival in Finland and they gave us free tickets for the weekend
Ben Hayward cycles of Cambridge are not an official sponsor of our trip but have offered some excellent advice to us in selecting our kit and have provided help whenever we have sought it.
What is this sponsorship for?
We are raising money for 2 different purposes, firstly for charity and secondly to help fund our trip, these accounts are totally separate. This page is for the latter and will display logos (with links to websites) of all companies donating money or equipment towards our trip. We have estimated the costs for our trip, which primarily consist of kit and living costs. Our kit costs totalled to about £6000 (before discounts and before replacing the stolen bikes), and our living costs will amount to around £8000. If you are interested in sponsoring this trip please contact us.