Armed Forces European bike ride.

Sorry if this is the wrong forum for this topic.

Got back from Australia and I just cannot be bothered to go back to work yet,so I have come up with a cunning plan.

The Cunning Plan

To ride around every country in Europe and visit every major and/or practical war memorial that I can.Ranging right up into Northen Europe and as far down as turkey.....I was going to go for North Africa,but having a bike badged up in an armed forces charity livery is possibly tempting fate in north Africa......almost certain to be lasting at least 3 months.

Now this is just the planning stage,but I will be fielding research on when and where to go and how to do it.

The not-so Cunning Plan

I really need advice on how to set up a charity event like this ride.

Websites and such,how to enable people to donate. etc

I am going to be knocking on various companies doors for some sponsership and might have got a tentative promise on riding gear already.

Items ready

Me...........................ready to go,fit and healthy

Bike BMWR 100GSPD....ready to go,hopefully rebuilt this week

Time.............taking another year off work,so no problem

Aptitude........got most the gear and the ability to do big trips.


Suggestions

Any and all advice will be appreciated,anything from routes and country advice...what companies or media to contact....please feel free to put in your comment.

Cheers

Andy Smith

war graves commission in winsdor they'll know where all the locations are, just giving to setup the donations page. Try The Sun for abit of PR publicity you could do that via their website.

hope that helps

TravelPod looks to have a good system for blogging your trip, with maps, photos etc. Haven't used it yet, but plan to in a few weeks.

TravelPod advertises built in Donation handling, but I would suggest using JustGiving for donations as it handles collection of GiftAid (extra 28p for every £1), sends donations directly to the charity (so no suggestion of fraud) and handles all the thank-you notes etc. It's a great system. You could just add a button or link to your JustGiving page in every post on your blog.

You may also find some inspiration and blog writing hints in this Telegraph article

Good luck with the trip - can't wait to follow along (and make a donation)

War memorials

I have just come across this topic. If you decide to come down and cross France via Lyon I can give you a few ideas e.g. The SAS Memorial at Sennecey le grand 'between Macon and Chalon.) On this are engraved the names of all Belgian, French and British SAS who died in the war. (Special ceremony 4th September)
St.Germain au Mont d'Or - North of Lyon. British cemetery from the Great War which contains about 100 soldiers who died - there was a transit camp here. Big ceremony on saturday after Remembrance Sunday usually.
La Doua -military cemetery on North side of Lyon. 39 RAF crew are buried here. there is also le Mur des Fusillés where about 80 young men were executed by the Gestapo - nice chaps who operated from the centre Ville.
There are also many hundreds of memorials where aircraft crashed and crew are buried nearby. At very many of them there is an annual ceremony and sometimes relatived come out from the UK.
Gret in touch nearer your date of deparure and look at the Royal british legion website www.britishlegion.org.uk and you will find details of Overseas branches. (We have a branch in Lyon.) Best wishes Brian

Hi,
Good idea, are you serving????

silver fox said:

Hi,
Good idea, are you serving????

Click to expand...

If he's taking another year off work then it must be my old mob