The story of The Two Fat Cyclists (one's fatter than the other) began in September 2007. I had helped Andy out playing a gig at Pasta Paulo (Pendine's then premier Italian bistro) with him to celebrate the homecoming of the original coast2coast usa team after a training ride to North Wales and back.

I fancied the idea of doing `a bit of cycling` for general fitness and purchased a Giant bike from Jon Mills at Tenby Cycles and it went from there. We started to do more and more gigs some more disastrous than others and began doing more and more miles on the bike.

After some personel changes in the coast2coast usa team I was elevated to fat support cyclist #1. More gigs followed (with slightly improved quality) along with many other charitable events such as Dafodil Classic cyclosportif, Christmas Polar Bear swim and beach fun run.

More personel changes and I am further elevated, this time to `full blown team cyclist for the main event` - crossing the USA in 15 days as part of a group of 4 cyclists and support crew. 

Over the 18mths in the lead up to the main event we've had some fantastic times. Gigging many times at the New Three Mariners, Laugharne; training rides to Chippenham, riding across Crete and up through the Kalikratis Gorge and around many beautiful parts of Wales.

The crossing of the US itself was an amazing experience and some great friends (Shipmates - Merv Cooper speak) were made.

After returning home and having said the bike was going in the skip, a feeling of loss started to set in and after 3 days at home I was gagging for a ride. The bike was reassembeled and I was back on the road and rattling along through Capel Dewi and loving it . After speaking to Guru Edwardakis (Andy) about the emptiness I was feeling ideas of more challenges started to develop in the grey matter. I was thinking Lands End - John O` Groats and then the Guru trumps it all with "what about the RAW"....Race Across the West (USA 1000 miles 68 hours Oceanside to Taos) here we go again......my poor arse.....

Happy Pedalling
Phil