Thank you to all those NMB members who supported Councillor Nick McDonald, Neil Whitney from Gleeds and me in raising funds for our charitable cause through our bike ride to the MIPIM Conference in Cannes. All in all we have raised in excess of our target, more than £9,000, principally for Coram the UK’s oldest children’s charity which supports vulnerable young people across the country, and does much good work in adoptions in our local area.
The Nottingham team arrive in Cannes.
The only word to accurately describe the bike ride itself is ‘messy’. However well prepared one is for such a challenge, it is never possible to predict what is just round the corner. On this occasion it was the ‘norovirus’ 24-hour sickness bug, which afflicted a large proportion of the peloton, including the three of us. It would probably be unkind to you the reader to set out all the gory details. Suffice to say that it was not pretty!
Another major feature, particularly in the very early mornings – we started at 6am – was the cold, with cycling eyewear freezing over on the road like a car windscreen on a frosty morning and on one occasion Neil finishing a stage looking more like Scott of the Antarctic than himself with ice crystals for eyebrows and icicles in his beard!
Having said all of that, we made and renewed many good connections for Nottingham and Nottinghamshire on the road, the participants in the ride including representatives of major national firms of property agents, architects, developers, and funders. Although many good connections are made at MIPIM it is relatively unusual to spend a significant amount of time there with any one individual, and one of the benefits of the bike ride is that over a period of six days you do get to know specific individuals quite well and can understand more fully what benefits a relationship with them can provide to Nottingham (although it can often be quite difficult to recognise people you have spoken to on the road without their helmets and cycling glasses!).
This year the Invest in Nottingham team for the ride to MIPIM consisted of the three Nottingham representatives plus eight individuals drawn from the wider peloton. It would be great to see in future a full team of local riders representing Nottingham and wearing Invest in Nottingham jerseys.
The training starts now!