The Big Bike Ride - How did I miss this on BBC2? Doh!

[Danny-K]

How the heck did I miss this? Did any of you catch this?
- THE BIG BIKE RIDE, BBC2 @ 7pm Wednesday just gone.

It's about two women pensioners, (best friends and former nurses I think), from Scotland, who to celebrate their 70th birthday's, decide to cycle 4,000 miles, coast to coast, across Canada. Simply inspiring; once on the road, see these two elderly ladies, go-man-go!!!

Into the trip and one of them has a spill, the camera sees it, and she just loses all energy and has difficulty breathing, something's wrong as she's normally out front but had a bad feeling from the very start. The news is shocking! Turns out she's told that she has to fly back to Scotland for immediate heart surgery; she needs to have a pacemaker fitted. Now remember she's 70, and in the middle of cycling thousands of miles. She vows to come back after the surgery and rejoin her friend on the bike trip - And she does! Think about that the next time when you're feeling a bit moan-y with the sniffles - in fact she annoys her friend once back in Canada by riding too fast and so far ahead of her, it causes friction between them - straight after heart surgery!!!

Are these girls made from the right stuff or what?

An amazing programme; was looking for something I missed so was trawling the BBC's i-player thingy to see if I could find it and accidentally found The Big Bike Ride - just watched it, utterly entranced; a life reaffirming programme. If you want to see it, remember they only store these programmes for a fortnight or so - give yourself plenty of time - it's an hour long programme. Wished I'd caught it on the bigger screen instead of having to watch it on my computer screen.

Here's the link to it, if like me you missed it first time round:
BBC iPlayer - Big Bike Ride

 

[Conal]

Danny

Followed your link and spent the last hour watching it. Awe inspiring, especially travelling on alone whilst your partner goes back for a pacemaker and then she came back to finish the trip!

Conal

 

[Blew it]

Thanks for the heads up

Just watched it.

One point, the panniers kept disappearing on the Mountain passes, thank the lord for support crews.

Don't know when that was filmed, but that must be similar to the route taken by Justin-le in the recent thread on EndlessSphere forum

 

[Danny-K]

...Awe inspiring, especially travelling on alone whilst your partner goes back for a pacemaker and then she came back to finish the trip!

Conal, for some strange reason, on watching that bit, my mind wandered to what type of characteristics were required in those persons employed to run the British Empire during its zenith in the far flung corners of the globe.

...One point, the panniers kept disappearing on the Mountain passes, thank the lord for support crews...

Now they're what I call proper grannies - cycling in the snow, pitching out tents for the night in the rain with wild bears for company; not like those modern 45 year-old ones, still in full health.

P.S. Oh to have had grannies like that when we were kids eh? What fun ho!

 

[lectureral]

I'd have liked to see that - sadly BBC iPlayer does not work outside the UK - about the only type of internet media which I would like to get but cannot.