Ten Punctures, Eight Police Cells and a Teddy Bear

One ride on the gym’s exercise bikes, timed by staff and pupils to start when he did, so that Dundee was technically cycling too. It did not get past the wall bars.

Two lever arch files. What his old geography teacher’s blog following the ride came to when it was printed. Somewhere a department printer is still recovering.

Ten punctures.

Eight police cells. Slept in, as a guest rather than a suspect, according to the blog’s end-of-ride fact list, which also records six pairs of shorts worn out. I have read a lot of school-trip risk assessments and not one has a box for this.

One bear. The junior school tracked him on a map and held assemblies on the countries he was crossing, and then their teacher, Mrs Tonner, arranged for a very small teddy called Ted to join the ride in Pakistan. Ted rode the rest of the way on the handlebars and filed reports, in his own voice, to the junior blog. He did no pedalling, suffered no punctures personally and, as far as the record shows, slept in none of the cells. He nonetheless gets top billing in every account written by anyone under eleven.

One assembly. On 27 March 2008 the junior school announced “two special guests: Mark Beaumont and Ted Bear”, in that order, which I suspect was the cyclist’s only win of the afternoon.