{"id":1549,"date":"2019-07-31T10:43:59","date_gmt":"2019-07-31T09:43:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/?p=1549"},"modified":"2019-07-31T10:44:07","modified_gmt":"2019-07-31T09:44:07","slug":"carten-100-on-a-nextbike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/carten-100-on-a-nextbike\/","title":{"rendered":"CARTEN 100 on a nextbike"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Ieuan was motivated by the desire to make something positive out of the negativity towards homelessness in Cardiff. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In our latest post, we caught up with PhD student Ieuan Davies who rode a nextbike<\/a> more than 100 miles to Tenby to raise money for the homeless charity, Llamau<\/a> as part of CARTEN 100<\/a> on 1 June 2019.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

JR: So Ieuan, congratulations on an amazing achievement. Quite some feat, what you\u2019ve done. Tell me, how\u2019s the body? Have your legs recovered yet?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ID:<\/strong> Haha, thanks. Well, those seats aren’t designed\nfor 10-hour rides I can tell you, although I felt surprisingly good the next\nday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funnily enough, I was resting up on the way back from Tenby\nwhile my dad drove me and the bike home to Cardiff and I suddenly got a text from\nnextbike saying that I\u2019d had the bike for 24 hours. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started to panic and rung them up to explain that I was\nabout 100 hundred miles away from Cardiff on a charity bike ride. \u201cOh,\u201d they\nsaid. \u201cIt\u2019s you. No worries. We\u2019ll cancel that, then!\u201d So, word about my\nadventure had got around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JR: So, many of our staff and students use nextbike all\nthe time. In fact, I think the station outside the Aberconway Building here,\nwas recently the most used station in Cardiff. But we\u2019re all used to short,\ncity-based trips, not rides of this length. How did you cope?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

ID: <\/strong>Well, I started to regret my decision on a particularly long climb into Pembrokeshire, questioning what I had got myself into. But it was just a case of pushing down on the pedals over and over to keep going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thing is, I\u2019m a runner, not a cyclist and had never done\nanything like this before. I mean I can ride a bike, but nothing more than back\nand forth to work and uni. But that\u2019s the furthest I\u2019ve gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I put a lot of training into it and went out quite late\nin the evenings because of my busy PhD schedule. It\u2019s not like a run where you\ncan pop out for an hour or so. With rides of about 35 miles, you\u2019ve got to\nallocate the time, especially on a nextbike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And to increase the distance I had to go over to Barry and\nSully quite a lot. I can tell you that I got quite a few odd looks as I went\nthrough there in the evenings, with the little lights flashing on the front of\nthe bike. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

People must\u2019ve been thinking: \u201cWhat\u2019s he doing all the way\nout here on that? There\u2019s not a nextbike station for miles!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that was nothing compared to the event, itself!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was coming up behind these bikes that must have been worth\nmultiple thousands of pounds, and they were huffing and puffing. When they saw me,\nthey all looked quite surprised, I can tell you!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JR: I can only imagine! I know I\u2019d have felt the same on\nmy bike. \u201cHow is this guy doing it!?\u201d How did it feel to finish? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ID: <\/strong>It was incredible! Obviously, I was in the last\nsection of the race \u2013 it took me ten hours to get there! But there was still\nplenty of people out riding. And the crowds in Tenby, I have to say they were\namazing. It was such a wave of relief to finish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People were cheering when I got off the bike, running over\nto shake my hand and taking selfies. My mum and dad were there, and they were\nconvinced I was some kind of minor celebrity, haha!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ieuan finishes the race after ten hours in the saddle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s also a pub close to the end called the Three Roses.\nIt\u2019s at the top of the last big climb and a lot of people stop there to\ncelebrate with a pint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By this point, I was really struggling. This climb was brutal. Non-stop. I was just looking at the floor concentrating on pedaling. It\u2019s probably the closest to tears I\u2019ve ever been doing exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I finally crested the hill and there\u2019s this pub, with\neveryone in their CARTEN cycling jerseys sat around with their pints. And the\nplace just erupts! Clapping and cheering. And I just got this extra wind which\nsaw me through to the finish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JR: What an experience! So, you set yourself the\nchallenge to raise money for the School\u2019s designated charity sponsor, Llamau.\nCan you tell us about them?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ID: <\/strong>I got to know Llamau through the School. As you\u2019ve said, they\u2019re the nominated Charity sponsor and my PhD supervisor, Dr Carolyn Strong, organises the sleep-ins with them<\/a>. I\u2019ve been to two of them at the School. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But around about the time I was thinking of doing something,\nhomelessness in Cardiff was reaching crisis point with tents in the streets and\nvarious politicians saying controversial things in the media. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Against the grain of all that negativity, I thought to\nmyself, let\u2019s make something positive out of this. Obviously, the awareness is\nthere now and that means it is something that people will raise money for. So let\u2019s\nfind something ridiculous that will encourage people to donate. And, what do\nyou know? It worked!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From day one, Llamau were incredibly co-operative and\nsupportive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

JR: And how much did you raise? Can people still sponsor\nyou?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ID: <\/strong>Well, so far, I\u2019ve raised \u00a3525 but my fundraising page is still open until 7 August 2019, so anyone who wants to donate can on: https:\/\/uk.virginmoneygiving.com\/100MilesOnANextBike<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JR: And what about your lasting impressions of the event?\nAre you planning on doing it again next year, or is once enough?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

ID: <\/strong>Oh, well maybe it\u2019s a bit early to decide on that\njust yet. Especially while I\u2019m still in recovery mode, not to mention my\ndissertation deadline around the corner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ieuan questions his resolve after a particularly grueling hill in Pembrokeshire.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But I have to say, it was an incredible event and I couldn’t\nhave asked for a more supportive group of riders around me. So many took the\ntime to slow down and encourage me at different points. And the bonus for me\nwas using those opportunities to share Llamau\u2019s story and raise awareness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So everyone was talking about Llamau by the end. I\u2019ll take\nthat as a win for now!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ieuan\nDavies<\/strong><\/a> is a PhD student at Cardiff Business School. His research\nfocuses on business ethics and social media.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ieuan is also an ambassador for nextbike, which waived\nthe rental fee for the challenge.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ieuan was motivated by the desire to make something positive out of the negativity towards homelessness in Cardiff. In our latest post, we caught up with PhD student Ieuan Davies […]","protected":false},"author":1016,"featured_media":1554,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[922],"tags":[588,924,937,14,28,100,928,927,929,933,936,935,932,321,426,845,320,840,500,923,931,198,16,841,154,930,926,925],"class_list":["post-1549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fundraising","tag-adventure","tag-awareness","tag-business-ethics","tag-cardiff","tag-cardiff-business-school","tag-cardiff-university","tag-carten","tag-carten-100","tag-challenge","tag-charity-of-the-year","tag-donate","tag-dr-carolyn-strong","tag-experience","tag-fundraising","tag-global-challenges","tag-homeless-people","tag-homelessness","tag-llamau","tag-marketing","tag-nextbike","tag-pembrokeshire","tag-phd","tag-research","tag-sleep-in","tag-social-media","tag-student","tag-tenby","tag-youth-homelessness"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paOfaS-oZ","meta_box":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/620\/2019\/07\/Ieuan-Davies-poses-with-nextbike-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1016"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1549"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1564,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1549\/revisions\/1564"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}