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 This section will grow with time. Below you can read about training progress, other Fireflies events and news live from the ride. Consult the archive on the right to view archived messages. |
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| John Villeneau, virgin firefly I wanted to do the ride for two reasons. To get fit and get a tan. I have a tendency to leave things to the last minute and true to form I did very little training. Sit around now pay later. What an idiot. I arrived a day early in Morzine with Frederic and Jean our drivers. I was incredibly nervous about the ride as I felt I had not done enough training and was suffering from a stomach bug. Coupled with this I couldn't sleep. When we eventually set off on the first day I was completely spent. Not a good start. The second day was hard and I started it again having not slept. I thought seriously about packing the whole thing in. In front of me were three major climbs culminating with the Cormet de Roseland. I dug in as deep as I could and finished the day. I knew then I could get to Cannes. I loved every moment from then on. The Alps are beautiful ....really really beautiful. Its a weird feeling waking every morning knowing that you are going to face beauty and pain in about equal measures. I achieved my two objectives and hopefully tthe couple of thousand I raised will do some good. Wouldn't have missed it for the world. Posted by Fuzzy on . |
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| Sarah Wood - Fireflies physiotherapist They promised long hours, 23 bodies in demand of constant attention, 46 aching thighs and to finish it off a driving experience straight out of a Hollywood film (have you seen the corners up the French Alps!)...I thought it sounded like a perfect 2 weeks break! As a chartered physiotherapist working full time in the NHS, I freely admit that my knowledge of the film industry, Leuka and a band of merry men and women calling themselves the 'Fireflies' was limited when asked to take part in the Leuka Firefly Ride. However when I discovered the extent of the physical challenge the riders were putting themselves through each day and knowing I might have some knowledge to help ease at least a small amount of their suffering then I was more than happy to pack my rucksack and head off to the Alps. What they had not prepared me for before the ride was the inner strength, the determination, the courage and the support and love each one of the riders revealed in their different ways through out the ride. It was awe-inspiring. To commit to a heavy training schedule months before the ride, to fund raise and to take time out of busy working lives reveals a lot about the type of people I had the privilege to spend the Ride with. It also speaks volumes about the passion they all feel towards raising money to further essential Leukaemia research. Having personally had close contact with cancer through losing an Aunt and a Grandmother and seeing both my Father and Uncle battle against the disease, it becomes a cause close to the heart. As for my own thoughts on the trip...I have come away with wonderful memories, some great friends, a sore thumb (one too many treatments!!) and a love for men in lycra!! Thank you all for allowing me to be part of a great experience. Go Fireflies! Posted by Fuzzy on . |
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| Jake Scott, one of the original Fireflies There's a moment each year when I look around and I can see something growing and it touches me, because I know that all these people are here for the same reason and that there's a mutual understanding that comes from somewhere deep inside each of them. For me this moment came later this year than usual. I had begun to worry that it would never happen. But then it did... We had just come up Glandon through an icy wind shear that carried with it a cold and ruthless rain. I mean really freezing and all you've got on is a thin skin of Lycra with exposed legs and arms. I can't stop grinning as I force my body against the blast of wind and wonder how the hell a lighter person is going to fight it. It's either grin or cry in these instances and besides when it's this tough you're reminded of why you're doing it. So I grin. Over the top, please let there be a little warm hut with chocolat chaud and a radiator that works you think and there it is. Inside there's a group of Fireflies, bedraggled and shivering, huddled around the radiator that works, clutching steaming cups of chocolat chaud. OH YES! So you try to get dry and cease trembling, which is like having hiccups of the body and others arrive. It's always great to see those faces come in from a climb like that. Reddened with the cold and panting in the thin Alpine air and always a triumphant, lively grin. The eyes gleaming and so ALIVE. A cheer goes up for every one of them and someone gives up their pew by the radiator "no, I insist", so polite and genuinely selfless. I'm starting to feel it now, the moment rendered in the pallid gloom of this little mountain café. Steam rises from sodden clothing and the room fills with Fireflies and some other French and Italian cyclists. Someone begins to whistle "Raindrops keep falling on my head" and one by one a Firefly will join in, humming, thensinging until everyone is belting it out and I see tears in their eyes and that, that is the moment when I know we're a family and we're doing it again and every one of them is giving more than they thought they could. So I grin again. An original Firefly. Posted by Fuzzy on . |
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| Charlie's Angels by Tracey Cahoon For me the idea to become a firefly rider entered my head a month before last years ride. John Payne (my other half) was going to meet Jake Scott his boss, friend and founder member of the Leuka ride at the restaurant Little Italy. I went along too. There where a few others there also. Friday night an all a bit fun was to be had. Early on in the evening the conversation switched to the Leuka ride. I remembered Jake being a little bit concerned that he needed to get fit in time whilst puffing on a cigarette and consuming glasses of fine wine., (a Scott trait by the looks of things) I could sense that John was excited. I also was very interested and excited for them. I started asking questions. (I had by then been cycling in and out to work for a few years and knew what it felt like to be free on a bike) Jake then looked at me and stated that they would like some women to do the ride and was able to tell that I could do it. Well that night when I got home and tried to sleep of course all I could think about how it would feel to endure a bike ride over mountains for days. It seemed very exciting and challenging. Even the next day I could not get the idea out of my head. Obviously I did not have enough time to train and also it was to be john’s first fireflies’ expedition. No one wants to spoil ones boyfriends adventure. But I was to hold onto the idea until the next year. Of course the idea kept coming back sooner. I accompanied John to the park a couple of times whilst he was training. Missing him when he would rise early to go training. And then listened to him on the phone explaining his journey every day. Got jealous and wanted to be there when he explained the views he had seen with a slightly tipsy voice some evenings. Which of course, I now completely understand. One definitely needs a reward at the end of each day after climbing mountains for hours, sometimes in the scorching heat or battling against the wind and rain feeling stiff, for ages (wishing you had trained harder) then breaking through that wall that everyone talks about say thirty or forty five minutes into it. And HELL sometimes not (CORMENT DE ROSELAND) the sore muscles, (shoulders for me especially). The sore poo nanny. Blisters, rashes. Breathing, getting a rhythm. Crying. Second wind, then relief as you see the col and the biggest smiling faces. Getting cold then big scary descents. Only to do it again and again. Arriving to a small chalet at dusk on some of the longest days... This is when you seriously down a glass of rose wine... And that’s what I had heard in John’s voice last year. I am sure I could also hear the adrenalin pumping down the phone line. I knew immediately I wanted to be one of the first lady fireflies... So later last year John kindly picked up a lovely Giant road bike when he was in LA.I started going out on my Giant. Obviously John knew I wanted to do the ride but I wouldn’t feel comfortable unless there some other women participating. Thankfully Harriet Stephenson I also feel like I could write about my fireflies’ expedition till kingdom come, I wont. Any other ladies out there interested will either have to wrestle me for diary or, just do the ride... LOVE TO ALL FIREFLIES.X Tracey Cahoon firefly no 23 Posted by Fuzzy on . |
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| Descending Glandon Glandon Day 4, 100km, three mountains, rain, wind, tears, unplanned routes, dirt tracks . . . beauty . . . and one particularly crippling ascent too quickly followed by an even harder descent. This is where the camaraderie really starts to set in. One of the three female riders (Emma C) and I descended this mountain together and I think we only really managed it because we felt the strength of each other's presence, it was this and the presence of Adrian Moat (apparently some kind of mountain goat, a founder member of the ride) who gently led us down the mountain as if he had ridden it a million times before. It is times like these when you really think about cancer; the memory of seeing someone you loved, pale, grey skinned and sick on a hospital bed and feeling immediately humbled by it, knowing that this short episode of pain doesn't even come close to what they experienced, over and over again. I remember feeling so cold that a terror and panic started to grip me, I felt like I was going to lose control of my body, it is so difficult to explain but your mind and body feel completely dis-connected, it was like my mind was sitting on my handle bars, driving me on and my body was just a machine. Crying was very useful at this moment, not for releasing emotion but because as my body shook, the heat of my tears started to warm me . . . how clever and resourceful nature can be. This descent went on and on and every corner that we turned Adrian was there, stopping and waiting in the murkiness, hands tightly placed down his cycling shorts to warm them, for once I felt quite envious I didn't have a pair myself. Soon the realisation that we might actually conquer this descent started to set in, before we knew it we were flinging open the door to the restaurant, I say restaurant, it was really more like a Fireflies laundry. Everyone was so wet that they had removed their clothes and laid them on the tables. Emma C joined in the spirit and sat and ate her lunch in her knickers and shirt. I just thought this was fantastic, that feeling that the mountains and the elements have broken you down so much that you lose any sense of conformity. I wolfed down my lunch and then spent some quality time in the loo under the hand dryer. As I tried to warm my bones I thought about this goat that had led us. This was no ordinary mountain goat, this was a rare species, one that encompassed calmness, selflessness and a unique warmth that burnt through the ice. So this is just one of the many chapters in our incredible adventure that broke us down, built us up and bonded us. These extraordinary moments are the ones that stay with you, giving you this incredible strength that propels you into the rest of your life with such force that you know you will never be the same again, neither do you ever want to be. Harriet Posted by joe marcantonio on . |
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| 2001: The beginning . . . . Posted by Nick Livesey. The first day of the first year's ride, 2001. After a murky photo call by Lake Geneva in the pissing rain, our freshly pumped tyres squeaked along the wonky wooden jetty and up out of Switzerland into the hills towards Morzine and Clusaz (where we started this year), after getting lost for about an hour, we finally started powering thru the rain. On the first descent my aqua-planing tyres took me off the road sliding sideways at speed thru an electric cattle fence into a soft marshy bog. About half an hour after this, riding Indian File, Jake clipped Chris's rear tyre which sent him careering into a ditch, violently somersaulting over the bars. There was a facial imprint of Jake in the side of the ditch. Based on the statistics of having two pretty major crashes on the first day, we thought we had a real struggle ahead. not knowing what lay before us we made a pact: if any one of us goes, the ride carries on...! Left to right: Jake, Chris Haworth, Tim Page (coming next year), and myself.  Posted by Fuzzy on . |
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 The Fireflies' arrival into Cannes has generated great support from the advertising industry and culminates with a hero's welcome at the Palais des Festivals. |
The Fireflies
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