Saturday, 17 July 2010

Newsflash!!

The dotty divas are proud to announce that both the money and miles targets of £20,000 and 700 miles have been surpassed. Keep up the good support everybody!!! Sweet. xxx
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5 comments:

  1. Unknown19 July 2010 at 16:22

    Congratulations, Susie and Alice! I'm thoroughly impressed, proud, astonished, so happy for you.

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  2. Unknown19 July 2010 at 16:38

    Dear Susie and Alice,

    I've read all your posts and I have so many questions for you. If you find the time - after you've recovered - to answer them I'd be delighted.

    - Alice: can you describe transitioning from ride to performance. From your accounts it seems that you would ride up to 40 miles, sometimes more and then sing a program that same day! Riding is a great warm-up for me, but one can have too much of a good thing. Were there any days where the ride was too strenuous or the turn-around time was just a little too short? Or are you just in incredible shape and none of this phases you? Susie, I imagine this can be a bit like the Olympic biathalon: working your heart rate up and then sitting down to "aim" for the keys (ok maybe I'm exaggerating a bit) but did you ever find difficulty transitioning from the saddle to the piano bench?

    - Programs: How did you plan out that many different programs? Were there reasons, other than guest artists, to have such a variety?

    - Don't try this at home: there are a few other singing cyclists out there. What advice would you give to someone attempting such a titanic feat as this?

    - Food: Davis Phinney writes in his book "Training for Cycling" "Cyclists love to eat. Ask why they ride and many answer, 'To eat.'" You often mentioned the wonderful meals provided by hosts and venues. Is that not one of the bests parts of riding? It is for me!

    Congratulations again.

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  3. Unknown19 July 2010 at 16:45

    Two more questions

    What kind of bikes did you ride? and
    Did you see any cameras from iTV Sport?

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  4. Mike Raggett20 July 2010 at 10:02

    Congratulations you two! What a brilliant effort. I'm sorry we didn't manage to make it anywhere along the way but were a bit overwhelmed with work and life! Hope you've got some good photogrpahs.
    Lots of love
    Mike and Dee

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  5. Alice4 August 2010 at 06:38

    Andy, thanks for the wonderful interest you've shown! Sorry it's taken so long to get back to you.
    Transition: The exertion of the cycling was definitely not a problem for me. What was an issue was the tension across neck and shoulders. Make sure you book in for massages to loosen you up if you're thinking of doing something like this. I had to do a lot of re-programming as top of voice and clean, coming together vocal chords were not always happening. Tension and air intake. Do this when the weather is warm & not too dry, of course! And use panniers, do not carry backpack as this exacerbates shoulder tension. We always made it to the concerts with time to spare but always programmed in a couple of hours to play with when planning route and departure time to allow for punctures, getting lost etc. Occasionally a shame when we had to scoot off sooner than we'd like after a concert to get to next way point. We'd prefer to chill and chat to audience but sometimes just had to just back on the road.
    Programmes: Basically, because we could! Song-Cycling after all was about centring programmes on a song-cycle and definitely wanted a good handful of these in the rep. This automatically meant framing different cycles with appropriate mix of opera and light depending on what worked. This trip was a wonderful opp for both Susie & I to try out rep we'd not had chance to perform before. And we're both fast learners. Admittedly though we certainly weren't making it easy for ourselves and I have to say I don't usually have problems remembering words but with that many songs running round my head it made for the odd interesting bit of improvisation!
    Bikes: Susie borrowed a Specialised road bike from her friend Rosie. I bought a steel, audax (light touring) road bike.

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