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Twelve thousand miles to go for Wickenby's Susie!
Monday 1pm SUSIE Wheeldon, who was brought up in Wickenby but now lives in south London, is this week heading for Marseilles in southern France to take the ferry to Tunisia on the ride of a lifetime - not just down to the shops, but round the world!
Susie (30) recently finished a contract with Lloyd's of London in order to get an NVQ in bike maintenance and to focus on the expedition.
After school in Scotland, where her love for a challenge, as well as the great outdoors, was able to flourish, she went to university at Warwick but since then, has taught in Uganda, hiked up Mount Kenya, trekked in the Himalayas, learnt to climb, taken part in various musicals and walked part of the Great Wall of China.
As well as at Lloyd's, Susie has worked in a donkey sanctuary, at the Transport Select Committee and assessing earthquake damage in New Zealand. She has also cast 'bearded men and naked people' for the film 'The Da Vinci Code', made a documentary about Santo Diame, started a band, taken up urban free running, snowboarding and surfing, set up the environmental website www.thisisnotmy.co.uk, completed the six day Marathon des Sables across the Sahara in 2007 and done a scene with Judy Dench in the film 'Importance of Being Earnest'. She has almost got over the fact that the scene was cut!
However, she has spent the last months learning how to reassemble a bike and has been living in perpetual fear of the day she will be forced to wear lycra in public!
Along with two companions - Jamie Vining and Iain Henderson - Susie's round-the-world bicycle expedition aims to highlight the potential of solar power in the fight against climate change.
Susie, Jamie and Iain are equipped with thin-film photovoltaic (PV) panels - custom built into their panniers by G24 Innovations - to power the very latest in Nokia navigation, communications and sports technology; allowing their supporters to follow them second by second around the globe.
The intrepid team set off from London's City Hall last Friday, European Solar Day. The gruelling nine month, 12,000 mile journey will take them through 14 countries at an average 90 miles a day, suffering searing hot deserts and snow-capped mountains to raise money for SolarAid; the UK charity established by one of the world's leading thinkers on environmental sustainability, Jeremy Leggett.
You can follow Susie's progress on www.thesolarcyclediaries.com
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Weather for Market Rasen
Saturday 26 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 20 C
Wind Speed: 21 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: East
