Books By Bike reborn

What seemed like a good idea in the depths of last winter quickly turned, well not sour, but not exactly all sweetness and light.

I was under a 'hernia' cloud for the first few months of the year as my op kept getting postponed for a variety of reasons and then in March / April my garage was broken into and both my trusty Boardman commute (and 'books by bike(BBB)') bike and my Specialized road bike got nicked ... I contributed to this a little I guess in not making the garage more safe than it was and not securing the bikes inside that well , but still ... dirty rotten scumbags ....

Books by foot / Tram / Car just didn't have the same appeal .... and although an extended family member (who was now hooked on expensive road cycling) came to my rescue by letting me have the bike above from his garage, new wheels, tyres and other bits still set me back a bit.

Before I had chance to get it ship-shape however I finally had my hernia op in May, which really knocked me for six physically. It took a lot longer to get back into the swing of things exercise-wise than I'd anticipated. Having lost about 9 lbs over the first couple of BBB months I ended up putting 11 lbs back on - this including a week where I lost half a stone being sick as a dog.... I'm glad to say most of that has come back off:

I've actually managed to get rid of quite a lot of books via the local Altrincham charity shops (and BTW - make sure you gift aid - SCOPE and BHF both provide updates on how much money your items have fetched ..) I still have box loads I can get be giving away. I established some RULES back when I started which pretty much hold true but I'll be changing them slightly  - I also want to link contributions to local foodbank, but more on that in future posts.

First books to be added when I've updated the various linked accounts!

One Month in ... January Summary

• Books Delivered: 10
• Bike miles travelled: 159
• Weight Lost: 2lbs
• Charitable Contribution: ~£25

Before I review / remind you where I am, I have some book catching up to do:

Six Of Swords (12miles) – slight diversion, in that this was posted to a colleague in our US office but I did cycle into work with it.

Lawrence Dallaglio: It’s in the Blood (12 miles) – a handover in the Kings Ransom car park, occasioned by difficulties in matching schedules... a lady requested it for her husband who used to play rugby (injury i think) and she hadn’t told him what it was when I handed it over, which was kind of sweet

Picasso

Gray’s Anatomy (12 miles) – I considered keeping this but it would have sat on my shelf gathering dust so go it must. A 200yd diversion on my way into work (Note to self: I must do a post on Sale)

Picasso (12 miles) – another diversion... chap lives in Bolton but we tried to hook up in Altrincham as he was in town – we got snowed off. So i’m dropping it off on my way up to a meeting in Preston as it’s just a short hop from the Motorway

There’s one more to share but that’s a separate post.

So, the overview. I resolved at the start of the year to give away a huge pile of books (and I mean huge) using the range of social media at my disposal. I wanted to get off to a good start so used Freecycle which is where the bulk of Januarys books have gone. It has the benefit of people who want free stuff go on there and they’re all local!

Next Social Media. Twitter first, recently joined by a FB page and more esoterically Pinterest and Librarything (click on all links for my accounts). The last two being a repository for cover pictures and available book details respectively.

As a reminder, for every book I deliver by bike I add £1 plus 5p per mile travelled on the round trip to a charity pot which I’m pushing through to Justgiving once a month. In addition I also forgot that I also committed to £5 per lb of weight lost... the Justgiving page is: http://www.justgiving.com/booksbybike and I’m also happy to take donations in addition to what I’m putting in there myself.

A number of things I have learned already:

• I don’t know the hidden depths of the wider area I live very well – I’m discovering all sorts of wonderful things and sharing as many of them as I can
• Investment in a new winter hi-vis jacket with additional inbuilt rear light was a sound one
• I need to be more curious without being nosey – it’s a fine balance but people love to talk
• I need to keep re-explaining what I’m doing otherwise some posts just won’t make any sense