Meet the team - Tom

Tom is 25 years old and lives in Oxford. He enjoys cycling, eating, drinking ale, rugby, watching rugby, shouting at the tv while watching rugby, betting on rugby, and other rugby related pastimes. He also has great ideas - like this one - although he struggles to recall any of his past great ideas at the moment.

(I will airbrush a brown paper bag on later..........................)

Tom was born at a very early age, in fact he was so young at the time he hardly recalls it at all. Born with nothing he soon worked his way up to a state of extreme poverty. In 2004 he died for tax purposes and in 2005 he came back to life to avoid death duties. Every Tuesday Tom locks himself away and hides as he has never quite got the hang of Tuesdays; tricky, sneaky and malevolent buggers that they are. After a navigational error on a trip to Scotland Tom contracted Sponks disease in the Amazon rainforest, a rare affliction that makes the recipient believe that he is a carrott. When he returned home Tom spent 3 months digging himself into the ground and trying to make himself look attractive to rabbits.

Tom wants to do a 3000 mile bike ride because he hasn't done one before and reckons he can probably do it. By the same token he wants to grow a 12-foot beard and swing from the chandeliers of a great house by it. He also has a desperate longing to shrinkwrap a Zebra. Tom was arrested last year for throwing jelly into a loom and was arrested again this year for shouting the word 'spoon' at a statue. Next year he hopes to be arrested for being arresting in a rest area. Every now and then Tom dynamite's his Frosties. He is fascinated by the trend for people artificially enhancing their bodies and is considering getting his legs double-glazed.

Sam has kindly pointed out that Tom has girly arms, but fortunately this means nothing when riding a bike. Tom likes to claim, in true Alan Partridge style, that he has an arse like a traction engine. He says this is because it powers his legs and helps him reach high speeds on a bike, but other theories have been formulated and are considered more likely. Tom's arse is likely to appear at numerous stages throughout this trip.

Tom's greatest fears on the trip are a) meeting clean 4wd machines driven by reprobates on country roads and b) not being able to get to a kettle for a whole day. Tom believes that most problems can be solved by ignorance and those that can't should be ignored. He also believes that it is a mistake to think you can solve any major problem with potatoes.

As well as a broken finger Tom also suffers from Hayfever and an allergy to the passage of time.

Read some sense about the trip by following this link Why we are doing it