The Salisbury Plain Challenge New Year Rough Rides are justly famous, offering guaranteed post-Christmas and New Year cobweb-blowing courtesy of 25, 38 or 50km rides or the 50km single-loop enduro over the generally frozen wastes of Salisbury Plain.

The event’s been going for years with only a couple of interruptions – the 2004 one will be the twelfth year it’s been held. There’s always a huge field, the organisation is impeccable (motorcycle outriders, 4×4 broomwagons etc) and it’s all for charity – in 2003 the event raised over eleven thousand pounds for Cancer & Leukaemia in Childhood (CLIC), and for 2004 the Wiltshire Air Ambulance will benefit too.

So fill in 4 January 2004 in your diary, head for Erlestoke in Wiltshire and pack some warm socks and a hat. If you’ve entered before you may have already received an entry form, otherwise bung an SAE to Salisbury Plain Challenge, Sunnybank, Ledge Hill, Market Lavington, Devizes, Wilts SN10 4NW or visit www.spambiking.co.uk/spam_spc.htm.