Team Breakneck Tweed

We are Breakneck Tweed. It's meant to be a pun – I'll get to that bit later.

One half of the team is Tom, a rather pretentious university student studying in Bristol. He really wants to stress that this is not a gap year kind of thing. The other half of the team is Jack, a (technically unemployed) ski instructor in the making from Kent. He looks a bit like a young Art Garfunkel, but hasn't got the voice to match.

Our aim is to drive from Folkestone, Kent to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and then most of the way back. We say aim, as neither team member at the point of writing has any idea how to fix a car. One of us knows how to change a tyre, if the conditions are right.

We're not completely mad – the route has been managed before! In fact the Mongol Rally has been attracting the brave and the foolish since 2006. We almost definitely fall into the latter category.

The Adventurists are the ones that started it all, but trust us when we say they are by no means going to be holding our hands along the way. In fact, it'll be quite the opposite – a pint of beer the night before, a slap on the back in the morning, and then it's all down to us to splutter 20,000km around the world in our 1.2L hatchback.

As you can probably tell, thinking of a team name was our first major challenge, and those that know us are probably rolling their eyes at the sight of it. We wanted a gimmick – something to make us stand out. Tom floated the idea of taking photos in opportune moments, wearing tweed jackets and bowler hats (of course he did). We combined this with the exact opposite pace at which we'll be travelling – breakneck speed – and bought this website's domain. We almost definitely regret it, but we've put the cash down now, so there's no going back.

It is also very important to note that this will be no holiday. We don't have a clue where we'll be sleeping, and we certainly don't have any idea how we'll be keeping clean! One thing we do know, however, is that we want to do as much as we can to support two amazing charities, which do rather incredible (and important) work.

The Lullaby Trust raises awareness of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), provides expert advice on safer sleep for babies and offers emotional support for bereaved families. They also help fund research into better understanding why, when and where babies and toddlers may be at risk.

Cool Earth is an non-profit organisation that works alongside rainforest communities to halt deforestation and climate change. Their mission is to end the cycle of deforestation entrenching villages into further poverty, by creating strong, self-determining communities – not dependency.

We would really appreciate if you took some time to have a look at the brilliant work that these two charities do, and if you can, donate via our fundraising page. The total will be split 50/50 between the two, with 100% of all money raised going towards their hard work. Our hope is that your help can make our time spent broken down in the Kazakh desert worthwhile, through making some real change.

Wish us luck (we'll need it).

Team Breakneck Tweed

P.S. we plan to document the whole trip, from now until we (hopefully) fly back from Warsaw. There will be blog posts here that tell you all about how we're getting on, plus some footage from the road will be uploaded to our YouTube channel once we get on our way. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, or email [email protected] if you have any questions.