Arrived John O'Groats

We finally arrived at John O'Groats last night.

The signpost had had its signs taken down for the evening. (Just in case anyone were to take photos of it without paying the fee.) So, we took photos of the empty signpost, and one or two others.

John O'Groats, to be polite, is not a very exciting place - it is run down. So, we did the pictures of an empty pole.

The morning yesterday started with beautiful warm sunshine which we enjoyed for the gentle journey past Altanaharra and down the very pretty Naver valley. But then we had two or three hours of strongish headwind along the north coast. Thankfully by Thurso the wind had subsided for the final push of 20 miles to John O'Groats.

While driving back from John O'Groats to Thurso we were lucky to see the most wonderful sunset, at 10:20pm, as the sun descended almost North into the Pentland Firth. Fantastic! It is quite different to see the sun descending into the far northern sky.

It is worth briefly mentioning the bikes. We have all cycled 1015 miles. On the combined 4060 miles of riding we had ONE puncture, ONE broken spoke, a pedal crank which fell off but was then easily reattached. There were no other bike problems.

On my bike, the only maintainence I gave it was:

• a clean of the chain twice,
• a daily pump of the tyre,
• a tighten of the break cables (as the blocks have worn down a bit).

And that maintainence was enough to get me there. (I do probably need to service it when I get home though.)

Today we have a very long drive home. Google tells us it is 11+ hours of driving! We just had a great breakfast, are about to pack the car, and then we're off.

More heroines and heros

One of the best bits of our trip has to be the wonderfully generous and warm hearted people we met each and every day.
So on our last day a big thanks to:

Terry and Laila at the Kyleakin Hostel. Thanks for that free brekka and all the chat.
Staff at the Lairg Highland Hotel.. they made soup and sandwiches and then bowls of chips when we arrived at 9:30 pm. Thanks Coleen for the big breakfast.
The Cafe at Bettyhill. A great lunchstop and mega scones.
Lisa and Co at the Pentland Lodge House at Thurso...we even had Will & Kate's champagne glasses to supplement our Indian with a champagne toast...truely great.

To all those we might not have remembered to mention..you know. Thanks for such lovely hospitality.. BFN...time for that 11 hours on the road return.

Barbie

From the Driving team

Guys we salute you.

Paul,Tom,Wallace and Alastair you started together; you rode together and you finished together.

Thos of us who were lucky enouhto come with you driving Miss Barbara had a load of laughs and a fun time. Martin ( you know who you are) thanks a million for facilitating Mitsubishi UK loaning us our "Official Vehicle" Simply put it was great. Comfortable, very capable and fun to drive too.
It took all our kit and was the mothership to the team.

In a word Brill.

Job Done...what a team.

Plocton Cat

Final Day

It is a sunny morning on the final day.

Just about to breakfast ready for a 9am setoff.

Day 9 - Coast to Coast

Today we crossed from the west coast to the east: from Kyleakin on Skye passing the Dornoch Firth on the way to Lairg. It was another long day - 109 miles, while we were all very tired.

An excellent ride today - lots of  fantastic scenery, including lochs, mountains, sheep and even oil platforms. The day started off very wet, but eventually the rain stopped allowing us to dry out and warm up. We had one particularly exciting decent from 250m above sea level down to a loch which included a rather 'exciting' section over a narrow bridge which necessitated emergency braking to avoid a collision with a rather mean looking wall.

Thankfully, we all escaped unscathed and without losing any skin - which may have been rather lucky considering the circumstances.

All tired - falling asleep on the bikes. Mike arranged a lunch for us, and moved things around in the truck so that the 4 of us could eat inside - heavy downfall and dive-bombing midges outside). Fantastic views and scenery in Sutherland - many highland cattle, sheep and lambs.

Breakfast on Skye

We're just eating breakfast on day 9 in the small harbour town of Kyleakin on Skye.

We've had two great days island hopping up the west coast.

Arran was great. We had 1h20 to get to Lochranza and the next ferry. Thankfully the descent to Lochranza was very fast, and we got to the ferry 5 minutes before it departed.

We had even less time in Mull. In less than 1 hour we rode the few miles from Craignure to Fishnish and changed both wheels, tubes, and tyres on Tom's bike when one of his spokes broke.

Back on the mainland we landed at Lochaline. Where in the local shop there the lady refused to charge Mike at all when she heard about the bike ride, and the Save the Children ride. Thanks.

Arriving in Kyleakin the hostel owner rode out on his bike to meet us (at 9pm). It turns out in his youth, many years ago, he was a semi-pro rider. Amongst his claims to fame were having ridden 248 miles in 12 hours!

Today we cross the mainland heading towards Lairg.

Pictures

We've not given you pictures for a while, so here we are.

While we crossed the Old Severn Bridge we had some superb views. The bridge is very strange, in that it constantly vibrates with the traffic noise.

Through the Lake District we crossed over the Kirkstone Pass.

And today we arrived in Scotland.

1st breakdown and 1st puncture

We had a minor breakdown this morning. Paul's left pedal crank fell off while riding. Thankfully we found all the bits on the road, stuck them back together, and we were off again.

We also had the first puncture of the trip. Not bad for 4 bikes riding 600 miles. Tom got a puncture coming out of Dumfries, which was the only town where we had any rain showers.

Actually we had a couple of hail-stone thundershowers and a couple of rain showers in Dumfries. The rest of the day was a mixture of sunny intervals in the early part of the day, followed by unbroken sunshine for the rest of the day.

We had a gentle cross through Dumfriesshire followed by a beautiful crossing of the Galloway Forest Moor. The decent towards Ayr was superb, with fantastic views across to Arran and even Kintyre beyond.

This morning we had to say a sad farewell to Claire and Bee. Mike took them to Carlisle station where they arrived with 5 minutes to spare before the train. Quick note to the girls: the car does have a CD/DVD player, which Mike found today. We had his Iron Maiden blasting away during our afternoon stop.

500 miles

As the song lyrics (slightly modified) go:

And we have ridden 500 miles
And we will ride 500 more
Just to be the guys who rode 1000 miles
To fall down at your door

We've made it to Carlisle. We had some beautiful scenery through the Lake District, including climbing a 1500 ft pass (Kirkstone Pass) and a 1000 ft pass.

My leg hurts slightly less now, having done what all cyclist seem to do. I've become a junky and am now surviving on Codine + Paracetemol "extra" capsules and Ibuprofen muscle gel. The pain is now bearable, and I'll cope with it for the next 500 miles.

Tom has tried out the Codine too, which has helped his knees pains.

Other than that, we're all fit, and ready to go!

Tomorrow we cross into sunny Scotland, but the forecast is for rain :-( We had it dry all day today, but ten minutes after arriving here it started to absolutely pour with rain.

Tomorrow morning we have to say goodbye to the wonderful Claire and Bee who have helped us out when needed, amused us, and found us lovely places to eat. Bye both of you, and again, ONE THOUSAND THANKS!!

Our driver for the next 5 days is Mike, who travelled up to Carlisle on the train today, and is now with us in the hotel. Welcome Mike!

Arrive in Preston

Last night we finally arrived in Preston.

Injuries have slowed us slightly: Tom has very sore knees; I have a severe muscle pain behind the right knee.

I'm about to make a trip to a pharmacist. Hopefully with some drugs I'll be able to carry on.

Day 04 Tuesday started with a fantastic long downhill from Church Stretton to Shrewsbury followed by lots of easy flat riding all the way to Preston.

We are all agreed: the drivers in Cheshire are by far the worst we have come across. They are agressive, rude, cut you up, and are certainly not aware of cyclist. Perhaps today through Lancashire and Cumbria things will be better.

Day3

Slightly easier day with only 95 miles. Started on cycle lanes through barren industrial wasteland before arriving at the original Severn bridge with fantastic views to the new Severn crossing and the estuary. A very steep hill out of Chepstow had back wheels spinning on wet leaves.
Stopped in St Brevials for a fantastic lunch continuing on to Hereford and Symonds Yat where we took a short break to look at the great views.
The rain started coming down very heavily near Ludlow where we sheltered in the market place for the worst of it to pass - we shouldn't have bothered as it rained very heavily after that for the next 2 hours and we arrived late at the B&B like drowned rats.
Here we met up with Claire and Bee our stage 2 driving team who had travelled from Exeter, via Portishead where they picked up all the kit and on to Church Stretton.

115 miles today

Well today we took a wrong turning and ending up visiting Weston Super Mare en-route. So that added an extra 10 miles. But ,we've arrived in Portishead at the end of day 2!

(Must get some pictures to you later.)

We've had a few interesting moments each morning. Everyone seems to disappear for a private ASSOS-cream moment. If you don't know what ASSOS is, look it up, and laugh.

Today started with the most fantastic tour over the top of Dartmoor. We were all at our fittest and flew along. After Dartmoor we then enjoyed the mostly flat terrain for a long long way north. Paul was the unlucky one who had to keep stopping for ponies and sheep.

Kathy, our first, and fantastic support driver, has now set off home. Kathy, from ALL of us, a thousand thanks.

We have eaten many many cakes and pasties. It is great being able to eat eat eat as much as you like. But, even then, it is not enough. In Lostwithiel, when we were exhausted, before eating our specially baked pasties, the cafe served up "Gentleman's Tea" - coffee + two cakes. (Or, in Tom's case, orange-and-mascarpone milk shake.)

Very long day on Saturday

Saturday proved a very long day up through the many hills of Cornwall. We arrived at our hotel after 9pm, and by the time we'd eaten, had little energy left to blog.

More later...

Land's End

After a drive down through the rain, we finally arrived at Land's End. Although the sun did shine, it was very windy and cold under the sign post.

We enjoyed a pleasant easy ride back to Penzance with a fair wind on our backs.

Didn't get a pasty, but did find a traditional fish'n'chip shop down near the seafront.

But, tomorrow it gets really serious...

Choosing a LEJOG vehicle

We had to choose a support vehicle, it was a difficult decision...

The Austin7 was amazing but the mitsubishi was even better besides the austin7 might have been a slight bit inappropriate.

One week to go

We've now got only one week to go until we set off for the bike ride. Fantastic! Bring it on...

I just glanced at our Save the Children just giving sponsorship page. (http://www.justgiving.com/teams/cc) We've raised £2290 already. This is brilliant. Thanks to everyone who has donated.

I received some details from Martin at Mitsubishi about the vehicle they're lending us. It is a big beast.

The vehicle we have got for you is an L200 Barbarian auto (this should help the driver if they need to cruise alongside you). It has integrated sat nav and bluetooth, so that may come in handy as well. It also has a reversing camera for parking - which comes in handy on such  bug truck. The vehicle will have a plastic load liner and canopy top - you can lock the top (but just beware of the fact that the actual tailgate section doesn't actually lock - so be careful about leaving anything really valuable in the back. It will also have a tow bar and single electrics fitted. The guys have created an additional reg plate to fix to your bike carrier.

Should be fun!

Blog Setup

This blog will allow followers to see our daily progress on the bike ride.

It is now just over two weeks until we head off...