That’s right after a two year break I’m back on my bike and taking on the UK again. In 2006 I cycled from Lands End to John O’Groats, in 2008 I’m take the south bound road and cycling from John O’Groats to Lands End. This time around I’m hoping to raise money for the Breakthough Breast Cancer charity following on from my own personal encounters with the disease. Please feel free to donate any spare change. I’m joining forces with David and Harry again and hope to finish the journey in seven days. Not as fast as last time but apparently the weather will be against us most of the way; prevailing winds and all that business. Plus I’ve not ridden a bike any distance since… well the last time, so I’m expecting any ground breaking performances. Of course I would not be a the geek that I am if I did not make something of it. To which I present you with the Long Cycle Down web site. Yes I was watching Ewan and Charlie when registering a domain name. Please drop by and offer some support or make a donation.
It is the morning of the 24th September; around 8:30, and by all accounts I should not be here.
In fact I should be some where in Scotland on a bike making a dash for the border, taking part in another end to end cycle ride. Yet instead I’m sitting here with a laptop trying to decide what to do today.
Beginning of the month everything looked to be on track for another crack at cycling the length of the British Isles. I’d booked the holiday, started the training and was feeling in good form for the event. Then with only a week to go the company that Dave works for; who originally set this up as a charity event, pulled the plug! Not a compromise or a deal to be struck just a rug pulled out from under us.
To say I’m gutted is a bit of an under statement, the last few months have been spent clocking up the miles. I even built a bike for this year’s ride and had great hopes for it.
Now I’ve still got the week off so I’m sitting here surfing YouTube and generally just wasting time. No matter as Halo3 will be out in a couple of days…
The idea of taking part in another end2end cycle ride has always been at the back of my mind.
In fact Dave did talk of it after last year’s ride but due to work commitments and the like it was quickly forgotten.
Now that there is a bit of a cycling buzz back in the air with the Tour currently taking place the thought of trying again is strong.
So strong in fact that we have set a date to work too; Monday September 24th.
Last year there were four of us, this year however Rob is pre-occupied with a new born and Harry is re-covering from surgery (rumor has it is was sex change related) and so that just leaves Dave and I.
Merlin and Goose hitting the road again; there is some sense behind the names, not a lot mind you.
So far we have not decided which way we will tackle this, South to North during the summer is the best to take advantage of the gulf stream winds, but during September there could be the first signs of Northern winter winds. The best option is keep an eye on the long term forecast and make a decision closer to the date.
It is un-certain if we will be going for another sponsored event, as nice as it was to raise money it don’t half get in the way of the cycling. You really need your mind on the prize and not on who owes you what. But if that does change I’m sure we will call upon Joe Public for a bit of a donation ;)
This morning started with a defiant low, I closed the front door on Lucy knowing that I would not see her again for another two weeks.
Lucy is on her way to North Carolina on business for the next 14 days to try and help sort out the partner company in the USA. She has been whisked away before but so far it has always been during the week, never at a week end. This helped as I never had time to really stop and sit back and think too deeply.
Now this time is started at the beginning of the week end, this is different. I keep wanting to make a brew for two, or walking around the house a bit lost like.
To take me mind off things I opted for that ‘high’ feeling. I walked into town and handed the local BHF shop over £1100 in donations! I would love to say it was from my own hand but alas it was the final lot of the money from the end2end ride. It was a great feeling to see the looks of the girls faces when you hand them that. They truly appreciated the gesture and it gave me that great big warm feeling inside.
What a day, start at one end of the scale and end up at the other end; feeling a lot better.
It’s official, next year we will try the end to end ride in 4 days!
The knee injury is only just calming down and the doctor said I can start riding again yet the talk of knocking a day off the ride has been spoken about since we got back. Last night Dave came round for a chat and a catch up and to drop the bombshell; “do you want to go for 4 days?”
Now it might be fact that I was watching Tom secure the yellow jersey in stage 3 of the Tour, or the fact that Lucy was not there to talk some sense into me but the words hell yes just flowed off my lips.
Of course this is a big ask, it was bad enough doing the ride in 5 days but to then ‘lose’ a day somewhere is going to take some serious work. On the flip side I now know what is to be expected, when I’m told about a climb over Berrydale I know that the climb over Berrydale is a CLIMB over Berrydale. I know the terrain and I know the effort I required last time, I should then be able to build on it and perform better.
My big problem is just my knee, I need to know in my own mind that I can rely on it and put that force through it again without it failing. Time to invest in a good physiotherapist I think.
Sitting at work this morning when an envelope made it’s way to my desk; a letter from Mike and Debbie at Willow Tree Farm Shop donating money towards the British Heart Foundation upon completion of my trip.
Given the generosity of the donation I felt compelled to mention them personally. Thank you both very much and I wish you all the best.
On a side note if you are in the Cavendish/Glemsford area and require fresh vegetables and Farm produce please drop by and give them a look in.
This morning I took a quick trip to the doctors. I’ve been suffering from a few aches and pains since the ride and thought it best have a quick check up.
The main concern was a knee problem that stems from an old basketball injury. But it also turned out I have tendonitis in my ankles! The correction for both the knee and ankle problem is one which is so severe that I can hardly type it:
Don’t ride!
This is going to be difficult to do, but when he explained that if the knee does not clear up with rest and medication they will resort to injecting steroids into my knee to kick start the joint. Put like that spending some time in the garden instead of the saddle looks fine with me.
I’ve been back for two days now and and I’m struggling to get back into the groove.
Yesterday I was not really up to much so I spent the day trying to upload some photo’s of the trip and cleaning my bike.
Today I finally sat down at my desk (home version) to find a pile of post and an in-box full of emails. The main task for the day however was to finish of uploading the photo’s.
Lucy got a bit carried away with the camera and I’ve got around 900 photograph’s to upload; it has taken two days to get them all on Flickr!
I tried to get into the swing of things and replied to a few emails; thanks for those of support and well wishes, cleared out several hundred junk mails. But after an hour or so I was bored again so decided to take a trip to see Rob at Lifecycle. I needed to sort out my buckled wheel from the trip so enjoyed the escape.
Tomorrow I’ve got to return to work and so far I’m not looking forward to it, of course it will be good to get my teeth into something again but so far everything feels a bit slow motion compared to last week.
To start with we made it!
I am back and sitting in the kitchen but still a bit dazed and confused. Sorry for the lack of updates and when I finally get round to writing a full run down you will sort of get the picture.
As I have a lot of gear to sort out and some wounds to sort I’ll just give you the abrevieated version:
Day 3 was an absolute killer for me, woke up with a pain in my knee that I remembered from the time I destroyed cartalidge in there. Plodded on only to have my rear mech hanger break just outside Kendal. Rob quickly turned it into a single speed and we set off for Shap, one of the toughest climbs of the ride, with only one gear; 36/16 or something around there. During the begining part the chain jumped up a gear and near enough locked the bottom bracket from being so tight; you could not turn the cranks by hand, yet I was going to get up this hill.
That pretty much killed off my knee and meant the remainder of the day was taken with ease.
We still made it to Selkirk were we had a few spare parts and got me running on full gears again.
Day 4 was greeted with a limp and the fact that I could not apply pressure on my right knee, sort of makes cycling interesting, once we got going my knee eased up but I had to keep it moving to ensure it did not cease up, difficult whilst travelling through Edingbourgh.
The next big obsticle was the 27mile climb out of Pitlochery, not to be forgotten thats for sure. But the cruising down the over side was of course a welcome break. No seriously it was a steady climb for 27 miles!
We finally made it to Avimore were we called it a day and I almost called it a night. My knee was swollen beyond recognition, I could not get off my bike or walk and ended up in bed with half the ice from the hotel bar on my leg.
Needless to say I got out of bed on Day 5, I was not going to be beaten just yet. We had quite a nice gentle ride towards Inverness, I spent the time looking at my sunburnt hands wondering if they could get any redder in this sun when it suddenly disappeared and we rode into the clouds and mist. From here on out the secenery was just a white blurr and the roads were damp and greasy.
There was only a couple of obsticles left, Helmsdale and Berrydale climbs; these are nothing like I expected. The countryside was great and if my knee was not so painful I’m sure it would have been more fun but they were out of this world. Such a great experience.
The final leg of the journey was such a let down, nothing but mist and bleak countryside. Nothing really to write about apart from the sign for John O’Groats just never came quick enough, 30 miles has never taken so long.
Finally Dave nodded and I knew this was the final climb before the roll into the town. As we came down the hill the welcome faces of Sean and Sarah and the support crew meant that that we had made it!
Sorry this is only the quick version and once I get sorted I’ll post some pictures and give you the full run down. Until then I’ve got some washing to do and some sleep to catch up on.
First off sorry for not posting yesterday, had a few problems. Nothing too serious we made it to Bridgewater, covering 165 miles but one thing we had not planned was the sun. Dave ended up with a mild sunstroke and I have severely burnt the back of my right leg, so much that I just hit the pillow early.
Added to that the first day was one hell of a up and down event, I’ve never ridden hills quite like that before! And they never seemed to end, the only saving grace was that you knew a downhill was at the end of every climb.
Tuesday started off with the passing of the first mental barrier, I got out of bed and got dressed; a good start. I also felt a bit better in my legs so we were off. Today saw some of the best riding I’ve ever done, first crossing the Severn bridge and then absorbing the beautiful countryside in South Wales. The day was a long one as we had to make up some miles, we hit the A39 just before Hereford and sat on that right up until Warrington were we are currently staying. Makes to Rob and his tri-bar set up we totally torn up Shropshire, I’ve lost count of how many counties we went through.
So far in two days we have covered nearly 360miles, we are on course for completion but it is a long way off yet and anything can happen.
