Grand finale

Today is the day we reach John O'Groats. First thing to do was clean the bikes to remove all the mud and debris we picked up yesterday.

Next we checked out of the Bannockburn Inn and headed into Helmsdale to find breakfast. Unfortunately everything was closed so we got sandwiches and fruit from the Spar shop and ate on a park bench.

We started our ride to John O'Groats via Wick, where we stopped for a proper breakfast at the Bridge Street Cafe.

The weather was not as bad as forecast, no rain but the mist from the sea meant we only had about 50 meters visibility. At some points the 55 mile route felt like cycling on a turbo trainer in a room with white walls and dark grey carpet.

As we descended into John O'Groats we were both overwhelmed with relief. It had been an epic 10 days of cycling but a battle physically and mentally.

The ride was a total of 968 miles, with 51,000 ft of climbing, the equivalent to climbing Ben Nevis more than 11.5 times from sea level.

After uploading our final activity to Strava we placed 55th and 56th out of 240,183 users worldwide who have signed up for July monthly cycling distance challenge. I don't think we will be topping that any time soon.

Months went into planning the routes, travel and accommodation but also training to get us to a level where we hoped to be capable of completing the ride.

The urge to quit and get a train home was definitely there at times but we powered on to get the job done. The sponsorship we raised for Wessex Cancer Trust is the real reward but our sense of personal accomplishment and the memories we made on the journey will be with us forever

What a difference some rain makes

We woke up at Eriskay B&B in Aviemore to the sound of heavy rain. We knew it had been forecast and it was to be expected. Up until this point we have had 8 days of sun and temperature always around 20 degrees, perfect cycling weather.

We had breakfast in the room and then put on our wet weather gear and braved the rain.

We had a 115 mile day planned so decided to look for stops at around 40 and 80 miles to split the day into three large chunks. We would then stop for longer than our regular breaks to give us time to dry out and warm up.

By the time we got to Inverness we were at the 40 mile mark, neither of us could feel our hands or feet and it wasn't getting any better. We stopped at a Subway for a sandwich, coffee and defrost out hands and feet.

We looked on Google maps and found quite a few shops in Inverness so headed to Blacks and Mountain Warehouse to get some more heavy duty wet weather socks, gloves and jackets.

We set off and the weather eased slightly, after crossing the Kessock bridge we were so warm we had to stop to take layers off!

The rest of the day was unpleasant to say the least, our route followed the A9 for most of the way so was busy, visibility was poor so we couldn't see any of the scenery anyway. The website we used for planning the routes had been absolutely bang on up until today. It had always picked the quiet scenic route on good condition paved roads, a cyclists dream. Today at about the 100 mile mark the route we had preprogrammed into our Garmin's took us through woods on muddy off road tracks, only suitable for mountain bikes, it then dropped us back on the A9 a few miles up the road. Just unnecessary and now the bikes were clogged up with mud.

We kept smiling as it was now laughable how bad the weather had made our last big day. We started seeing signs for John o'Groats now in double figures and that made us more determined to finish this beast.

We made it to our B&B in Helmsdale, our hosts welcomed us. They had a dry shed for us to store our wet bikes and gear and a washing machine to clean all of our muddy kit. I think they must be used to this type of arrival in sunny Scotland.

Highlands and lowlands

On Sunday evening we stayed at the Thistle Hotel just outside Kinross. Our friend Sarah Huxter lives locally and we had arranged to meet up when passing. Sarah very kindly picked us up from our hotel and took us to dinner at the Courthouse restaurant in Kinross, the food was amazing and really good to see Sarah on our route.

The next morning we had a bit of breakfast at the hotel and hit the road for 08:00.

We stopped for a second breakfast at McDonalds in Perth after about 30 miles.

Around midday we arrived in the town of Pitlochry. It was the first big town we had passed for a while and we were ready for lunch so stopped for food at McKays hotel.

We followed national cycle route 7 for most of the day. We had one of the longest single climbs of the trip up to Pass of Drumochter. This is the highest point on the national cycle network in Scotland at 462m.

The descent was also long and gradual and takes in lots of Highland scenery.

We stopped at Dalwhinnie whisky distillery to fill up our water bottles (with water). Unfortunately they didn't have a restaurant so we pushed on to the tuckshop in Newtonmore and had a decent meal to keep us going for the rest of the afternoon.

We arrived in Aviemore and found there were lots of shops, the town itself is a ski resort in the winter and popular with hikers and mountain bikers in the summer. We got dinner and breakfast for the morning from Tesco before checking into Eriskay B&B for the night.

Crossing the Forth and pushing on north

The Best Western at Lockerbie is a great hotel, set in picturesque grounds. It has a very posh looking restaurant but today we opted for making ourselves oat so simple in our room while we were getting ready and skipped breakfast at the hotel.

This meant that we were on the road for 08:00 and getting some miles in early.

Around 30 miles in we stopped for a feed at Abington General Store. Danny had his first taster of haggis this trip. We grabbed some snacks to take away and then set off again.

The rest of the day went well, some sections of road were a bit monotonous and seemed to drag. We stopped for a KFC in Livingston, just south of Edinburgh.

The route improved as the day went on. We crossed over the Forth road bridge, which is pretty spectacular itself. To our left we had the Queensferry crossing bridge and to our right the Forth rail bridge.

On the approach to Kinross we had a long downhill section with stunning views of Loch Leven and some tight turns, great fun to end the day

Leaving the cake district

On Saturday morning we left Danny's grandparents house at Arnside. It was really nice to have have seen the family, the food was incredible and we now had clean bikes and clothes.

It was a slow and very hilly start to the day. The planned route was 97 miles with 6,100ft of climbing. When we stopped for food at Orton Scar Cafe we had done 32 miles (just under 1/3 distance) and 3,500ft (over 1/2 climbing) already.

After the Orton stop the route started to flatten out a bit and we picked up our average speed. 

We stopped for coffee and cake in Penrith, a supermarket sandwich in Carlisle and then once we had made it over the Scottish border we pulled over for a Pizza Express at Gretna.

We checked into our hotel in Lockerbie at about 20:00. We had booked a different hotel but had been upgraded to a four star Best Western hotel. It was very posh and they were fine with us taking the bikes into the room. Both shattered, we ate at the hotel and went to bed.

Gearing Up

Our first challenge of the day was to get the back wheel repaired. Looking online we found a bike shop called "Gearing up" close to our Wigan hotel that opens at 08:30.

We headed over to Gearing Up, which is part of a community project called "The Brick Works".

This company specialise in recycling unloved & unwanted bikes, they sell low cost / affordable bikes – promoting healthy lifestyles, travel to work and reduction in congestion.

The staff at Brick Works were really friendly, they let us bring the bike in and offered a brew.
In no time Simon had the wheel off the bike, tyre, cassette and disc rotor removed, he then replaced the spoke and trued the wheel. We were expecting a late start to the day but were actually on the road by 09:30.

Fortunately we had already planned a shorter 65 mile day as we are staying at Danny's grandparents in Arnside the following evening. After leaving Wigan and heading for the Lake District we stopped along the route for McDonald's breakfast and then The Barn at Scorton for lunch

The flats started turning into rolling hills as we got closer to the Lake District. When we arrived in Arnside we could give the bikes a long overdue clean, degrease and fresh lubricant on chain and other moving parts 

It was Danny's uncles 50th birthday and a big group of the Lashley family were over for the evening. We had a great time and a delicious buffet dinner.

The biggun to Wigan

We spent Wednesday night in the Roebuck Inn a few miles south of Ludlow. We arrived just in time to shower and then order food from the pub, no walking for us today.

We set our alarms an hour earlier for Thursday morning as we had a route planned that was 119 miles to Wigan, our single longest ride of the whole trip. Also the longest ride either of us had ever attempted.

We stopped for water and snacks at Acton Burnell post office, then a couple of hours later we pulled over for coffee and cake at the village store in Upton Magna. This was a great stop, very good for cyclists and just on the NCN route 81.

A little later we caught up with a group of four riders who turned out to be the same guys who were staying at our B&B in Okehampton a few nights ago. We rode together for a bit and stopped at the same pub for lunch, the Bhurtport Inn at Nantwich before going our separate ways again.

One more stop at a Lidl for food and to break up the last section, which was not the most interesting roads. All was going well until about 109 miles when David snapped a spoke.

Luckily we had tools to remove the broken one and could continue the last 10 miles of canal paths to our hotel in Wigan. There are plenty of bike shops in town to get the wheel fixed first thing in the morning.

Back once again with the hill behaviour

Our accommodation in Winscombe was superb. We had a bath for the first time all trip (we had showers everywhere else, we're not that disgusting 😜)

The hosts Steve and Mandy made us feel very welcome, provided a top notch breakfast and let us dry our kit that we hand washed in their laundry room overnight.

Danny preparing bike before leaving Winscombe

We have done 95 and 97 mile rides back to back already but today is the first time we hit 100. We left Winscombe and headed through fields for the coast. The first crossing we made was over the Avonmouth Bridge. This is actually the M5 motorway, luckily we were in a separate section away from the traffic 😬

Crossing the Avonmouth Bridge

We then followed a cycle track along the southern bank of the River Severn and then crossed over the Severn bridge into Wales

Our bikes on the Servern Bridge with the Prince of Wales bridge in the background

We stopped for quite an early first lunch at the Two Rivers pub in Chepstow, then later, a coffee and ice-cream at Raglan Farm and mid afternoon we stopped for pasta at a Tesco in Hereford. By this point energy levels were running low. This second lunch gave us the boost we needed to complete the remaining miles to Ludlow.

Okehampton to Winscombe

Both shattered from our elevation heavy first full day we spent the evening at Medowlea guest house in Okehampton. The hosts were great and well geared up (no pun intended) for cyclists. In fact there were four other blokes staying who were also a day into their LEJOG ride.

After breakfast we cleaned the bikes and then set off on our ride. We opted for the complete NCN route, which is the longest of our three GPX files but has the quietest roads. We stopped in Tiverton for a Subway sandwich and coffee, fish and chips in Bridgwater and a coffee at a country pub, which we can't remember the name of but we couldn't resist the beer garden.



We arrived in Winscombe a little later than planned, at around 18:30, partly due to being held up for 15 minutes while a heard of 200 cows crossed the road in front of us.

Some Strava data

For anyone who is not on Strava and would like to know the rate of progress here it is 😁

Sunday 30th June

Monday 1st July

Tuesday 2nd July

Wednesday 3rd July

Thursday 4th July

Friday 5th July

Saturday 6th July

Sunday 7th July

Monday 8th July

Tuesday 9th July

Wednesday 10th July

Plan B - Welcome to Hill

If you think Cornwall is famous for delicious pasties and ice cream, wait until you have tried their hills!

We left Hayle after coffee and full English breakfast and hit the A30 for a leg warming 12 mile spin. We stopped for a coffee and catch up with Elizabeth Otter (Mrs Otter Surfboards) and baby William, who seemed to enjoy test riding our bikes.

Check out some beautiful hand crafted wooden surf boards over on their site https://ottersurfboards.co.uk

Next we headed west to join an NCN route with little to no traffic for the remainder of the ride. We found a great cafe for lunch in the village of St Columb Major. As the miles clocked up, so did the elevation. The effort was worth it though, we had some amazing views of Bodmin Moor and surrounding areas. It was also good to know that we were getting one of the most difficult days out of the way early.

For the last 5 miles leading up to our overnight stop in Okehampton we followed the old railway track, Granite Way. This was easy miles compared to the hills we had climbed and we crossed the Meldon Viaduct with some breath taking panoramic views.

Stage 1 complete

Our first day went according to plan. We spent 7 hours on trains, we arrived at Penzance station at around 15:00 in glorious sunshine. Quick spray of SPF30 and then set off on the A30 to Lands End. This was the most direct route but fairly busy and not great for cyclists. We soon arrived at Lands End, took some photos and filled out our entry forms and signed the guestbook at the Lands End hotel.

Now the real riding begins so we set our Garmin's using preprogrammed GPX files which took us on the NCN route 3 rather than the A30. This was a slightly longer route back to Penzance and then north to Hayle but much quieter and enjoyable cycling.

We arrived at our overnight stop, the Tamarisk guest house around 18:30. We found a beefeater restaurant 5 minutes walk from the B&B, ate a decent meal and then called it a night 😴