Lands End to John O'Groats

This ride, from the bottom of England to the top of Scotland, had been on my bucket list for a long time, at least 10 years, since my brother Nick and sister Lucy did it; the appeal was not just the physical challenge of long consecutive days of riding, but also getting to see some more of the UK.  As someone born and bred in the south of England, I'd seen very little of the North and had only visited Scotland once.

Land's End - Only 874 miles to go.

Day 1: After photos taken at Lands End, we set off - with my brothers Tim, riding the first 10 miles with us then acting as support for the first 2 days, and Nick, my riding parter for the next 2 weeks.  It wasn't a good start.  Coming over, I'd lost the bit of my bike which holds the seat post in place.  Mum had cunningly managed to fix the bike by ramming some kitchen skewers in there, but the skewers came out just when we were taking the bike over to the signpost to have our photos taken.  We tried jamming everything, including wet wipes and twigs, in there, but nothing worked - and I was facing the Chinese water torture of sitting on a wobbly saddle for nearly 1000 miles.  Then, when we got to the first bike shop, they turned the bike upside down, shook it around a bit, and out fell the part.  I was charged £5, but honestly, if I'd have been charged £500 I would have happily turned it over, and given the mechanic a big wet kiss on the cheek for good measure.

The first day was the most climbing of the whole trip.  We had to bike along a notoriously busy road, the A30, with a lot of long hills and not much space for cyclists on the side of the road.  Around mile 35, two cyclists attempting the End to End had been killed by a lorry a few weeks before; this was on our minds riding along this section.   By the end of the day, my knee had started twinging, so I was happy to make it to our first overnight town for a shower and pasta meal in the local pub, after about 80 miles of hot and hilly biking.

Beautiful Devon

Day 2 took us another 80 miles or so from Launceston on the border of Cornwall, to Taunton in Somerset.  This was also fairly hilly, but some of the Devon countryside was beautiful.  There is something very special about the English countryside, so green with its patchwork of fields.  That evening, I met my uni friends Mark and Jim for a meal, along with Debbie and Roger, family friends who would be supporting us for the next few days.  Tim gave me some good painkilling drugs to knock any potential problems on the head, so the knee was fine on day 2.

Day 3 was from Taunton (where I bumped into my old classmate Kate Miller in the supermarket - small world) up to Monmouth, just over the Welsh border.   This was another day's hard cycling.  We had some of the worst roads of the whole trip around the docks at Bristol, busy with heavy duty lorries, and then had trouble finding the Severn bridge to cross over into Wales.   After we did cross over, we basically took a wrong turn (poor sign posting, not our fault - probably) which meant a lot more climbing up steep hills, when we should have been cycling along a flat valley road.  By the time we finished, it was around 8 and getting dark, and we were grateful to Debbie and Roger for a delicious pasta meal in their caravan.

Start of Day 4

Day 4 - Monmouth to Whitchurch - also had some beautiful countryside around Herefordshire, and more rolling hills which were easier on the legs; by Day 5 -Whitchurch to Lancaster - wasn't quite so pretty and took us through some built up areas up north - Wigan, Preston, and Warrington.  It was a great feeling to reach Lancaster as we had a rest day there, and already had about half the distance under our belt.

Rainbow, cycling through Scotland

Day 6 was the 'bad weather' day.  It had been warm and sunny so far, but the forecast was for lots of rain, and for the first time, a strong headwind.   We set out early to beat the weather, but after a couple of hours the rain set in and basically stayed with us all day.  After a stop in Kendal, we had to bike up the A6 on what seemed like a never ending hill, with the Lake District on our left.  You could tell it was beautiful, but it was hard to appreciate with rain and strong winds blowing right into your face.  At the top of the hill, we had to stop and wait for dozens of sheep to be herded over the road, and were freezing and wet through by the time we stopped for lunch.  The rest of the day took us up to Carlisle and then Gretna Green, over the border into Scotland.  We finished in the dark, soaked through, and happy to put the day behind us.

Tea Break

Day 7 was some of the easiest biking - no more rain and a good tail wind, but I was low energy, probably from the efforts of the previous day.  We made it up to Carluke, just to the south east of Glasgow.  For the last twenty or miles or so, my derailleur broke, so I was restricted to biking in the big cog only.  This was OK but made going up any kind of hill a lot of effort.   Day 8 started off with a slightly-fraught-in-places 40 mile round trip to find a bike shop to get the new part fitted.  We didn't get off until about 1.30 pm, but made good progress, going up past Edinburgh and Glasgow, and through Stirling.  By the time we got to Crieff at 7 pm with about 10 miles to go, it was getting dark, was starting to rain, and I could feel myself starting to bonk, so I was picked up by Peter, our support for the last few days in Scotland, and made up the 15 miles on the next day, our last rest day.  The area where we stayed, just south of the Cairngorms, was beautiful; sparsely populated, with rugged hills, with endless heathland and forest in every direction.

Riding through the Scottish moorland

Day 9 started through some lovely countryside - beautiful purple heather and dark green forests against dark cloudy skies.  We hit some steep hills with ludicrous gradients, so for the first time got off and walked up a couple of them (Nick made it to the top).   Our stop that night was Kingussie, about 30 miles south of Inverness.

Lunch in Peter's camper van

 Day 10 was going well until about 60 miles in, when I got some bad shooting knee pain, which got worse and worse, until I was afraid my leg was going to completely seize up.  It was some kind of over-use injury, with my good leg rebelling against doing the heavy lifting by itself for about 800 miles.  It was a huge relief to make it to our last overnight town, Dunkeld, where we went out for a nice curry, and planned the last day's riding.  For Day 11 we decided for to swap pedals, so I'd not be clipped in, and could just wear my regular running shoes to cycle.  This let me move my leg around from time to time, and definitely helped.  I was dreading the pain coming back, but it held up, helped of course by the last of Tim's drugs.   The last day was a ride up the coast to John O'Groats, with a good tail wind.  There were some impressive climbs (which meant walking up a couple more hills), but it was a great feeling to be on the home stretch.

 Scottish Heather

By the time we made it into John O'Groats, it was about 5 O'Clock, a mist had rolled in, and it was raining quite hard.  After 876 miles of cycling, tt was a great feeling to have made it!  We did the obligatory pictures at the end, and then sat in Peter's camper van enjoying a celebratory cup of bubbly, with the rain pattering against the window.

Finished!  At John O'Groats

This ride was definitely one of my biggest accomplishments.  My mental image of the ride beforehand was cycling for a bit in the morning, then stopping off somewhere nice, maybe wandering around an old castle or ruin, before having a pleasant picnic lunch and doing a spot more cycling to round off the day.  The reality was that it was more of a slog, factoring in rest breaks, mechanicals, pitstops, etc, you basically had to keep going to make it to the overnight town before it got dark.  I found out something about my physical boundaries - and that my leg gets cranky if pushed hard for consecutive days.

The best things about the ride were being able to spend time with my family - Nick all the way from south to north, Mum and brother Tim supporting me, and family friends generously traveling up the country in support of our challenge.  And I'll always have memories of some of the beautiful parts of the country I'd never seen before, from the lush green fields of Devon and Herefordshire, up to the rugged highlands and moors of Scotland.