Reflections of a reluctant cyclist

Reflections of a reluctant cyclist!

To truly understand team you need to give yourself to it completely without question. You need to trust those around you and in turn be trusted. In that way you become part of a single entity.

Did we achieve this? well I guess so, we achieved our goal! But actually more than that we threw ourselves into the challenge we followed each other (sometimes blindly) supported each other and when things got tough we were there for each other. We mocked each other, sometimes gently and sometimes with vigour! Knowing which to do when is really important!!

The team

Mike, Barry and Bob (John)

We would not have completed this task without them, Fact! Having a van and a friendly face every 10 or so miles was fantastic. Knowing that food drink and a gentle ribbing was around the next corner gave us the mental strength to carry on! We all know that the best plans are only as good as the people delivering them and boy did they deliver. From all of us a huge Thank you.

Lee (hills)

Our Mr consistent always there seldom in the front seldom at the back. In fact Some of the hilly days I saw little of him as he is like lightning up hill and I down hill! Lee kept things on an even keel as we new he would. Always a willing ear he made himself available for those conversations necessary in distracting oneself from the task in hand. Thank you Lee

Mike (the mechanic)

What an emotional roller coaster. I have grown to respect Mike as a cyclist over the last few months and he duly smashed days 1&2 I think watching him struggle so badly on day 3 effected us all tremendously.

Throughout Mile kept us amused either with his agricultural anecdotes or when we mocked him with fake sightseeing experiences.

You couldn't wish for a better roommate always making tea and running baths just when they were needed most!

Mike you are a star and a hero! no one would have thought any less of you if you had succumbed to your knees on
Day 3, but giving up was never in your mind! respect!

Barry (Blog, IT & navigation)

Where do you start. I think it was Shrek or it could have been donkey who used the layers of an onion to describe personality. Well Barry you've shed some layers over the last 10 days and with each layer your warmth kindness and generosity has shone through.

There is so much I want to say but I won't yet! I'll save it for later.  We all owe you so much and I know for one that if it had not been for you I probably wouldn't have made it to the end.   I know that whenever I hear Preston being mentioned I will think of you and smile! Thank you

Families & Friends

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder.  Well, maybe if your heart isn't otherwise occupied forcing your body to do daft things!    Seeing the WAGs on the first Sunday we were away was great (making sure they didn't meet was difficult!!). Joking aside, for me the low point on day 3 soon turned to a high point when we met the families at Ludlow.  Spending the evening eating and talking was a much needed distraction.

The messages of support and encouragement from friends and family cannot be underestimated we have been truly humbled!

Motivation

Having a goal that you all believe in really helps although when your pushing yourselves to the edge of your physical capabilities it sometimes gets lost in the grunting!  Nia somehow judged this and a motivational email arrived on day 3 after the families had gone home!

Without going into detail, Nia forwarded an email from a family who had lost their young daughter to cancer and had been fund raising ever since! This included LEJOG last year. They thanked us and reminded us that all our pain and suffering may make it possible for children to avoid suffering in the future.

As you can imagine there wasn't a dry eye in the room!


I guess the final mention must be to my friend and neighbour Jeff who's messages of support have been constant throughout the challenge. Once we had finished he sent this text:

"Absolutely fantastic,well done all of you. Today would of been my nephews birthday, he died when he was 5 so i know what a charity like sparks does and with the massive effort that you have all done will hopefully prevent the heartache that i went through. Again well done,enjoy a few beers tonight !!!"

We sat in silence for those few miles out of John O Groats, crying quietly and reflecting on what we had achieved and feeling immensely proud!

To the team; thank you all for sharing an idea and helping me make it a dream and then a reality! I couldn't think of any other people I would rather have shared these moments with. We are now all bound by these memories and they will stay with us forever! I will always remember!

What have you done today..................

Day 10 - Helmsdale to John o Groats

And now...

Breakfast on day ten was a buoyant affair.  Lots of jokes being swapped as the team sat down to its last guilt free big breakfast before we would have to start watching our calorie intakes again.

It was made more buoyant by the fact that knew we had the toughest 17 miles of the day out of the way.  Those three hills between Helmsdale and Dunbeath are truly breathtaking and very reminiscent of the horseshoe pass near Llangollen that thankfully we had all trained on. The knowledge that they were not in our path to John O Groats now and we could drive to the top and continue our journey was very uplifting.

Wick away

The ride this morning was slightly odd though.  There was 36 miles to go when we left the van at the tea room on top of the hill outside Dunbeath which normally would take us around 3 hours to ride on one  of our training sessions.  However, nobody seemed to want to race this distance away and instead we settled into a more gentle pace and really began to look around and chat as we made the trip.

For most of the journey we rode two aside chatting away to each other.  The level of conversation has always been a good indicator of the mood of the group.  The hour dash from Perth to Peebles there was practically none for instance whereas this morning was filled with laughter and chatter as we pushed along the very north of Scotland.

There were discussions about how we felt, what it had meant, what would we do at the end and (importantly from my perspective) was crying allowed when we got there?

After a brief stop in Tesco in Wick, where a few of us got the food we had actually ordered as the staff (Richard) struggled with the drinks machine buttons, we were chatting to two guys who were waiting for the airport having just completed the trip.  They had done it unsupported over 19 days ad the stories they told of the human kindness they had encountered, people genuinely wanting to help them, were touching.

We got back on the bikes and headed off to the final stop on this tour.

Rolling finish

Approaching John o Groats you sweep down to the coastal path near where Donald Trump would like to build a new golf complex.  If the wind yesterday is anything to go by you would need to learn to hit punch shots and run shots PDQ to be anything like successful on it but I digress.  We had to climb up one last hill to finally get the view of the finish line.

As a group we stopped in the layby at the top overlooking the sea and then started to roll down into John O Groats.  When I say roll i mean it. In this case we litereally rolled.  Not much pedal power was exerted or considered and gravity pulled the four of us to our destination.

We had made a promise on the top of the hill that having started at Lands End together we would roll across the line into the John O Groats car park together as well.  And that is exactly what we did. At a pace of about 3 mph.  Personally, I was glad of this.  The wave of emotion and pride in the team that swept over me coming down that hill hit hard and looking up was a challenge, cycling practically impossible.  Lets just say I was very grateful for my mirrored sunglasses :-).

Team together at the finish line

We crossed the line and then headed for the official signpost for the photos below.  Calls were made to loved ones and it was amazing how quickly the news spread with messages and calls then coming back to us practically within seconds as the news broke onto Facebook.  I now know how football teams must feel when a transfer is about to take place.

We had a photo like this 9 and a half days ago.

Having posed for photos from multiple angles with David Bailey Bob we headed back to the visitor centre to sign the book to confirm we were End to Enders.  We also signed the book on behalf of our support drivers who we could not have done without.  Bob, Mike and Barry a great thanks and your names are also in the book as part of our team.

The last thing on our agenda was to get ice cream from the shop which was fantastic and we could then load up the van, board it and head to Fort William for our celebratory meal.

Heather

You may or may not remember Richard asking for some motivational songs to put into his Ipod.  Thanks to Stephen who chose Proud by Heather Small which was a great choice.  This song was in my head most of this morning as we were coming closer and closer to making this achievement. Just as the van made the jump to light speed outside of John O Groats, the question in the chorus filled my mind.

"What have you done today to make you feel Proud?".  This.

Day 8 - Pitlochry to Inverness

Firstly, apologies for the lack of photos but my phone is still not working but we will try and put them up once we get access to those on the camera.

Cycle path or not

We had breakfast in the B&B and had a decision to make about whether to take the A9 proper or the A9 cycle path.  

Either way both run the entire distance from Pitlochry to Inverness however the road does this in around 84 miles whereas the cycle path takes well over 90 and is slightly more hilly.  It has to be said we all have road bikes the type of which have very thin tyres and the type of saddle tha,t if you are old enough to remember the yellow pages adverts, look like razor blades.  The thought of bouncing along on an uneven service on a proper road is unappealing enough before you add being not as well maintained into the equation.

Given yesterdays experience we decided to go with the road although given we would have three punctures to fix during the course of the first few hours maybe the cycle path may have been more forgiving.  Whilst changing one puncture the usual team of Richard, Mike and Lee shot into action and after most of the work was completed handed the tyre back to Barry to put on the bike.  Ten seconds later they took it back just after Barry realised that the spikey wheels on the back should probably be on the same side as the chain and fractionally after he realised the chain may need to go around the spikey thing.  

Main road riding

Riding on the main road is not as bad as you may think.  99% of the cars and lorries behind you are aware of you (given we were wearing lime/fluorescent yellow we were visible from space) and give you a wide berth when overtaking.  We also ride very conscientously and ride on the left of the white line marking the lane by and large unless the number of gutters makes this unsustainable.  Obviously that leaves the 1%.

If you are the type of person who feels the need to shout abuse at cyclists using the rural country roads then we have some news for you.  The mixture of the 60mph of the car, 20 mile an hour winds and the Doppler effect mean that all the cyclist will here is a primeval grunt.  Although in some instances this may actually have been the noise emanating from the vehicles, for the others our advice is whatever it was you shouted you should probably have just said it quietly to the person next to you.  They were the only person who heard it anyway.

The Cairngorms

Had you told me a few weeks ago that on this ride one of my least enjoyable days would be the trip past my house and one of the most enjoyable when we traversed the Cairngorm mountain range I would have thought you crazy.

However, whilst there was a large 1000 feet climb to start the day it was over a duration of about ten miles and the view at the top was spectacular.    We also tried to convince Mike the lake we could see was Loch Ness but he has vowed to never believe us again so this didn't work.  It was at the top that Mike realised just how bright his front light was.  When Bob asked where he had got it from, Richard quickly replied "the runway at Manchester Airport".  To be fair this is such a bright light that was flashing away we briefly considered whether we needed to put a warning for people approaching with photo sensitive epilepsy.

What goes up must come down and the next twenty miles were down hill and we were averaging well over twenty miles an hour on the approach to Kingusise where we would have a drink stop before heading on for Lunch at Aviemore.  This spell of riding was fantastic as we were able to wind back the aching in our legs and ride along at speeds for consistent periods we thought we well behind us.  In fact our average speed today was equivalent to those of day 1...some 600 miles ago.

For lunch we found a Pizza and Pasta buffet at the first restaurant as you approach Aviemore and using the excuse of Carb loading and Replacing lost calories attacked it like we had not eaten for days.  The food was fantasttic and after our first plates were finished we went back for second helpings at which point Barry realised Lee was just about to start a meet dish on his plate despite being vegetarian and Mike arrived with more food on his second plate than his first.  Rumour that the company is suffering financially after our arrival are greatly exaggerated.

Perfect Pizza

Aviemore itself is an odd town.  This is a world renowned ski centre despite being quite flat and has a number of shops most of which are mountain clothing and outdoor sports related.  There was a kids funland with three or four rides but I assume the tourists in February time are not that concerned with this as they are flying down the hills.

Returning to the A9 we climbed back up for the next 10 miles to Schlod summit at about 1315 feet which was a tough climb but the weather was with us and the sun block was woken from hibernation as the temparature increased.  The view from the top of here was amazing with the Cairngorm mountains now in our rear view mirrors (or would be if we had one!) and the sunshine and this is truly an area you should visit if you have not.   I think we would all recommend driving though.

The other bright side at this point was that we were now within 10 miles of the hotel and a 5-45 ish finish which would allow for extra time to recover before tomorrow.  Whilst there were still some climbs to come which slowed us down once these were out of the way, the A9 view of Inverness and the sea is fantastic as you descend into the town.

Jinx strikes again

So...it would appear I could get being on one road wrong.

And what is worse I actually got it wrong about ten days ago when I searched for the Inverness Travelodge to plot the route into the Navigation unit and it guided me to the Travelodge Fairways.  Sadly, there is another Travelodge in Inverness which is about two miles away which is where we are actually staying.  Pants.

We maybe should have suspected when the Van was at the Travelodge and there was a message that there was nowhere to stop in between the A9 and the hotel to meet as arranged.  This appeared odd as we had two miles per the computer so we set off to finish the day before 6 for the first time in a while only to find out that the Van was about 500 yards from us.  Double Pants.

I have already searched Helmsdale to make sure there is only one hotel there with the same name and after that there is only one more night away and I have promised I wont have anything to do with the navigation on that day.  For now.

Day six - penrith to Peebles

Its raining....

The day began with Richard exclaiming, "it looks like rain, lets ride like the wind!".  This was met with derision, catcalls and general disbelief as Mike and Barry came around realising the words "it looks like rain" probably would have a lot more impact on their immediate future than riding like the wind.

After another Early starter breakfast at Little Chef (our diets have synchronised following three days in the room) we boarded the van to the start point back on the A6. 

The start was greatly anticipated as the Williams Team Pit Crew had spent a lot of the previous night fixing Barry's shoes whilst he sat on the couch and watched.  "I'm doing the blog" was my only defence and this was not greeted warmly.  After it was decided that not only did the shoes need fixing but my bike needed new pedals we set about a tactical mission the A-team would have been proud of to get the bike into the room unnoticed.

If only they had told me of the plan as I walked in with the bike behind the "diversionary" tactics of "how many free rooms are there?" happily saying hi to the receptionist.  Barry continued his helpfulness by then sticking his shoe to the pedal before it was attached to the bike. This meant Richard had to thread the peddle with the shoe and then wind the shoe until it could be removed.  Sorry :-).

Their efforts were not rewarded though as Barry managed to start without falling off the new pedals but not before the photo beneath was taken.  It was not as painful as it looks, and was done because Richard had started playing a game to come up with as many words as possible from the letters in Livestrong.  The current record is 106. 

Does my bum look big in these?

here comes the rain

The route took us up to Carlisle where Richard carried on a fine tradition he started in the training courses in relation to his bike computer.  These are small little devices that sit on the handlebars and tell the rider helpful information like cadence and speed which we have been using to measure our rides and keep everyone to acceptable pace so that we dont tire too easily.

Richards tradition though is to break them and his third today detached itself from the bike and bounced into the path of the oncoming traffic.  Despite the first few cars missing it, the second to last one connected perfectly and split the computer into a number of component parts.  Hence, Richard has been asking rather a lot what speed we are going today.

Leaving Carlisle, we stopped at a great cafe that is attached to a caravan park.  By this point, we had been travelling for around 20 miles in a heavy rain and we were soaked through our various waterproof coats that were not quite living up to the billing.  In particular this was the point Barry realised that his phone was no longer functioning which is a bit like him having had an arm surgically removed.

Now I have to be honest.  Having just spent twenty minutes writing this the computer crashed and I lost it.

:-(.

Given its gone midnight now I will update tomorrow on the trip into Scotland.   Sorry.

THANKS

The one thing I definitely want to have on here though is our thanks to Mike Shelley who has been with us driving the support van for the last six days but returns home tomorrow.

There is no word of a lie when we say we could not have done it without you.  You have truly been part of the team, joined in the banter, been exceptionally generous and above all of our expectations.  Thanks.

Getting ready and in touch with our feminine sides

Entering the last week before we go was an odd experience.

I thought this would be a time when the challenge would hit me and I would start to realise what I has let myself in for. However, as Friday the 15th rolled around the more foreboding thing on the horizon was the leg waxing we had scheduled.

If you read back through these blogs this had been a perennial topic of conversation and consternation. When Richard fell off his bike in a story that becomes slightly less believable with each telling (two playboy bunnies In a convertible Aston Martin at last telling) and then spent twenty minutes picking small stones out of his leg the casting vote was placed.

Which left more questions.

1 Who on earth would wax the legs of three men

2.Where on earth would they do it.; and then (more worryingly)

3.  How far up your legs do you go???

After enlisting the help of some friends we found a friendly beauty therapist who volunteered to give up her Saturday and day off to help.  The fact this was the niece of a good friend of the group is purely coincidental.

Ready to go

A local farm shop called Bellis brothers also volunteered to allow us to set up an ad hoc waxing clinic outside its main gates where we could have our hair ripped out of our legs whilst passing shoppers could watch claiming "it doesn't hurt that much" or "look at the pain on this guys face!" to their spouses and small children respectively.   It seems Beadle caught onto something in the human psyche a long time ago and there really isn't much that people like more than the sight of a fellow human in relatively safe pain.

Mike went first which was a bit of a waste as to be fair he does not have a leg hair to start with.  This is blamed upon wearing wellies a lot as a youngster.  So there you go ladies a useful hint for a future of reduced grooming is to have worn wellies.

The one hair being removed

Richard then followed and instigated a game of how many other people can be involved in waxing your legs. The highlight being the pensioner who donated a pound to use tweezers to extract one hair.  We have no clue.  Honestly, not one.

He also let his daughter and wife have a go and started a trend of pained looking husbands and grinning wifes as below:

"love yoouu"

I went last. Primarily because being the most masculine (the privilege of writing the blog) I have had the most hair on my legs.  So lets be honest here, it doesn't really hurt that much there is just a stinging sensation akin to nettles a second or so after the wax is removed.  Except for my knees.  They hurt.

So after my wife and son also had a go I was eventually free to leave the table and continue with my day safe in the knowledge that having the bottom half of my legs waxed and the tops not with a pair of rugby shorts was not a look that would be catching on soon.

Family event

 Our thanks to Sam Nicklin for her help with this and also to Bellis Brothers.  We can all say we were in very safe hands and she did a great job so if you decide you would also like your legs waxed then we all recommend the 1st 4 Nails and Beauty salon in Vicars Cross where Sam works.  Its a family run business that offers the full range of nail and beauty treatment for all so not restricted to just leg waxing for men. :-)

Chester loop again

Looking forward to a Saturday and Sunday ride to keep the stamina point we headed off on the loop of the Chester and the Sunday off to Corwen

As these are rides we have done before there is not too much additional
Info to give except for noting some interesting statistics.

1. The average speeds were pretty consistent across the two rides despite the Chester ride being quite
Flat and the Corwen ride including the steep climb out of Wrexham.

2. My average heart beat on the Chester ride was 13 Bpm lower than when I did the same trip with Jamie about a month ago. Given the conditions were similar on both occasaions I am taking this as a good sign.

3. There was a point on the ride where I decided to overtake our very own jack Russell Mike (has to be at the front). In order to inxrease my speeds by about four miles an hour on a relatively flat road, my heart rate increased by around 20 Bpm. Note to self. Dont bother in the future. :-)

The last point of note was the interesting variety in our choice of clothes for the Sunday ride. Getting up at six thirty to head out it is hard to judge what the weather will be like.  As its Wales, rain is  reasonably safe bet at some point during the ride but actually the heat or lack thereof is more of a consideration.

The sun just starting to creep through...

Mike went for safety with long leggings, jacket overshoes and duvet whereas I was more optimistic in shorts and under armour with cycling shirt. The main reason for this is I have found a cycling jacket gets hot very quickly and therefore I would rather than run the risk of getting wet but staying cool on big climbs.

As a result for the trip I now have five different under armour tops ranging from arctic to nevada and a variety of shorts and leggings to try and accommodate whatever the british "summer" throws at us.

I look forward to repeatedly looking at the bag over the ten days, looking outside and thinking in time honoured fashion. "what shall I wear?"

Whatever it is hopefully the helmet hair beneath wont be repeated. :-)

Scared by my own reflection

The 100 and wonderful Copenhagen.

Wonderful wonderful Copenhagen

When I started this there were a few things I didn't think I would ever do.

One of them was to utter the words "a quick forty mile ride", another was to have my legs waxed (which we are doing next week hopefully in a busy shopping center to raise awareness) and a third was to hire a bike from a hotel and head off around the capital city of a foreign country.

Having finished in the office at around seven in Copenhagen I returned to the hotel where I had remembered seeing a sign saying "See the city on two wheels".

As a cycling enthusiast this sounded like a good idea and better than the spin class I had planned on the gym bike. So I changed and went to reception to ask how it worked. 100dkk later (about £10) I was in possession of a city bike with motor and a truly fetching new helmet of the type usually seen on hells angels in American road trip movies.

The first thing I noted is that I will never complain about my bike. Ever. This bike was heavy especially carrying the motor and the tires were not greatly pressurised so getting started was not easy. It has to be said through that once running it was quite pleasant to be outside exercising.

Not sure light weight was a consideration

The second thing of note is that a cycle lane in Denmark is quite different to the UK. It really is a lane and you have your own traffic lights. As such there are a broad range of users from mums and dads with children in various baskets/seats to serious bike clubs who found my outfit entertaining to say the least.

As readers of this blog will know, we occasionally poke fun at people for their sense of direction. This is something I have always priced myself on and was quite happily riding around Copenhagen safe in the knowledge that the dock was just a road or two to my left.

Truth be told I was looking for the mermaid statue that sits in the dock. More truth be told, I probably should have looked at a map in the first place. Any way, how lost can you be when you pass a McDonalds?

Eventually I realised I should probably look at google maps to see where I was and plot a route home.

I can see the hotel from here!

Having realised just how far out of the way I was this then prompted an interesting question as to whether I would get back before dark but it was worth a try. Any way, how lost can you be when you pass the same McDonalds?

All in all my quick spin ended up at around twenty miles and as you can see from beneath there was some stunning views of the water once I had crossed enough roads on my left turned around and gone right a bit.

THE 100

Saturday 2nd July we headed off on a mission. There was no real route planned. We just had to break 100 miles.

There were a number of ways we considered doing this. Down the north Wales coastal path and back or thru lough the countryside and then back for the final fifty miles to be on the smooth flat coastal path. In the end we decided to head off in the direction of Bala as Richard was going to Barmouth and see what happened from there.

The fog as we headed off was immense and we did the climb up to bwlchgwyn on the sharp climb out of Wrexham. We reached the top in around fifty minutes which knocked around ten minutes of Richard's previous best. That's a massive twenty percent improvement.

I know the feeling

When we then turned towards Corwen and Bala, Richard had an idea. "why don't you go over the horseshoe pass and then meet me in Bala? You wi probably catch me up.". This set in place a chain reaction...Jamie's eyes lit up, Richard started smirking and my heart sank.

So off we set over the pass where the fog became even worse as the summit approached surprisingly quickly.

Mike then told Jamie and I to go off ahead as he was only doing half of the ride and not going to Corwen. It then dawned on me that Mike didn't have a rear light so as we descended the pass I stayed close behind him in case there were any adventurous cars that approached.

It came out of the fog...

When we caught up with Jamie at the bottom he told us how he had realised halfway down he didn't have a front light so we made quite a group.

We ran down the A5 quickly and along the more scenic rural route from Corwen to Bala which added some climb but was much quieter than the main road.

Jamie had shown his superior skills and gone ahead in the final climb to the main road. As he waited at the junction I rode past shouting " see you slow coach" over my shoulder. About a minute later as the Bala sign approached Jamie flew past as expected. Some people are so competitive.

Following a nice breakfast in a small cafe, Jamie and I (having taken 43 miles to do the 28 mile route thanks to Williams tours) thought a lap of the Lake and back would be enough to clear 100 miles for the day.

There are two routes alongside each shore of the lake and we went down each shore with the more windy country road particularly nice to ride along. Another Richard diversion saw us climb away from Bala rather than back into it on the way to Corwen which was a nice diversion but starting to tell in my legs.

Also telling was that forgot to restart the bike computer so we lost the recording of a few miles...stupid of me but not the last time I would do it today.

By the time we returned to Corwen inward starting to lag badly and needed to stop for water as my drinks bottle had run out a while before. And my big learning point from this ride Is the need to keep fluid and food intake going.

The next leg saw us head to Llangollen through the back road on the other side of the river from the busier A5. On this lane, bike gremlins attacked and my chain broke ( self inflicted according to Jamie) and then I had a puncture as my tube has burst near the valve ( self inflicted from memory!!). Jamie proved to be a godsend in both occasions and simply flipped my bike over and repaired them I seconds whereas I was still looking confused and wondering why the rubber cement had burst in my bike pocket and did that mean I shouldn't eat the fruit bars I had stored in there?

It has been great to get to know Jamie better in these rides and it is a shame that he can't make it with us as I am sure he would love it and his knowledge of bikes would help the team greatly. Next time.

We approached the edge of wrexham with the bike computer showing around 85 miles ( one or two more failures to reset excluded). We really wanted to do the 100 so headed off into the industrial estate.

Having stopped at cross lanes for more stick refuelling the final leg was not easy and we headed back with the computer showing 93 miles but confident we had done the 100 we set off for.

The rest of the day was tough. 4,000 calories takes a lot of replacing but he feeling that we had done it whilst also climbing around the 4-5000 feet was great.

When I thought of the coastal path it was to do the 100 miles but with no hills. Then it dawned on me. It was about three weeks at that point until day one which is 100miles and 5000 feet of climb so had to just go and do it.

I can now approach day one in the knowledge that I have done it that length of ride. Once at least :-)

Reasons why - Barry

LEJOG

What is LEJOG I hear you ask?  Well as we are all financial people, let me explain using numbers:

1,000 miles

100 hours

10 days

1 goal

To get from Lands End To John O Groats; Cycling.  For those of you who don’t know this is southernmost part of the UK to the northern most part of the UK.  Given that it covers the peak district and the Highlands sadly this is not a relatively flat journey around the British coastline but as close as possible to a straight line.

The first thing I had to do once I had agreed to this adventure was to buy a bike.  And now you appreciate the size of the challenge this really is for me.

Why???

As I got on my bike on a windy, dull Saturday morning with rain pouring down to begin the trip from Ludlow to Wrexham this question sprang to my mind too. So much so, that I thought about it for most of the sixty mile trip through the Shropshire countryside.  Fortunately, the thought of 1000 miles in ten days (for those not used to miles this is equal to the moon and back) focuses your mind so I could give the question serious consideration.

Whilst the obvious answer is "for charity" (see below :-)), ultimately I came to the conclusion that this is some sort of a mid life crisis.  Whilst the traditional route is to consider a younger partner and a faster car like[please insert your own choice of name here for legal reasons], a number of my friends have suddenly turned to unusual sporting events to try and hold on to the belief that we are still young and athletic. 

I have a friend who is running a marathon despite having never run for a bus, a friend who is suddenly taking up triathlons as she reaches her mid 30s and one friend from school who never showed a great deal of  interest in sports doing both marathons and triathlons.  He is that kind of person.

To explain my logic I would need to go back ten years to a time when I was a recently married,  newly promoted manager  who was about to find out the piece of news that changes just about everything. Indeed it was around this time ten years ago we discovered that we were expecting our son.  No matter how many people tell you that having a child changes everything you never quite believe them until it happens to you.  It's a bit like a tax audit.

Since then, I have gone from being an avid football fan with a passing interest in “egg chasing” to a qualified rugby coach and referee.  I went from feeling fit as a fiddle to having developed mild Asthma (i still blame the Helsinki office room that we were based in for eight months and was cleaned twice:-)).    I went from performing single arm extensions with one hand weighted with pint glasses to attending up to five exercise classes a week assuming I am not in another country.   I went from thinking of bikes as something you never forgot how to ride to someone who has fallen off twice simply for forgetting to take my feet off the pedals.  The taxi driver I rolled in front of was quite surprised and, once he realised he was far enough away to stop easily,highly amused.

And all of these things is so I can keep up with my son when he wants to play at the weekend without keeling over coughing and wheezing.   Admittedly the parents playing "bulldogs" at rugby and a competitive streak a mile wide was also an influence as after three lengths of the small pitch I felt the need to hand myself over and go in the middle.  The ultimate treachery my body could commit. 

Indeed, it is the other Rugby coach from my sons team who suggested the bike ride and after initially thinking he was crazy I started to think why not?  All it can do is help my general fitness and for some reason a challenge like this appeared to be a good idea.   New aspects of life then presented themselves:

•  calorie counting (there's an app for that),
• abstinence from alcohol,
•  regular exercise classes,
• going to the hotel gym every night as opposed to room service cheeseburger and playing PSP;  and To top it all,
•  Saturdays spent outside wearing trousers that look like they came from Borat's cast offs (see picture below)whilst cycling increasing distances.

I looked scared for a reason.  (It was the blackboard!)

The good cause

Sparks is a leading children’s medical research charity dedicated to funding and championing pioneering research into range of conditions affecting babies, children and mums-to-be. 

Since 1991, it has committed over £22million into pioneering research projects across a wide spectrum of medical conditions including childhood cancers, cerebral palsy, premature birth and spina bifida. In total, the charity has funded 233 research projects in more than 80 hospitals and universities across the UK.

Through the research it aims to improve the quality of life for children and families affected by serious illness or disability today, whilst seeking ways to better diagnose, treat and prevent these conditions in the future.

As a dad, this is obviously a topic close to my heart.     Coincidentally, it is chaired by somebody else with a key interest in Rugby; former professional rugby player Justin Leonard.   It’s a little known fact that between us Justin and I share 114 rugby caps for England.

There is a sponsorship page set up at the following address http://www.virginmoneygiving.com/team/sparkslejog and if youare able to help with sponsorship for this I would greatly appreciate it. 

So, on the 20th June we will start at Lands End and will update this blog regularly so you can track where we are from one day to another.

PS. One final request if I may.  The next time you pass some cyclists on a road in your car please give them a little bit of room.  For one thing, it may be me, and, who knows, in a few years time,it may be you.