As The Dust Settles After LeJog.......

Its now almost a week since we completed the epic ride from one end of the country to the other.  Having put all the days together as one ride to show just how far it is, its come out at 911miles.  We thought we'd done slightly more than that but who cares.  Its a long way anyway.  A very long way.  Especially in 8 days!

So, here, in its entirety is our ride :

Now that I look at it again, its seems even further!

To think, I've sat on my little bike and pedalled all that way.  

ALL THAT WAY!!!

As the pain fades of actually doing it, its now is hitting home just how much of an achievement it is.  Yes, people have walked it naked ( see Day 1 pictures ), a person has even tried to push a pee along with his nose ( lasted 2 miles apparently ), and the world record is something like riding it in 45 or 48 hours ( I can't remember exactly ), but who cares. 
This was our epic adventure and what an adventure.  We aren't professional cyclists, just mere mortals who enjoy cycling. Or did, as it may have put me off doing really long distances now!!

We might not have been that quick but who cares.  With an average of just over 14mph for the entire journey, thats not bad going.  14mph for over 900miles and thats with climbing hills that laid vertcially would be almost 8.5miles high!
Yes, my legs know it but not like our backsides!

Surprisingly my legs haven't been stiff at all.  They were worse when we would stop for some food, etc and then have to start riding another 30miles to the next stop.

My backside seems to have calmed down, although there is still a few blisters to heal.  They're not too bad now but they were. 

And so as a little re-cap, here are the actual rides we did - although a couple of them stop short due to battery failure on my Garmin.

Day 1 Lands End to Lifton

For those wondering, the little red dots with numbers on are relating to the difficulty of the hill.  If you look at the map, there were only 9 graded hills but as you can see from the graph ( green wiggly lines ), we went up and down quite a few times more than that!

With hindsight, we wouldn't have done this route.  We'd made the decision to keep off as many A roads as possible due to the possible Easter traffic.  The back roads we chose were so empty we hardly saw anyone at all.  And then, when we got lost, the Garmin was taking us the shortest distance to our finish point which was probably our downfall.  It was my fault the Garmin took us the shortest route as it was set to route as Bike rather than car.  It doesn't take into account hills, just the shortest way to the finish.  You might be wondering what the problem was as surely the shortest was the best?  No.  It took us down plenty of windy difficult sections that had us hard on our brakes bouncing over potholes and grass and then having to struggle up a steep hill immediately afterwards.  Had we stuck to the `better` roads, we would have been able to ride quicker, and then might have got to the hotel rather than being 20miles short!

And then when we got into Devon, there was the 20% hill that was tough as well.

Probably not one of our better choices of route!

Day 2 Lifton to Bridgwater

It didn't help starting off 20miles from where we should have been.  Slightly better roads meant we could go a bit faster, if we had the energy to do it - shame we didn't after yesterdays efforts.  Our problems today where more a case of how far can we go in the strong headwind.  It didn't seem to matter which direction we went, the wind was there all the time.

The only cheery bit for us today was stopping to look at these lovely Morgans... 

After yesterdays Sportive killing amount of hills ( fine if it was just the one day ), we had yet again more hills to climb, and this time we had three big hills that are a Grade 3 ( it goes 4,3,2,1,HC with a grade 4 not being as tough as a grade 3, etc ).
It was this last Grade 3 hill that Ric blew up on.  His bike going over the side of the hill, well, almost.  Thankfully our rescue team arrived just in time!

Thanks again to Jus & Di for sorting us out with a new hotel for the night in Weston Super Mare.  What would we have done without you?

Morale of the last two days for anyone doing LeJog?  Try to keep the hills down to minimum.  Cornwall and Devon are tough and you will still need your legs later on!

Day 3 Bridgwater to Ludlow

Frantically re-routing to minimise the hills and ( hopefully ) ensure we get to Leyland at the end of Day 4 doesn't help on such an epic adventure. Yes it might add to it, but when your tired, the last thing you want to do is spend a couple of hours trying to find a more suitable route and a new hotel for the following day.  Stressful !!!
Today we had to brave the A38 and pat of the A49.  Fast roads that seem even faster when you are pedalling away and a lorry hurtles past you missing you by inches and then the back draft knocks you.  

Not a good day in that respect.  
Not a good day for me in terms of my bowels either!!

But it was a good day to meet up with old high school mate Allan and the support he gave us on his motorbike following us along for a couple of hours.

Day 4 Ludlow to Leyland

This was the day we had to do.  Get to our own beds tonight.  Damn that A49 though.  Not ideal but a means to an end.  Fast enough for us to push into the headwind again.  We suffered what turned out to be the only puncture of the trip on the A5 around Shrewsbury.  At least where we had stopped seemed to be sheltered from the wind and was really warm - could quite easily have stayed there!! 
Riding past Oulton Park towards the end of the journey perked me up a bit - but not enough to want to ride around it!!
At the end we were told by my nephew Christopher that we had dirty faces.  Yep, we did.  Panda eyes like the old days.......

Day 5 Leyland to Lockerbie

Much needed support from Chorley Cycling Club helped us to Lancaster where we met my sister-in-law Sharon and then Kendal where we met another old school friend John. Then THE hills started - Shap.  By now I'm starting to real struggle on the climbs and Ric is just getting stronger and stronger.  I found Shap to be tough but Ric thought it was relatively easy.  I hope he's not going down the Lance Armstrong route!!!
We didn't quite make Lockerbie by 4 miles.  But, and this is a big BUT, we were actually ahead of schedule!!  After the disaster of Day 1 and especially Day 2, we had pulled ourselves in front by 15miles.  It might not sound a lot but its about an hours cycling so good enough for us! 

Day 6 Lockerbie to Luss ( Gretna )

What do we remember about this ride?  Well, the weather for one - wet and miserable.  The roads were, mostly, excellent except for the muck - we looked like we had been mountain biking by lunch time!
We don't like Glasgow, although by now Ric didn't trust the Garmin so that didn't help!
High point?  Getting to Loch Lomond and still being ahead of schedule.

Day 7 Luss to Inverness

This turned out to be my worst day and Rics strongest.  I failed big time over the Glencoe Mountains.  20 odd miles that made we want to stop, cry and go home.  I had no energy at all on the climbs and Ric was minutes and miles ahead of me.  Luckily everyone supported me and we managed what turned out to be a very long ride to almost the wrong hotel in Inverness!  Bare in mind before we had started this adventure we had only ridden 100miles as our furthest ride and we had beaten that on day 3 by doing 122miles.  This was 20miles further than that!!
Beautiful scenery too, if the weather could have improved a bit.

Day 8 Inverness to John o Groats

Someone told us today would be undulating.  Now what I call undulating isn't 13% climbs.  Undulating should be rolling hills that are easy to pedal up, not monster hills that seem to go on and on.  Be warned there are a number of tough climbs on this stretch.  Its very windy too, especially along the coast.
Today you have really only one road to follow as well so no major issues about the route ( for a change! ).

A Quick Review

Cornwall and Devon are killers, the A38 and A49 fast, the A6 much better than we had thought except for the Shap ( for me not Ric ).  Scotland is a big place with one road in one road out but beautiful Lochs!
John O Groats is not exactly a lively place at 7:15pm on a Saturday night!!

Should we have taken longer?  Yes.  Maybe 8 days was pushing it.  9 would have been better and 10, well, maybe a bit too easy?

But at least we did what we set off to and that is complete our journey from Lands End to John O Groats in 8 days.  Phew!!

For the Stato's out there here's some interesting figures

It took us 64 hours to ride from Lands End to John O Groats.
Our average speed for the entire journey was 14.03mph
We turned the pedals around approx 305,746 times - no wonder I've got a bad right knee!!

So would we do it again?

Me - No
Ric - Maybe

We now have to start planning our next big adventure.....

I think getting on the bike will be enough for me just at the moment, thank you!