Looking Back

Hindsight is famously a wonderful thing. I can now see things that I would have done differently or investigated more thoroughly. The day after may be a bit soon for a thorough retrospective but I wanted to put something on here now that I can think relatively clearly. Looking back over the past two weeks presents a bit of a muddled mess of memories but I’ll do my best.

I think it’s fair to say I’ve now seen a lot of this country. Well, a lot of one jagged strip of the country and the sights along some of it’s major A-roads. I think my favourite stage was through Shropshire; flat, open roads with enough towns to provide regular distractions and pitstops. I liked the Lochs of Scotland too, even if they came with hills. Cornwall was a challenge, but that was the whole point of the endeavour, so whilst I grunted and swore my way up and down the Cornish hills I did weirdly enjoy it.

I’ve swallowed more flies than I ever wanted to, saw the innards of more roadkill than I thought possible and was disgusted by more suspiciously abandoned bottles of amber liquid than I thought a civilised nation could produce. We’ve had better weather than any of us had any right to hope for; I think it rained for a total of 3 hours. I’ve developed one of the world’s best t-shirt suntans, completed by my glove tan lines which make me look like I’ve had hand-transplants. I’ve also discovered my physical limits, which lie somewhere around the 900 mile mark. On the last day both my legs were screaming as I crunched uphill, I began to wonder if my right leg was going to explode in some way it hurt so much. I am now dealing with random spasms of cramp and I’m making weird, old-man groans every time I try to stand up.

My suffering is not unique, even mega-keen cyclist Tom (to use his full title) is feeling the effects. We all hobbled and moaned our way through this morning, hoping that sensation will return to some extremities (why won’t my right hand work?) and the pain will depart from others. We set out to cycle as a team but due to differing speeds and rest-stop needs we tended to cycle alone (much to Hamill’s regularly vocalised chagrin). We did, however, cycle the final mile as a group. I personally fought hard to compete with Hamill – he may not have been aware that we were racing but I was spurred on through determination to finish each day ahead of the Man Who Didn’t Train. That and my determination to be able to write the following: I did not push my bike up a single hill. Not one. Dartmoor and Cornwall really tested this ambition, but I managed it and it has to be the thing that I’m most proud of.

Having organised it ourselves we discovered the major pitfalls and problems for this trip. Miraculously very little went wrong, but there are a few things that I would do differently. As such I’m going to tweak this blog and leave it as some form of guide to anyone who may fancy the trip themselves. If anyone has specific questions just leave a comment on the relevant page and I’ll see if I can help.

For now though, that’s it. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please throw in a contribution to our fundraising efforts. Even if it’s just a pound, every little helps (damn Tesco for ruining a perfectly decent turn of phrase). I now need to come up with the next challenge. I’m thinking the Berlin marathon next year, but after that… Any ideas?

Day 10 – this is the end

Scotland is renowned for being a bit hilly. Much of it is appropriately referred to as the Highlands because of that fact. Cornwall is not. The Scots managed to build roads around their hills, making the climbs scenic, gradual and in some way pleasant. The Cornish did not. Instead the Cornish seemed to go out of their way to find every possible valley, build a town at the bottom of it and then try to link all of them together with a road that seems to delight in finding the most obtuse angles possible.

It has not been an easy day, by any means, for any of us. Though it only rained for half an hour in Plymouth the wind kept slamming us in the face as we crawled up each of the Cornish hills. It did level out a bit after Truro but there were still some challenging hills to Lands End. It was a tricky day, but it was the last day.

We’re done. Finished. Triumphant, you may say (if you’re keen on hyperbole). We’ve had a beer at the end, taken the obligatory photos and celebrated our collective awesomeness. I’m so bloody happy!

So, 99.56 miles today. 941 miles in total, 68 hours in the saddle.

Day 9

Dartmoor. Wow, where to start? I knew there were going to be tricky bits to this trip; navigating Bristol and Glasgow; climbing some of the Scottish hills; and, thanks to the CTC’s sombre warnings, Dartmoor. The others knew too, I told them all about it to share my fears, so last night a tense semi-silence hung over the group, as though we felt if necessary to pay respect to the Demon of Dartmoor. It’s fair to say it lived up to expectations.

The Tour de France can keep their Alps, real cyclists go through Dartmoor. Sensible cyclists go around Dartmoor. It’s was 30+ miles of random hills that never seemed to factor into the thinking of whoever planned the roads. It seems they ignored topographic considerations, took a blank map of Dartmoor, slapped it on an Etchasketch and went wild. On some climbs I began to seriously wonder if I would fall off my bike if I sat back. And if the hills weren’t enough, the wind came out to play. BUT we did it, it’s over. In fact we blitzed it. To quote Ghostbusters; we came, we saw, we KICKED IT’S ASS!

The rest of the day was great, sunny weather to cycle through the heart of middle-England’s more kitsch towns. One point of contention though, the Council of Taunton may want to think about putting up some road signs. Yes, your central cobbled roundabout is lovely but without any signs it (and every other roundabout in town) is just a bafflement, turning your whole town into a quaint but frustrating labyrinth.

So, 83.78 miles today to add to the overall clock (841 in total now) though Tom and I did add a couple of miles by going to the Supermarket for breakfast. A slower day, 13.17 mph on average, due to the killer hills. We’re now all checked into the last Travelodge of the trip and this one is redeeming the chain after last night’s… experience. One day to go!

And, with one day to go, now would be a good point to beg. This fortnight of foolishness is not JUST for fun, it’s also for a good cause. So head over to the charity page of the blog, click on one of the two charities’ donation pages and give us yer money. And thank you to all those who have donated already.

Day 8

It has definitely been a varied day today, one of smooth roads and massive complications. I knew it would be tricky when setting the route out, the Cycle Touring Club’s recommendations seemed exceptionally vague when navigating the Bristol area, and so it turned out.

The day started well enough, though we did face some almighty hills through Monmouth and onto Chepstow. Whilst playing a form of hokey-kokey with the Welsh-English border we cycled through a gorge filled with small villages and amazing views. After passing successfully over the Severn Bridge Tom and I then went on to find the M5 cycle path only to take a wrong turn (signposting for cycle paths seemed patchy at best) and ended up on the M5 hard-shoulder. After a friendly chat with a passing traffic copper (“you don’t want to be walking on the motorways you know” – yeah, no kidding!) we hopped a fence onto the cycle path. We quickly advised Hamill and Tobin to take a different route through Bristol city centre. Their route was fine, apparently.

It’s fair to say it shook me a bit so I then focussed on pushing on down the A38 to the Travelodge (not as nice as the Premier Inns – something I never thought I’d have cause to say). Now we’re all here I can happily relax and enjoy the weirdly sunny weather.

So another 94.48 miles down, 757 in total. Two more days to go, the end is in sight, and I’m starting to get that end-of-holiday feeling; I don’t want it to end but I’m ready to head home. I’m really ready for the celebratory beers on Thursday.

Day 7

Well, Day 7 done. That’s a full calendar week and 663 miles behind us. Now when we go into pubs and the bar staff spot our bike helmets, sweaty faces and slumped shoulders and question how far we’ve cycled they actually look impressed rather than just shrugging it off as a normal distance to cycle.

I found today weirdly easy. I did completely misjudge what was a reasonable distance before stopping for lunch and chose Ludlow (a town I kinda fell in love with), some 70-odd miles from Northwich. When I realised how far it was I quickly became too stubborn to change my plan and blustered through. By 60 miles in I’d found my rhythm, my legs locked in a steady peddling motion at a fairly decent pace (for me) and I got there without feeling totally shattered. It has been less hilly, since leaving Kendal the road has been reasonably flat but where there’s no hills there’s more wind. After cycling up any incline you reach the gratifying down-hill section only to be pushed back by the wind, robbing you of any advantage possibly granted by gravity.

My one regret for today was that I didn’t get to go to the Land of Lost Content in the ‘charming’ town of Craven Arms (the only instance I know of where the town is named after the pub). I don’t know what this Content is, but if it’s in a whole museum of collected Lost Contents then it must be worth seeing. Similarly we missed the Fuchsia Show yesterday, put on by the Fuchsia Society of Britain, no less. And countless Family Fun days. This whistle-stop tour means we miss so much.

As it has been a full week I thought I’d run through a quick stock-taking roll-call. Though admittedly biased as I’m writing it, it will hopefully add a bit of depth to this blog thing. So:
Tom: still irritatingly swift, pulsing through each stage with apparent ease and high spirits. Then again he is on a bike that weighs less than my toothbrush. He did apparently have a tough day today, but he still finished well ahead of me and I had my best day by far.
Tobin: battling stoically through a bout of knee-knack (without a physio with us that’s as scientific as I can get). Any low spirits last as long as it takes to check-in and have a shower.
Hamill: our motivation guru, greets us each day with a portent of doom worthy of Nostradamus. He has summed Preston up as purely ‘awful’ and reliably informed us that it will rain ‘at the worst possible moment’. But as soon as he’s cycling its difficult to tell he did barely any training, which is irritating given the hours of torment I put in, and he’s always chipper afterwards.
And me: I’m fine. There’s been the low points, but the high points far out-number and out-weigh them. I’ve weirdly lost some dexterity in my right hand but that’ll come back. Right? And I’m already thinking about which country I want to peddle through next, but maybe on a new, lighter bike.

And finally, it’s been a 101.74 mile day, my average speed of 14.38 mph with a 31.58 top speed. Tomorrow we have a shorter day through Bristol, complicated directions but hopefully flat roads. Nearly there now…

Day 6

I always knew this was going to be the dull one. It might be my bias, coming from Yorkshire any extended tour of Lancashire was going to be tough, but passing through Preston, Wigan and Warrington was just a collection of bland, concrete mazes. I’m not sure where the habit of erecting signs welcoming you to towns that you’re still 3 miles outside of comes from but it’s bloody irritating.

The highlight of the day was definitely the impromptu joining of an iron-man bike race – I felt terrible overtaking them when they’d done 50 miles more. That and finding a newsagent who accepted our post even though the Post Office bit of the shop didn’t open on Sundays. The people here (much as they are from the ‘wrong side of the pennines’) are really really nice. The lady in the pub I stopped in for lunch asked where I was cycling from and remarked that I must be ‘fit as a fiddle’ and thoroughly deserved my sandwich.

It was a dull cycle, but a necessary one. Another 89.91 miles on the clock (561 in total) and a more attractive trip to Hereford to come.

Day 5

I woke up this morning with the realisation that it was Saturday and I could do anything. Then I realised where I was and that it was Day 5, Dumfries to Kendal via the Scots-England border.

It was a much shorter day than yesterday. 79.96 miles in total (that’s 13.92 mph average, 36.1 max, oh yes). I figure you’ve worked out that the country is really quite hilly so I won’t drag on about that aspect, though I will say the views from up top of the Cumbrian hills were giving the Scottish glens a run for their money.

This side of the Scottish border the towns are bigger, the roads busier and the accents more varied. I’ve heard Geordie, Scouse and Northern Irish and that was just in Penrith.

Everyone’s in higher spirits today, potentially buoyed by the weather and the shorter distance. Tomorrow is weaving the way through Lancashire so the sooner that’s done the better. For now – to the pub!

Day 4

Apparently people have a very short memory for pain. It’s a survival thing, and helps women forget childbirth and be ready for a second child. As such, when I finally managed to collapse from my bike today and Tom asked how today was I airily replied that it was absolutely fine. It wasn’t. Some fool went and put a load of hills just south of Glasgow, leading to a very troubling morning.

It was also a somewhat longer stage than I had anticipated, an extra 10 miles on the final leg. I didn’t enjoy that. But to be fair the weather was amazing again, making up for yesterday’s drizzly ending. And the route was perfect for cycling – without wanting to go too deeply into the hotly debated subject of which UK road is the nicest, the B7078 is pretty swish. Not that Tom would know as he took a few wrong turns, sorry unscheduled exploratory diversions, through Glasgow and then down different A roads. So we didn’t see much of him until Dumfries.

Otherwise, after a 107.54 mile day, we were all very glad to be booking in to a Premier Inn (after all, ‘everything’s premier but the price’) and are all looking forward to the all you can eat fry-up tomorrow. And crossing the Scots-English border.

And for those who are interested, I managed a slower average of 13.39 mph today (the hills, the hills!) with a 30.19 maximum.

Day 3

I understand that some films rely on a good ending in the hope that audiences will forget the rest of the poor film, on the belief that the ending is what sticks in people’s minds most. In the same way it would be easy to negatively judge today based on the final hour and a half. Dull roads, rain and the pain of cycling past the 100 mile barrier for the second day running really hit hard.

But that would be harsh on the rest of the day, overcast but perfect cycling weather with some absolutely cracking scenery. There were hills, big hills, but we’re all getting fairly conditioned to this up-hill cycling malarky. Everyone reached lunch time in fairly high spirits. Unfortunately a wet Loch Lomond has lowered them for now.

But we’ve done today, the longest day, 111.74 miles with an average speed of 14.64mph. For those paying attention that’s a total so far of 284 miles.

Tonight we’re in Loch Lomond Youth Hostel which is a renovated castle! I’m sleeping in a castle! And there’s bangers and mash on the menu (it’s the only thing on the menu but it’s also what I’m craving) so I’m now happy.

Day 2

So it turns out that Scotland is a bit hilly – I know! Who knew! – a fact that we found out in a very real way today. The first hour shot by and we’d clocked up 30 miles in the first hour and a half which led onto us getting 60 miles done by lunch. We’d been warned the stretch straight after lunch would be tough (“sometimes difficult to get the car up” – goodie!) but wow. Just wow. In all fairness there was the payoff of a massive downhill section, which I yelled at the top of my voice all the way down.

We then got to Loch Ness, and I can see why it’s the most famous of the Lochs (see photo below). It is, however, quite long and we then had to cycle the length of it to get to Invergarry where we’re currently collapsed in the youth hostel.

I clocked 104.07 miles, averaging 14.33 mph and a 40.63 top speed. I’m also cultivating a fantastic ‘Mickey Mouse suntan’ due to my cycling gloves leaving my hands white and my arms brown. It was sweltering today, which is unfair as Scotland was meant to be the chilly bit, but tomorrow’s meant to be better. It’s also the longest, so we’ll see.