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The idea for the trip had formed when I was approaching retirement the previous October. I wanted something to aim for, to stretch me a bit and make me feel I wasn’t yet completely over the hill. Something to reassure me that I was still alive. The Lands End to John O’ Groats bike ride, generally known to participants as ‘Lejog’, is a challenge of quite long standing with hundreds of people tackling it every year so it seemed to fit my requirements: it would take a reasonable amount of time and quite a bit of physical effort but was do-able. It might have been nice to do the ride in company and I did ask Andrew if he was interested. He said he thought it sounded like ‘sheer hell’ so that was a no. Roy from work was interested and said he’d like to do it but as the reality of it got nearer I sensed his enthusiasm evaporating and eventually he said he couldn’t do it at this time, this year, and how about postponing it till next year. Well I didn’t want to postpone it for a year – I knew that if I did so there would be something else crop up to stop me and I’d end up never getting it done, so instead I just settled for doing it on my own. At least that leaves you free to stop and start whenever you like and change the route at a whim. And, of course, you can’t fall out with yourself after three weeks in your own company. Doing it myself naturally meant that all the preparation came down to me alone but that was ok. No point in overdoing the detail though. I decided to start in May when the weather should be a bit warmer and the Scottish midges not yet at their worst.
My existing bike was a mountain bike which I’d had for 12 years and which was fine as a mountain bike but I decided to do things properly and get a new fit-for-purpose touring bike. I got a Thorn Club tourer with a rack and Ortlieb panniers, the bike costing me about £1200 and the panniers an extra £100. As well as a front light the handlebars had to hold a Catseye cycle computer to record my mileage and a mounting for the Adventurer 2800, the GPS I’d been given as a leaving present when I left work. Having sorted out the basic mechanical stuff I then had to work out the logistics – which route I should take, how long the legs would be, where I would stop each night and the like. I joined the CTC (Cycle Touring Club), downloaded their suggested routes, and chose the one that kept me away from the main trunk roads in favour of quieter back roads and tow paths. This I then adapted slightly to include the Lizard and Dunnet Head as I wanted to include them in my trip, as mentioned above.
Next I loaded the OS maps for the whole of the UK onto the GPS and using Memory Map software plotted the route and loaded that on too. In the end I had to split it up into daily legs as a single 1000 mile route caused the GPS to seize up whenever I tried to use it. From various accounts on the internet I knew that a lot of people had done the trip in two weeks, doing anything from 70 to 100 miles a day, but being retired I didn’t have to get back by any particular time and thought I’d rather take a more leisurely approach. 50-70 miles a day should be about right, I thought, so I picked out places that corresponded with that distance for the daily stops, giving me the following 18 day route: Lands End – Helston (via the Lizard) – Camelford – Crediton – Street – Chepstow – Leominster – Ellesmere – Westhoughton – Sedburgh – Crawford – Stirling – Tyndrum – Spean Bridge – Dingwall – Lairg – Bettyhill – John O’ Groats Well that seemed a reasonable scenario although in the event it didn’t turn out exactly like that. My intended start date of the 2nd May was getting closer and I had to work out what I was going to take with me, balancing things between ensuring I had all the essentials whilst keeping the weight down. What I took was: 2 spare inner tubes 1 puncture repair kit 3 tyre levers 1 set of pliers 1 cycle multi-tool 1 pump 1 long-sleeved cycle jersey 3 short-sleeved cycle shirts 1 pair of cycle bib tights 1 orange weatherproof cycle jacket 1 pair of shorts 2 pairs of padded lycra shorts which clip into the above shorts 1 pair normal padded lycra cycle shorts 2 T-shirt style base layers 1 T-shirt style thermal base layer 4 pairs cycle socks 1 outdoor micro-fleece 1 pair waterproof trousers 1 pair waterproof overshoes 1 pair Shimano cycle shoes with SPD cleats 1 pair lightweight walking trousers 1 pair lightweight Roclite Inov8 walking shoes 2 T-shirts 1 corduroy shirt 1 fleece 3 pairs socks 4 pairs underpants 2 tubular knee supports 1 notebook 1 pen Camera & charger Phone & charger GPS & charger plasters Savlon Vaseline (used once and then only ‘in case’ - my wonderful gel saddle meant I didn’t have any soreness) midge repellant (not used) toothbrush toothpaste razor vitamin pills paper map (the appropriate pages ripped from a cheap road atlas and with the route highlighted) That all fitted into the Ortliebs and weighed just a touch over 10 kg – not too bad. In addition I had 2 water bottles in the cages on the bike and at the last minute decided to strap my Goretex bivvy bag and Thermarest camping mattress on the rack, just in case I couldn’t find a B&B one day. In the event I had no trouble finding accommodation so the bivvy bag and Thermarest were unnecessary. Also I didn’t need the knee supports or the padded lycra shorts, all 3 of them. I only wore the shorts a couple of times as the weather was generally too cold, and when I did wear them I found that the padded, inner shorts weren’t needed. When I got the bike I had also bought as a precaution a large, sprung, very unstylish-looking gel saddle (the Bioflex Comfit - about £20) in addition to the saddle that came with the bike. Having had a fairly sore bum at the end of my London to Cambridge ride a couple of years earlier in the end I decided to fit the unstylish gel saddle and what a great decision that was! It was brilliant! So comfortable. Padded shorts just weren’t necessary, felt awkward and lumpy in fact so I ended up not wearing them. Most of the trip I just wore the bib tights, a base layer and the cycle jersey, plus the waterproofs when necessary. The tools were never used either as I had no mechanical problems but I obviously had to take them along just in case. Finally there was the question of how much training to do for the ride. In the accounts of other people’s rides there seemed to be quite widely differing approaches towards this, with some folk training for months in advance and undergoing rigorous schedules of increasingly lengthy training rides, frequently 70 miles or more, and others just settling for turning up at Lands End and setting off. I took the casual approach to it, telling myself that my legs were probably strong enough from all the hill-walking I’d done in the last 20 years along with my fairly regular visits to the gym so I'd probably be ok. After all I was only planning on about 50-60 miles a day, not 100+ miles over and over again. In the month before the ride I had two 10 mile rides and one 25 mile ride on my mountain bike then a 30 mile outing on my new touring bike to check it out. In the event although I walked up a few hills I didn’t encounter any real problems regarding fitness. | ||
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