Day 1: Thurso (John O'Groats) to Inverness

We set off after our full scottish breakfast (haggis, black pudding, sausage, bacon and egg!) At 8.15. The first 20 miles into John O'Groats were nice and easy with great views of the Orkney Islands.

Not much going on at JOG, no one around, no one serving in the cafe and the 'official' signpost that you have to pay for was empty! So after a quick photo we cracked on to Tesco's in Wick to get some irn-bru (when in Scotland..).

The A99 and A9 were easy going with a few climbs but nothing like Devon and Cornwall. The first 70 miles or so were pretty remote with no real shops and only fashioned petrol stations.

On one of the descents we came across queueing traffic, where a lorry had taken the bend going up the hill too tight, had ripped out the barrier and got stuck with most of its wheels off the ground. Luckily we were able to scoot round as it was being winched back on the road.

We got soaked through to the skin just before lunch in a heavy downpour, but by the time we stopped in Helmsdale at 75 miles it was drying out.

As we went to set off again we had our first mechancial issue as Will noticed a broken spoke. We didn't have much choice but to press on and luckily passed a hardware shop in Golspie that seemed to sell everything including spokes. A short delay to fit it then off we went. Keen to make up time Will went into time trial mode and powered on, with me hiding in his wheel and doing the odd short turn!

The scenery started to change as we started to cross some of the many Firths that litter the coast. Before long we were in Tain, home of Glenmorangie Whiskey. Too good an opportunity to miss, we went to the distillery for a bit of tasting!

The down side was that after 3 drams (bewteen us!) It was hard work to get going for the last 40 miles. The last 30 miles were pretty miserable, it poured with rain and my 'no need to put on waterproofs it will pass in a minute' turned out to be an error. The road got much busier and visibility was poor so was a slog.

But soon enough we got into Inverness. Travelodge had called to say they couldn't fit us in, but had got us a room at the Holiday Inn next door and upgraded to a free breakfast! Bit of a result as our travelodge room was only £50 and holiday inn is £170 and they had free newspapers to dry out our sopping shoes!

It was a relief to get into the warm room as we were both freezing cold and very hungry. The hotel was well placed with pub next door for dinner and a tesco nearby. We were thinking of the cinema, but were too shattered!

Tomorrow we climb up through the Grampians....

Total distance cycled; 142 miles
Time cycling: 8 hours 38 mins
Average speed: 16.4 mph
Total ascent: 1900 metres
Max speed: 43.1 mph
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Prologue: Kingsbridge - Thurso

An early(ish) start saw us get to Bristol Airport in plenty of time. Many thanks to Will's Dad, Michael, for dropping us up there. I was a bit worried about Easyjet's militant policy on checking in bikes, but all went smoothly and even though mine was 300 grams over the weight limit the woman let me off.

Everything ran to clockwork and in Inverness the next mission was to post home the bike boxes. Mine only cost me £15 on ebay, so was reluctant to spend a lot posting it home. We got a taxi to the parcelforce depot and set about building the bikes up in the car park. We were about 2kg into the more expensive price bracket so the woman left us to it to try and reduce the weight. We ditched all the pipe lagging and took a few tools out. It wasn't quite enough to bring it to 20kg but I managed to lean it carefully against the wall to get it to read just under. The woman seemed happy and once she had printed the postage label, I sneaked some of the tools back in!

We then had several hours to kill in Inverness to wait for the train. I wanted to buy a kilt (upcoming 30th birthday) and Inverness was a pretty good place to go and get one. One shop wanted £500! But we found a shop right by the station, which was much more reasonable! Each kilt is hand tailored and takes a seamstress around 14 hours to make, so there is no skimping!

The train took nearly 4 hours to cover the 120 miles up to Thurso, great scenery but arrived after dark and a short pedal in very chilly conditions to the 'hotel' motel. Just enough time for a quick pint of McEwans Ale (not a patch on Devon Ales) and then off to bed.

Total miles cycled: 2
Time on bikes: about 10 mins

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2 days to go!

Final plans are coming along nicley. Will and I had a final easy ride this evening before the bikes get packed up tomorrow. Have had a bit of hassle working out what to do with the bike bags at the other end. Mine was only £15 on ebay, but is worth a bit more than that - however it is going to cost me over £25 to ship it home so not sure its worth it!

We have the route all sorted now. The plan is to use a Garmin Vista GPS for the navigation, we have downloaded the routes on to it and will follow them like a paper map that is highlighted.Will's Garmin 500 will also hold the routes but is only really any good for telling us how far we have to go!

If anyone would like to see the routes please use the links below for each day.

Day 1  - Thurso – Inverness 

Day 2 – Inverness toKinross 

Day 3 – Kinross – Carlisle

Day 4 – Carlisle – Warrington

Day 5 Warrington – Gloucester

Day 6 - Gloucester- Whiddon Down

Day 7 Whiddon - Lands End scenic

In total we are looking at about 860 miles. If anyone fancies joining us for a leg or bit of a leg then please get in touch.

The Kit

We are both on our winter training bikes (Will on an Orbea Aqua and Tom on a Bianchi Via Nirone). We have a seatpost mounted rack each and on top of that is a small (12 litre) rack bag, which will carry all of our kit for the week! Plan is to travel as light as possible, spare set of cycling gear, pair of trousers, t-shirt and flip flops and a few essential bike spares, which will hopefully see us through.

Accommodation all sorted!

Will and I have finally got all the accommodation sorted for the trip. We will post up details of the exact route when it is finalised, but here are the outlines of each day:

Day 1: Thurso (via John O'Groats) to Inverness.

Day 2: Inverness to Kinross

Day 3: Kinross to Carlisle

Day 4: Carlisle to Warrington

Day 5: Warrington to Gloucester

Day 6: Gloucester to Whiddon Down (between Exeter and Okehampton)

Day 7: Whiddon Down to Land's End!

Just over two weeks till the official off, time to start tapering back on the training!!!
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Dibetes UK Challenge Page

If you want to donate to Diabetes UK my challenge page has now been fixed after some initial problems.

Route Planning

We have had several meetings so far on route planning. The first day is easy (to plan). We will be starting in Thurso, as we don't arrive there till late at night and so we will start the journey from Thurso on Thursday 18th August. We will cycle to John O'Groats before starting the 120 miles to Inverness.

After here it gets more tricky. We plan to head down the A9 to Perth and then cut down towards Carlisle. From here we hug the edge of the Lakes and squeeze past Liverpool to stay in Warrington. We then head via Shrewsbury and down to Worcester, where we pick up the A38 all the way into Devon.

The last stretch depends on how we are feeling (probably a bit tired...) and so will either be on the A30 or if we can face it some of the smaller (less busy) roads. All going well we plan to arrive in Lands End on Wednesday 24th August....

Navigation... Hmmm....

So on Sunday 29th Will and I set out on a training ride to test out Will's Garmin. Despite my protesting, Will bought the only computer that Garmin make that doesn't include maps and therefore makes navigating tricky to say the least.

However after a bit of research and a youtube 'how to' video, we loaded up a 67 mile course taking in some very random lanes in the South Hams. The thinking was that if we can navigate ok on the lanes, then we'll be fine on the main roads on the route.... Well as it turned out we couldn't navigate fine on the lanes. We managed to lose the course within 4 miles on the edge of Aveton Gifford. About 10 miles later we picked it up again, only to lose it within about 2 miles. The route wasn't helped by the fact that Will couldn't remember where he'd plotted!

Anyway we did our best to try and follow it, but kept going off course. the Garmin seemed to have a mind of its own as we'd be cycling along and it would say turn right in 1.1 miles and then all of a sudden it would say we were off course and should have gone left! I'm not unconvinced that there isn't a good handful of user error thrown in there as well!

So after our minty slice stop at Dartington, we thought we were back on safe ground, only to go the wrong way through Harbertonford and Moreleigh and didn't get the course again until 5 mile lane (where again we somehow managed to lose it before Stokenham!)

Lessons Learned? Well firstly, not to let Wil plot the route again. Secondly, make sure we know the route on paper as well and finally, to start saving for a Garmin 705 with 'proper' navigation!