Starting out

This is a record of my training and cycle ride form Lands End to John O'Groats in 2007. For this kind of journal, a blog is completely backwards as a means to follow the journey. To read from the start, begin here, and choose the "newer post" at the bottom of each post to move to each journal entry in sequence. Thanks for reading.

Looking back at the journey

Thanks to everyone who has contacted me about my epic journey in 2007. I've been asked a few times recently whether I would recommend Bike Adventures, and I definitely would recommend the Bike Adventures trip - I would rate it 8/10 overall.

Particularly important was having someone else transporting bags while I was cycling. This saves so much weight that I would otherwise have to carry on the bike. And having an emergency crew to contact was useful for some people on the trip - after a broken chain or similar.

There are two choices for accommodation - camp or hotel. I would recommend taking the hotels option if you can - as it's pretty difficult to get dry in a tent if it's rained on you all day. There were pubs near the hotels most nights, so it was generally easy to find food. Except Sunday night in Clitheroe where not much open except the curry house, but I really didn't fancy that. And of course, the famous night in the only hotel in Ecclefechan - chaos - but we did get fed - eventually. I don't think Bike Adventures were planning to go back there ...

Storing bikes was pretty easy - bikes could be left at the campsite overnight, and Bike Adventures would take you to the hotel, and collect you in the morning. Or there was generally some place to lock bikes at the hotel - garage, shed or store-room. I only once had the bike in the room with me - at a Travelodge. I generally preferred taking the bike to the hotel - then I could get on the road as soon as I wanted to, rather than waiting for a lift.

As for the hills - there's no dodging the challenge - get fit before you start. Because I only decided to do the tour a few weeks before setting out, I didn't have the time to train fully. Another month or two would probably have been better preparation. But I did it !!! I avoided a couple of routes that Bike Adventures proposed, as I was focussed on getting to JoG, not doing it for the finest views and mountains. But some of the more regular cyclists enjoyed the challenge of Dent Station etc. One (70+year old) guy was even repeating the tour, just because he had pushed his bike up Dent Station the previous time, and he wanted to do the whole tour "properly" this time!!! And Bike Adventures choose routes deliberately that are off the main roads. This may make the journey slightly more challenging at times, but it's a lot more enjoyable than fighting with traffic - and safer.

Although they provide detailed directions, I found having a map handy occasionally - especially for finding short cuts. I bought a cheap road atlas, and cut out the pages for each day and marked up the route when they sent through the directions. I now have a phone with Copilot Live and a GPS device - that might have been useful as well - there was an occasional road closed where I needed to find an alternative way and then get back onto the planned route.

So ... choose to do this yourself and you need to carry your bags, create your own route, find places to stay and eat, deal with your own emergencies. Or choose to go with an organised tour who do all this for you ... having done the trip, I would choose Bike Adventures again rather than trying by myself.