Prologue

A lot of people have asked what made me want to do this and there isn’t really a simple answer. Because it’s there as somebody famous once said, because I had an old bike sitting in the garage doing nothing, because I know of other people who have done it or similar long distance bike rides, because I fancied it as a bit of an adventure, because it’s one of the things I wanted to do before I die, because I wanted to see if I could as a challenge, and because I saw Ben Fogle on Countryfile once, cycling along a leafy road in Scotland and I thought, that looks like something I want to do.
I made a half-hearted attempt to get it organised for last year, telling people that I was going to cycle Land’s End to John O’Groats, checking websites and route planning, but it never got off the ground. By January 2010 I was more determined and with my wife’s blessing (although she kept telling me I was mad and never really thought it would happen!)route planning, web searches for information and possible accommodation began in earnest. I also intended to start training, not having ridden my bike, a 21 speed Raleigh Pioneer Elite LX for a good many years.
By February I had decided to use Youth Hostels for accommodation and had sorted out a rough route. This would change somewhat as I discovered more about terrain and fiddled with daily distances. Training however had not started. Street view on Google Maps proved to be very useful and I ‘travelled’ quite a lot of my eventual route virtually. This whetted my appetite for the ride even more. As I fine-tuned more aspects of the ride I started to consider how to get to Land’s End and back from John O’Groats; train was the obvious way so I checked the web for timetables and so on. Timetables are not active until twelve weeks prior so I was unable to make definite bookings for myself and my bike until late in May. My brother Andrew kindly offered to give me a lift to Land’s End so I only had to use a train to get home.
By March I had bought a variety of equipment such as a rack pack, handlebar bag, cycle shorts and shirts but still had not actually been out on the bike. I had decided on a route and booked all of the Youth Hostels I would be using. At last at the end of March I went out on my first training ride – an impressive 5 miles! I gradually built this up to around 25 miles by early May. Although the distances were not great I was riding in the Pennines, so hills were a prominent part of every route. I also tried to work hard and pedal every mile. I went out five days out of seven and finally made a couple of 40 plus milers.
I had my bike serviced at my local shop Surosa Cycles and changed the knobbly tyres I had been training on for slicker Schwalbe Marathons. I was ready.
My brother and I travelled down to Penzance where we stayed in the Youth Hostel, a palatial affair compared to when I last Hostelled in 1969.