I took up cycling around five years ago, primarily because a few of us thought it would be a good idea to cycle the Coast to Coast. Having done that ride I progressed onto a road bike from a hybrid and sort of caught the bug, to the extent I now have three road bikes, a summer one, winter one and a vintage. As the saying goes " the optimum number of bikes you should own is the number you have.........plus 1!"

This latest challenge, to ride from Lands End to John 'O Groats arose out of a conversation nearly a year ago with Stephen Thompson, who did the ride around 13 years ago. I thought it would be a good idea to do it before I was too old, yet we didn't do anything serious about organising it until recently. Following a flurry of activity in March this year we managed to sort out the route, book our accommodation and convince our loving wives that they would thoroughly enjoy driving the support vehicle ( well our estate car) and perhaps become Thelma and Louise on a road trip. 

Stephen and I have been training hard since March, regularly talking about going out on a practice bike ride or two, when in reality it has probably only been a short ride each week, until the weekend of 1st-2nd July. We headed to Yorkshire and did over 75 miles on what was the route the Tour De France took in 2014, including 4, yes 4, big climbs. It was great................., it rained, the sun occasionally shone, it rained, the wind blew hard all day and it rained solidly again for the last 10 miles. Good practice really for what August will bring, the only thing missing was the midges. We climbed over 6500 feet in total, I felt exhausted, but soon recovered enough to eat the biggest steak pie imaginable in the pub that evening. To test our fitness we then proceeded to do a shorter 50 mile ride the following day with only one big climb, which was completed effortlessly and has provided me with enough reassurance that I should be OK to do the LEJOG.

When I look at the route details, it adds up to 970 miles, not counting any extra miles for getting lost, over 12 days, with the luxury of a day off in Oban. On average we will be doing between 75 - 90 miles a day in what will be the driest sunniest August you could wish for, no kidding! Our route takes us mainly up the west side of England, through the Welsh Marches, up a lovely climb in the Lakes, detouring across to Arran and back on the mainland and up to Oban in Scotland. We then head eastwards pass Loch Ness, Inverness and finally arrive at John 'O Groats.

The decision to raise money for Parkinson's arises from knowing a very good friend who has been diagnosed with it.

I will hopefully be fit enough at the end of each day to write a brief blog on the day's events, perhaps even with some pictures.Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

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