Lands End to John O'Groats Direct
Paul Dormer is raising money for Isabel Hospice
“Paul Dormer's fundraising”
on 8 June 2010
Story
Shortest ever End to End ride ?
Hi all.
According to the official guide book for the shortest route Land End to john O'Groats is 910 miles, I'm going to attempt to establish and then publish a new shortest cycle route, using Roads and Bridleways.
As a keen mountain biker I'm used to off-road biking, but as most of this will be on the road I'm using a 'Cyclocross' bike shown in the pic. I will start on June 30th, less than 2 weeks later hopefully my GPS will have recorded the epic ride. The main opportunities for shortening the route are by using poor quality minor roads and crossing the hilly areas where there are no roads. I'll be camping so that I don't have the distraction of getting to Youth Hostels or B& B's.
The Isabel Hospice is very local to us, so please dig deep and donate now.
Paul
P.S. Have now added intended route to photos area, it's calculated at 840 miles :-)
Challenge completed.
So what happened?
Quote myself, June:-
>You may already know I’m attempting to cycle from Lands End to John OGroats,
>(LEJOG) unsupported &
self-sufficient (tent etc) and do it in the shortest possible
>distance, important to note not the quickest, the shortest. Im planning on
>covering a measly 840 miles…..
Done it! 854.1 miles. Where did the 14.1 extra miles come from? In the highlands it was impossible (or at least very dangerous to attempt shortcuts that were planned, plus I took one wrong turning on a cycle route which whilst more beautiful than the A9, was a couple of miles further, The distance of 854.1 is still the shortest I’ve been able to find record of with the CTC.
It was a tough ride, the hilly lanes of North east
Devon, Quantocks, and one memorable off road section across to Pitlochry in the
Highlands were hard with the camping gear on the back of the bike, but I was so
focussed on completing the ride and getting to John O’Groats for the World Cup
final, it was always going to happen after even a few days riding, I got there
a day early after successfully outrunning cold wet storms coming in from the
South West, by riding till the early hours, and last Friday night camping on a
roundabout on the A9 as I was so tired, it was the safest flat ground and I did
not care about cars seeing me the following morning. Once I had spent a
celebratory night at John O’Groats Pub and Youth Hostel I then made my way
along the coast to Thurso (most northerly town in Mainland Britain) where I met
a Dutch cycle tourist who had done 5000km!. We watched her team loose, but the
atmosphere on the campsite there was wonderful with German, Swedish, Dutch, and
British people all lending a hand when storms came in and all admiring the
beauty of the Orkneys when the sun came out.
Whilst relaxing on the cliff top looking at the The Old Man of Hoy, 20 miles to my north west I wondered if this was a challenge I could aspire to, it’s a tough 400 ft sea stack made famous in the 60’s when climber Joe Brown climbed it live on BBC television… anyway for now I’m personally very proud of myself to have done the ride, and even more amazed at the incredible support given by others, including those who helped with logistics, Dave Watson (Tent), Phil Whitehurst (gps help), the many friends & family who left messages of encouragement by txt or Facebook (very welcome lying in a tent, or checking the phone sheltering from the cold wet, wind).
I can’t believe how much has been raised for
Isabel Hospice, if it goes up a little more I’ll have raised 50p per mile,
imagine that ;-)
Best wishes to all
Paul Dormer