C2C day 0

 A long and dull drive up to Whitehaven today. A quick stop off in Stafford where the town centre seems to either be in the process of demolition or the few surviving shops are suggesting that you leave in some way - travel agents, phone shops (mentally exit the town), outdoor shops (get out!) and funeral parlours (final escape). We left sharpish - we can take a hint.

A scenic motorway drive up past the Yorkshire Dales and the Pennines caused a sudden ooh from Tracy as she spied the hills that we would need to climb. She decided that she was psychologically (cyclelogically) ready since she was ok if she knew in advance. I mused on the fact that whilst that may be true, she also could do with being physically ready too, having ridden her bike less than a dozen times this year.

We have considered that there may be another even lower gear than getting off and pushing - get off and push whilst slaloming up the hill. An even lower gear would involve me pushing her bike for her. Hopefully we won't need either tomorrow. 

After arriving at the Chase hotel in Whitehaven, we took a wander down to the harbour to check out the official start point

It awaits our return in the morning

A quick tea at the Zest harbourside restaurant before heading back to the hotel for a snooze.

Cycling miles :0

Cake: Also 0

Tracy whinge factor: 0 (calm before the storm)

Isle of Wight training ride

 Sat 20th July 

An early and rainy start saw us leave late and miss the ferry by 2 minutes. Never mind - decided to ride around for half an hour, so that we would achieve a century ride today. We ended up catching the 9 am ferry. 

Whippingham church

The weather picked up on our clockwise route around the island and I ended up sunburnt by the end of the day. The morning went well and we arrived at our lunch stop of the crab and lobster at Bembridge.

View from our lunch stop

Whether is was the stopping for an hour, the lunch, the beer, humidity or most likely a lack of fitness, the afternoon became a real slog. Unfortunately no cake stop as the Chessil pottery closed at 4pm - Tracy was not happy! We made do with coffee in a pub in Niton.

We perked up a bit after icecreams and chocolate in Brightstone, even managing to pass a couple of riders who seemingly were less prepared (and less fit) than us. Always a bit of a lift when someone is struggling more than you. Caught the 7pm ferry back to Lymington, before riding home via Tesco's. 103 miles total. 

I think that we've been a bit blasé about training, believing that we still have the same fitness from last year's ride. Turns out not to be true, so I guess we will have to get fitter as we ride the coast to coast and back again along Hadrian's Wall!

LEJOG - random bonus blog post

A big thanks to Lizzie for Tracy's 50th birthday present. She stopped by today with her hand drawn picture, inspired by our exploits in cake consumption. A lovely souvenir of our adventure. Will be taking pride of place in our lounge.

LEJOG 2024 - a reflection

So it's been a week since we finished our trip, so we figured it was time to take stock and reflect on our adventure.

Positives: Tracy was pleasantly surprised at how much she enjoyed the trip and that her body coped with the mental and physical demands over so many days, although her bottom is not so sure. Dan was pleased and surprised that we didn't fall out.

Cake.

Another one of the highlights was the people that we met along the way - certainly the LEJOG jerseys helped spark conversation. We wish that we had two each, so that we could have worn them every day. We do regret not taking pictures of the people that we chatted with, since they were such an important part of our days. 

Hula hoops.

Our favourite places included Cornish coasts and villages, the hidden Luxulyan valley, top of the Mendips, the Wye valley, the Yorkshire fells and the Scottish Highlands, during the 5 minutes that it wasn't raining.

Writing the blog was also a highlight of the trip. Thanks to everyone who followed our story and commented either on Facebook or the blog itself. We really enjoyed doing it and the motivational messages that we received, seemingly reading our exploits became part of many people's routines. Cheesecake is still a cake though. 

Negatives: Tracy claims that my incessant toilet stops were infuriating - about five for every one of hers. If she wants to discuss slowing us down...

Tracy got saddle sore. I didn't, not sure why. Might be saddle height, luck or the fact that I used udder cream.

At an average of 65 miles each day, there wasn't enough downtime - it was an enjoyable ride, but we didn't really get to do anything else each day. Next trip will be more of a sight-seeing tour connected by riding.

Other bits: The national cycle route was fabulous- mostly traffic free and takes you to some beautiful places. Worth checking out locally. The only times that we had issues on our route was when we had to divert from them, sometimes you can't avoid the A roads (looking at you Scotland). However, if you plan your timings, you can mitigate. We hit the busy part of the A9 at Dornoch on a Sunday afternoon, hoping it would be quieter then. The Highland festival that we passed probably didn't help with traffic though! Best laid plans and all that...

The subject of busy roads brings up the subject of the kill count - dead things spotted on our travels. The list includes:

27 birds (various types)

2 foxes

2 deer (one very flat)

1 badger

1 stoat/weasel (not good on deceased mustelid family classification)

1 frog (inflated)

1 sheep (not Shaun or shorn)

1 Hare (or v large rabbit)

2 Rabbits (or 3 if one disguised as hare)

5 squirrels (squiggled)

2 hedgehogs

1 rat

1 mouse (indeterminate type)

1 mole (smaller than you expect)

Weather makes a massive difference - we started in a heatwave in Cornwall and finished with thunderstorms in Scotland. In hindsight, we probably shouldn't have left the storm shelter behind in Bristol, saying "we won't need that". We started early almost every day - it makes such a psychological difference getting the miles in before lunch. The day we didn't, was the nightmare day 12. We knew that the bad weather was coming in, but prioritised a lie in and breakfast, due to our late finish the night before. We should have stuck to our plan and been guided by the weather forecast, rather than our desires.

Hostels - do have useful facilities that we were rather poor at using. We did use the drying rooms in Scotland, but not the self catering kitchens. We could have saved some money by cooking ourselves rather than having to eat out (such hardships). We also discovered that the availability dates for English hostels were released later than Scottish ones. We could have used more of them if we had booked later.

Would we do this again? - absolutely!

Loved the cycling and need to reduce the miles a bit, but in the future, we are looking at cycling:

Slovenia

Croatia 

Ireland 

France

Yorkshire/ Lake District

Pacific cycle route

Whatever our next adventure is, we will be blogging it! 

Thanks for following our adventure. 

Dan + Tracy

LEJOG day 15

The alarm went off at 4am on the last day of our trip. It was Tracy's 50th birthday and she was determined to milk it for all it was worth, hence the early start. 

Tracy's first 50th birthday card

We had decided to get on the road early to avoid as much of the forecasted rain and 40 mph winds as possible. We had also changed the route, opting for the most direct, A9 then A99 through Wick, missing out Thurso and the Northern coastline altogether. In our haste to depart, we left our lunch behind in the fridge! It was a shame to cut short our stay at Helmsdale as it was our favourite accommodation of the whole trip.

On leaving Helmsdale we immediately hit a 2.5  mile long climb. Luckily, Tracy had stealthily made and consumed coffee in the communal kitchen, so her legs were actually awake, completing the hill with no rest stops at all. Continuing along the undulating coast we encountered the longest downhill of our trip at Berriedale followed by a 10% climb. Tracy surprised both herself and me by tackling it in short order.

Down this hill and up to this viewpoint 

The winds got stronger and the rain was harder the closer we got to Wick, but undaunted, we arrived at the town at 9am.

We stopped at the Bridge cafe in Wick to re-caffeinate and refuel. Tracy had a delicious bacon roll and I opted for beans on toast - proper comfort food for the weather.

We checked Google maps which confirmed that we only had 16 miles to go, mostly flat. This raised our spirits immensely and we felt almost like we were racing to the finish line. The sign for John o Groats read 3 miles and despite a tail wind those last miles seemed to take forever.

Caithness is full of...

...nothing. (a cleaner version of what I actually said at the time)

We passed the village sign and onwards to the visitor centre and the obligatory photograph at the signpost. This was the hardest part of the morning, having to co-opt a passer by as official photographer, whilst we removed waterproof layers in the driving wind and rain , so our LEJOG jerseys were on display. Our discomfort is in no way obvious in the pictures!

So happy to have finished

Then off to the cafe for the last (but not really) cake of the trip and double coffees. A well earned rest and a change into dry clothes and we felt more human again.  Tracy was still buzzing from the achievement rather than the caffeine an hour later when we walked the bikes to the Seaview hotel, where we were being picked up by a bike-taxi at 3 pm.

Tracy thought that this was the last cake of the day

On the way up we encountered the 3 LEJOGers that we had met in Whalley, just about to complete their adventure. High fives and selfies all round and we were all grinning like Cheshire cats.

Ray, who we met in Yorkshire

The Seaview hotel, like most properties in Caithness, looks very tired and weathered from the outside, but a cosy welcoming bar awaited inside. We had lunch, the ubiquitous veggie burger for me and a steak and ale pie, which seemingly contained a whole cow, for Tracy.

Gavin, our taxi driver from Inverness arrived early at 2:30pm. We soon had our bikes loaded and were on our way South once more, making short work of the miles that we had worked so hard to cover this morning. The sun finally showed itself, transforming the bleak surroundings, as they appeared to us this morning, into colourful rolling countryside and impressive coastlines.

The three of us chatted all the way to Inverness, apart from Tracy, who had a brief nap, once the caffeine ran out and the celebratory cider from lunch kicked in. Gavin is an interesting guy, well educated, having travelled the world in various jobs. He was also an avid cyclist, having developed a passion for bike touring to escape his troubled home life as a 14 year old. He told us with a wry smile, "I used to just ride up the West coast for days at a time. Nobody knew where I was, I had nae money, but would blag it. I can't believe now that I used to do that"

He dropped us off at the Inverness hostel (I had decided to treat Tracy on her 50th birthday, by pulling out all the stops).

A quick video call with our bickering children at home before thankfully having to cut it short to go to the Italian restaurant in Inverness for dinner. They may still be arguing now for all we know.

What Tracy didn't know was that we were being met by friends from home, Jannise and Ross, who now live about an hour from Inverness. The look on Tracy's face was priceless - she was surprised and delighted.

We enjoyed our time together and an excellent dinner, before the staff brought out the actual final cake of the trip. Jannise had made a stunning 50th birthday cake, which brought tears of laughter to all at our table. It was also delicious.

A work of baking art.

Those that know, know

The evening felt so short, with our friends dropping us off at the hostel, with promises of us coming back up to visit soon.

Today was a good day to be on the saddle. Actually today was just a good day to be alive. 

Distance travelled: 51 miles

Elevation: 2954 ft

Cake of the day: Shed cake (thanks to Jannise who must have spent hours on it).

Tracy whinge factor: 0/10 (a bundle of positivity today)

Total distance: 1018 miles (we did it!)

We intend to do one final post after we return, to collate our thoughts, reflections and tips on our trip 

We're done!

 

Finished about 11:30. Today's blog will follow later.

LEJOG day 14

An early start this morning to get us the best part of 90 miles to Helmsdale. We crept out of the Lochside hostel, at 6 am leaving the young revellers to sleep off their inevitable hangovers. This was the first early start for a few days and it seemed to affect Tracy quite badly.

Sun rise from our hostel window

Loch Ness from the back of the hostel

Her mood was low, her pace was snail and I was worrying if we would finish the route before midnight. We proceeded sloth like along the bank of the loch, no Nessie in sight. Every undulation slowed Tracy's pace further and at one point we were passed by a walker with a Zimmer frame.

We hit the steepest, longest hill that we have encountered since Devon and it was definitely time to use the lowest gear once more. Tracy found an even lower gear, walk incredibly slowly, stopping seemingly every 10 steps. I was very concerned. We eventually reached the summit, where I virtually force fed her chocolate and tunnocks caramel wafer bites. She recovered somewhat on the downhill to Beauly. We got a coffee from a petrol station. Suddenly Tracy came back to life. It seems that she has a problem.

My name is Tracy Mitchell and I am a caffeine addict!

From then on she was back to her normal self and our pace picked up through the day so that we averaged 11mph, one of our quickest days.

Cake themed bollard covers...

... crocheted in Dingwall...

...to mark the arrival of the queen of cake!

We continued on through various villages before stopping in Tain, for a romantic lunch of a Tesco meal deal, whilst sat in the carpark on a yellow salt bin. We were stalked by a persistent seagull, desperate for scraps. He was disappointed.

We crossed the Dornoch firth on the A9, a busy road, but not so bad on a Sunday afternoon. The further north that we went, the lighter the traffic became.

Dornoch firth

It's a sign I tell you!

We stopped at Golspie where possibly the last public toilets in the UK are to be found. The seagull was back. Definitely the same one.

The hostel at Helmsdale is beautiful. An old school gym with high ceilings and lovingly refurbished. We received a warm welcome from Marie, the manager. she even provided us with shower gel and flannels to remove the bike-chain oil stains from our legs.

We ate at the local fish and chips restaurant, where Tracy attempted to eat a haddock that was perhaps the size of the fabled Nessie.

A small Haddock apparently. Tracy was up to the challenge!

Marie told us about her trip on the Pacific coast cycle route from San Francisco to Mexico. Now there's a possibility for our next adventure...

For now though, we are more concerned with the strong winds and rain arriving in the morning. We are going for a super early start to avoid the worst of it. Tracy might remember to wear her waterproof coat this time, but therein lies another story.

Distance travelled: 88 miles 

Elevation: 4374 ft

Cake of the day: Mint choc chip cupcake from Spar (slim pickings today)

Tracy whinge factor: 2/10 (all in the first 90 minutes)

Total distance: 967 miles