Three idiots go cycling

Sensible breakfast as we set off for an easy day. Just a 10.5 hour journey home including two short stops. Scotland is a flipping long place. Glad we don’t have to cycle it - it would take a week! It’s now approaching 10pm and Yorkshire is rather warm. It’s going to take a few days to acclimatise to the forecast heatwave. One of the things about three blokes manly bantering their way along for two weeks is that they forget to rein it in when in the presence of a lady. So poor Clare had to suffer the boys muses on where to get the best full English/Scottish in Britain, are Firths sausages still the best in the world?, how knackered they were at various parts of the route we crossed, as well as advice on Andrew’s injuries and arrangements for sitting comfortably at the Headingley Test Match on Friday. Rubber rings, cushions, and even two strategically placed beer glasses were all mentioned. She looked so relieved when we finally saw a sign saying Boston Spa! On Chris’s strict instruction...

Wow! It’s the last day, the last few miles, the last hurrah! Nice ride today, especially for Pete and Andrew because they had a 14 mile head start on Steve. Wind behind and a gentle rolling Sutherland landscape. They even had faffing time to investigate an old abandoned phone box that had become a sticker board for Lejog and nc500 travellers. Interestingly, as soon as we crossed over to Caithness, the landscape changed to wide open vistas and flat plains. We’d seen the last of the hills. Steve’s Day Log book entry day 15 Tongue to John o Groats - Awoke refreshed after a decent night’s sleep to a lovely view over the Kyle of Tongue. Very good breakfast (yet not in the top 3 - so good have some of them been). - ⁠suddenly in this part of the world, LEJOGGERS and cyclists doing other routes like the NC500 converge and you come across many more than we’d encountered since early in the trip. There were a couple of blokes having breakfast who’d done it on lightweight road bikes with a paid su...

Nice one Pete. My exploits probably don’t merit editing your blog for, as you guessed. Nevertheless:- - loved the cycle along the loch. Would have been a fabulous view if I’d been able to see it. - ⁠there were two hills which went up a relatively long way but v gently and smoothly - ⁠I got the same rain as you with 10 miles to go. - ⁠the first day in several that for some reason I’d forgotten to pre spray with Avon skin stuff. Stopped to put coat on when rain started and noticed the little bastards so decided best to get going again rather than spray there and then - ⁠after the pint I’d had in the Altnaharah hotel I started to need a wee but was scared to stop for fear of being bitten. Hence absolutely bursting when got to hotel - ⁠I appear to have somehow escaped being bitten unless there is a very delayed reaction. I remembered they can only fly at 4mph so did my best to cycle faster than that - ⁠hotel was tuning people away when I arrived so v v v glad I acted when I did especially ...

Awoke in student halls so no full Scottish today. Instead, bought vast quantities of granola for breakfast, with cream! That’s what statins are for, says Pete. Pete doesn’t really get it does he? Another thing about Andrews extensive diet. His personal dietician (Merv) recommended milk. Andrew, who doesn’t do things by halves, interpreted this as drink four pints of the stuff a day. So while his comrades drink water, Andrew has taken to hanging two or three pints of milk on the side of his bike. It looks like he’s on a very small milk round. So the latest moniker is ‘Ernie, and he drives the fastest milk bike in the west’. Nobody under 60 will understand this. (Richard wins the prize). We’re getting some funny looks from people as we cycle along singing Benny Hill songs. First leg today was along the coast, which was nice. Then a hop onto the A9 for a mile or so before we turned onto a B Road that would take us all the way across wild and beautiful Sutherland. Fabulous, gentle, steady,...

Our hotel last night was quite basic, but the breakfast was one of the best. Only marred by the kippers Steve wanted being unavailable. Weather forecast to be nice for the day. Rutherfords Law of Gravity states that water flows downhill, and when it finds a valley it forms a river. Rivers require bridges. By logical extension, any town in the Highlands that has the word ‘bridge’ in its name, such as Carrbridge, has only one way out - uphill! After a rather large breakfast our first task was a 500 foot climb! Bit of a headwind as we set off north west for 40 miles, then behind us for the last 34 miles. Nice route up towards Inverness, and a nice route beyond it. Inverness itself was a pain to cycle through - many turns, rough cycle paths we could have done without and to cap it all the cycle path over the Kessock Bridge was properly closed and locked. We had to cross four lanes of busy A9 to get to the path on the other side, then re-cross the other side. Andrew did get his Boots points...

Today was always going to be about the weather. We’d known for 6 days there was a lot of rain forecast for today. This morning all the forecasts (BBC, Met Office, XC etc) said ‘proper’ rain all day, for all of our route. Woke at 7am - proper rain. Breakfast at 8am - proper rain. 9am - still proper rain! My Dad once said ‘If you want to know what the weather is like then look out the window’. But we went one better. We looked at the rainfall radar (great app by the way). It’s like a huge window in space showing what’s happened in the last 60 minutes. From this we saw the wide band of rain we’d seen out the hotel window was due to pass over by 9:30. There was another band about 20 minutes behind it. All travelling North, just like us, at about 10mph. All we had to do was leave at 9:30 and ride as fast as we could to stay in the dry spot! As I said before, our motto is ‘nothing can go wrong’! The first 17 miles involved climbing to the Pass of Drumochter at 1515 feet. This is the highest ...

Andrew had a restless night pondering his fuel consumption. Waking at 6am he decided to empty everything he had onto his bedroom floor and have a long hard look. The result was that, by breakfast, he had decided to ditch his panniers and most of their contents and continue with the bare minimum. He’ll now make do with one sock and a single underpant, plus a plentiful supply of bum pads! He dumped the panniers at hotel reception promising to collect them in a week or two. The corporate hotel served a rubbery breakfast! Overcooked and bland. Pete and Steve stuck to triple Muesli. On our way, the first stop after half a mile was the co-op to stock up for lunch in case of nowhere else to be found. Then we were on our way properly. Or maybe not! Andrew realised he’d broken his spd sl cleats last night. If this was tomorrow it would have been game over but, luckily, very bloody luckily, there was a bike shop close by that had spares. Pete, being Captain Slow, set out alone while Steve waited...

Choice of full English or Scottish this morning. Both were enormous but we powered through. Great haggis and black pudding! Andrew’s breakfast attire was more suitable today as there were 14 other guests and they were all respectable elderly people. Steve found a shortcut for the first few miles, but as it involved an unnecessary hill, Andrew and Pete went the long way. The first 5 miles or so being mainly downhill. The Southern Uplands continued to be pretty until we left them. The rest of the day was geographically quite boring. We passed through the undelightful towns of Lanark, Carluke and Falkirk. There’s a fairly sparse and unpopulated area just to the east of Cumbernauld and Airdrie that we went through. Every inch of the roadside was covered with rubbish. Where there was a larger space, van loads of stuff had been dumped. It suddenly dawned on us we’d entered the demesne of the legendary Clan McFlytipper. It was appalling! By Falkirk Andrew had processed both his breakfast and ...

Breakfast was provided by an ex-biker Geordie who served Steve two enormous kippers and was horrified that Andrew and Pete asked for a side order of haggis with their smoked salmon and eggs! We’re all getting a bit tired of full English breakfasts so this was a welcome relief, and splendid too. The chef wasn’t half as shocked as Steve when Andrew arrived for breakfast wearing a towel! He even declared to the room (not just us) that his arse was on 🔥 fire! The nurse wasnt going to escape duty yet! Outside the sun was shining and the forecast for the day was warm with friendly tail winds. The first 10 miles continued along the Eden valley in the same vein as yesterday. Andrew has an ambition to collect points on his Boots card in every Boots along the route, so rather than cycling straight through Carlisle we went to the shopping centre so he could stock up on bum pads. Pete wasn’t too unhappy about the hour delay and getting lost finding the way out as he had purloined one of said pad...

Our basic hotel not doing breakfast, we found a place that did. We didn’t want to risk Wetherspoons next door in case Steve was tempted by a pint of Ruddles! Then a couple of loops round the Lancaster inner ring road while Andrew went to a bike shop for what is labelled ‘Chamois cream’ but cyclists just call ‘Arse Butter’. Then to Boots. Then back to the bike shop to collect his credit card that he’d dropped. So a later than planned start! Our route went north (obvs) out through north Lancs and into Cumbria/Westmoreland. We passed through Kirby Lonsdale and on to Beck Foot where we took the very hilly option up the east side of the Lune Valley. I was accosted by a gentleman farmer who said how pleased he was that some Lejog people had discovered this side of the valley. Seemingly most take the easy route on the west side! We’re not that bright! Being a bit philosophical…. From the east side, the Lune valley is wide open and stunning. I stood high up on a narrow winding undulating count...

The debate about which direction the Yorkist army should attack the House of Lancaster was resolved at last nights planning meeting. Steve’s cavalry regiment were to head out over the Forest of Bowland to swoop down from the East. The cannon fodder decided to take the short route for a surprise engagement on the southern flank. Part of the short route involved riding along an alley full of bins between two rows of terraced houses in Leigh. Leigh isn’t nice to start with! Then a section of what can only be called BMX track! So when the southern army arrived at a crossing point over the A6 they declared ‘fuckit’ and rode 35 miles up the A6. Some bits were just fine. Some bits near Preston were squeaky bum fast dual carriageway, and the hill in Preston (which is also a bit of a dump) had what the council decreed to be a cycle path! It was of the quality one would expect of a cycle path in eastern Ukraine. But all in all it made the journey a good deal shorter and faster and the southern f...

Late breakfast in Ludlow as it was Sunday. So we had to get our skates on for the 83 miles to Plumley. Nurse Pete did his duty! Nuff said! All the hills today were in the first 25 miles - nice hills, easy up, and sweeping descents. None of the brake hugging death slides of the first few days. Emergency lunch for Andrew at 35 miles, then a really nice family run garden centre cum farm shop outside Market Drayton for proper lunch. Steve said the custard tart was the best he’s ever had, and he’s known a few tarts in his time! He also had Dirty Fries so that gives you an idea of his character! Staying at the Golden Pheasant in Plumley that we discovered on our cross country 2-Bridges ride a few years ago. It was so good we just had to plan it into this trip. Gary you should be here! Another long one tomorrow but we have two route options to discuss/argue over at dinner. I know which one Pete prefers!! So it looks like Andrew will have the deciding vote. Will he and Pete still be friends to...

The consultation with Merv required Andrew to treat the affected parts with Sudocreme and gauze plasters. This is all very well in principle! But in practice Andrew realised he had no chance of hitting the spot in a section of his body he’d actually never seen (if you get what I mean). So he asked for a volunteer! This is where Andrew finds out who his real friends are. Steve looked horrified and tried to run away! Like a game of knockout, Pete was promoted to Andrew’s best mate! This was the briefest visit to wales - over the river and we were back in England The route was through the Forest of Dean then along the Wye valley - beautiful part of the world. I must come back and explore. We had rain at times but not as bad as forecast, which was a bonus. We covered 3 counties today. Gloucestershire roads are now top of the leader board for quality - Herefordshire okay - Shropshire largely untested so far. It was Pete’s day to get the feeding wrong. We had lunch too early, in Ross, as the...

Today was over the Somerset levels to start. Actually a nice place, made better by the farm milk shake vending machine we found for the best strawberry shake ever. Then up to the Mendips via Cheddar Gorge. It’s a fabulous climb, made better today due to not quite so many tourist cars as there sometimes are. Andrew had a Beth moment when he ran out of energy. How that happens is weird as he eats more than the other two put together. He’s the slowest eater with the fastest metabolism in the country. He’s learned a valuable life lesson. Eventually onto the Bath to Bristol cycle track. This was the very first Sustrans route - the one that sparked the whole network. Very familiar to Pete as he’s ridden it many times. Clare grew up next to it in Bath. Then round the east of Bristol to drop Steve off for a cup of tea at his Mums. Andrew and Pete pressed on but were pretty shot by then. It was a slog to the Severn Bridge and over to Chepstow - the only bit of Wales we’ll see on this trip thank...

Rained a lot over night. Wet ride to a cafe for breakfast. Wet ride back to our digs to load up. Wet for most of the first 15 miles to South Molton for early lunch in case there was nothing else on our rural route. Met a lady from Thirsk who was support driver for her husband and two friends. We thought they were very lucky to be able to do it luggage free, but then she said they’d done 100 miles yesterday and were planning to finish in 10 days (we’re aiming for 15). Nice to be retired and not have to get back to work. Although today was supposedly easier than yesterday, Pete and Andrew found it hard going. Various sensitive parts beginning to act up! Pete will be doubling his drug intake tomorrow and Andrew has been advised to stuff a raw steak down his shorts (No Andrew - not a T-bone you fool!!) Joined for a very pleasant dinner by Pete’s very old friends Dave and Pip, plus lovely Evey (dog). They’re big time yachty sailors so it made a change from conversation about bikes, legs, ar...

Bloody hell! Worst ever Strava average speed. 55 miles, over 6000 feet, 8.6mph. Since Pete is the only one using Strava, his scores have to count in public for all three, even though he was last up every hill! Today was Wadebridge to Torrington. The bulk of this was hugging the north Cornwall coast. Any number of helpful people advised us not to go that way, but we’re not that bright! We had plenty of time, even after a huge and lengthy breakfast at the farm shop cafe just north of Wadebridge, and the views were amazing. Only problem is that cycling up a 25%+ hill, or even going down one, requires concentration. There were quite a few of them. Andrew and Steve toughed every one out while Pete cleverly got off and walked four of them. He did suggest Steve took a book on this tour - but did he listen? We paid a visit to Steve’s old friend Clare’s holiday house in Widemouth Bay. She wasn’t there but Steve wanted to send her a photo of him standing outside. Huge pasties for lunch in Bude -...

Woke up to rain at Lands End. Forced down the biggest breakfast we could. Clare took photos at the usual milepost that claims John O’Groats is 875 miles away. Yeah - sure - if you’re a crow! And we were off, like Wacky Races but less self-assured and a whole lot less competent. But it stopped raining right on cue. Andrew does have a tendency to put his head down and just eat up the miles, even if the bloke with the map is somewhere behind him and has other ideas about the route. So Steve had the bright idea of bringing a whistle to recall Andrew. He was so pleased to have his first opportunity after only 4 miles! Like a schoolboy whose been asked to referee the first 15! Probably not the last opportunity! Though we didn't pick the easiest route by any means, it was stunning. Great scenery, great views, nice climbs, some dodgy descents. Pete has a nice open top sporty car. Pete wished he’d brought it instead of his bike! Garmin maps told us there were 24 climbs and Steve’s evil Waho...

Long but pleasantly uneventful drive down from Yorkshire to Lands End. None of the fabled traffic jams, nice weather, good company. Arrived at the Lands End hotel in evening sunshine and were greeted by some charming and helpful young hotel staff who I’m fairly certain will have a good snigger behind closed doors at three retirees their Dads age who should really know better! Pete’s better half, Clare, is with us tonight and has also volunteered to pick us up at the other end - 1020 miles away, plus extra for inevitable wrong turnings along the way. She’s from Bath (pronounced Barth) and is meeting old friends there on the way home. Unfortunately the drive down was like an unwanted recce. It’s confirmed that Cornwall is bloomin’ hilly. Devon isn’t any better, neither is Somerset. And the route we’ve planned continues along the same theme. The next few days are going to be quite challenging. Probably fair to say we’re all a bit nervous. Old hands say the first 3 days just need to be got...