The morning started like any other... Several alarms, sleep button, alarms. The shaking of tents to rouse the sleepy heads and a hearty breakfast of, you guessed it, Porridge and bacon.
10 miles down of 80 and we had our next puncture, again it was Mr Diegans bicycle and a threatening piece of glass. Once fixed the quote was ‘I’m pretty sure I can see Inner Tube through my tyre right now’, not good for a road bike, trust me!
It turned out that Grant had been keeping a few secrets from the group about the last day, since he drove up to the north a few months ago he knew the layout of the land. The Secrets he kept was about the total amount of hills. We followed the A9 coastal road all day and for every long downhill there was a steep run back up the other side. Not what we really wanted but we soldiered on with the finish line fresh on our minds.
The last puncture happened on one of these hills, not through tyre damage, rim damage or a foreign object but hilariously through overheating! As a group we hit one particularly downhill with the words ‘She’s a record breaker’ and flew down trying to beat our own top speeds. Then we hit traffic, very slow moving traffic which turns our saved us from a sudden hairpin bend in the road which would have almost definitely seem at least one bike pile straight into the safety barrier.
Hitting the brakes and slowing from 45mph to about 10mph (whilst thinking we still wouldn’t stop in time) caused a certain amount of friction on the wheels and tyres. The second we started pedalling up the other side of the hill Ede’s wheel blew out completely and much to his disappointment left Grant as the only contender left in the ‘no punctures from LE-JOG’ challenge.
After lunch we knew the end was just around the corner(even though it was still 45 miles away). We drew upon every last ounce of strength in our muscles and bikes and cracked out some amazing teamwork. Riding in a pack and clocking 30mph on the flats without feeling the strain too much was quite an achievement.
What can we say, we cruised the last few miles knowing we were there, it was finished, the end! We all cheered our way into the harbour at John O’Groat’s stopping by the legendary sign for a photo; Nick promptly didn’t stop and cycled straight down the slipway into the North Sea.
How to end such a challenge though? 903 Miles covered in less than 9 days of cycling. Sunshine, Torrential Rain and Headwinds halfway there. Managing to wipe the smug looks of a group of cyclist’s faces who took great pride in telling us they had overtaken us and completed it in 14 days?
No we ended it in style; we loaded up the car and drove straight to the nearest Wetherspoons. Steaks, Starters and large amounts of alcohol were drunk to celebrate the night away before camping back at the train shaken campsite for a few hours, waking everyone up in a hungover state and driving the 600Miles back home.
Done and Dusted, What’s next year?
10 miles down of 80 and we had our next puncture, again it was Mr Diegans bicycle and a threatening piece of glass. Once fixed the quote was ‘I’m pretty sure I can see Inner Tube through my tyre right now’, not good for a road bike, trust me!
It turned out that Grant had been keeping a few secrets from the group about the last day, since he drove up to the north a few months ago he knew the layout of the land. The Secrets he kept was about the total amount of hills. We followed the A9 coastal road all day and for every long downhill there was a steep run back up the other side. Not what we really wanted but we soldiered on with the finish line fresh on our minds.
The last puncture happened on one of these hills, not through tyre damage, rim damage or a foreign object but hilariously through overheating! As a group we hit one particularly downhill with the words ‘She’s a record breaker’ and flew down trying to beat our own top speeds. Then we hit traffic, very slow moving traffic which turns our saved us from a sudden hairpin bend in the road which would have almost definitely seem at least one bike pile straight into the safety barrier.
Hitting the brakes and slowing from 45mph to about 10mph (whilst thinking we still wouldn’t stop in time) caused a certain amount of friction on the wheels and tyres. The second we started pedalling up the other side of the hill Ede’s wheel blew out completely and much to his disappointment left Grant as the only contender left in the ‘no punctures from LE-JOG’ challenge.
After lunch we knew the end was just around the corner(even though it was still 45 miles away). We drew upon every last ounce of strength in our muscles and bikes and cracked out some amazing teamwork. Riding in a pack and clocking 30mph on the flats without feeling the strain too much was quite an achievement.
What can we say, we cruised the last few miles knowing we were there, it was finished, the end! We all cheered our way into the harbour at John O’Groat’s stopping by the legendary sign for a photo; Nick promptly didn’t stop and cycled straight down the slipway into the North Sea.
How to end such a challenge though? 903 Miles covered in less than 9 days of cycling. Sunshine, Torrential Rain and Headwinds halfway there. Managing to wipe the smug looks of a group of cyclist’s faces who took great pride in telling us they had overtaken us and completed it in 14 days?
No we ended it in style; we loaded up the car and drove straight to the nearest Wetherspoons. Steaks, Starters and large amounts of alcohol were drunk to celebrate the night away before camping back at the train shaken campsite for a few hours, waking everyone up in a hungover state and driving the 600Miles back home.
Done and Dusted, What’s next year?
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