A 12 day cycle ride from John
o'Groats to Land's End
in May 2007.
Our Goal!
On 22nd May 2007, Charlie Dupre and
myself, George Shirreff, set off to cover the country with our
mean cycle tracks. We cycled for nearly 80 hours, through wind,
rain, sun, a bit of hail, to complete the longest journey in
Britain, 901 miles from John O’Groats, the most North-Easterly
point, to Lands End, the most South-Westerly.
Why did we do it?
It originally began because I needed to raise money to go
and volunteer in Ghana doing a project in public health, but it
became much more than that. Charlie came purely for the
adventure, and you don’t need any better reason than that to do
it. It’s beautiful and challenging and exciting and interesting.
Did we prepare ourselves
physically?
I had been cycling to work, a fairly
flat ride but a good 10 miles each way, for several months
before the trip which stood me in good stead. Charlie went on
about 3 rides of similar length per week in the couple of months
leading up to it. The weekend before we were driven to Bedford
and cycled back to London, about 60 miles with some reasonable
hills. I recommend doing something like that because it really
made us feel like we could do it, especially because we got
totally drenched and carried on regardless. It also showed us
things that could go wrong e.g. don’t overload your backpack or
your back will seriously ache after 10 miles. However, it’s
entirely possible to do it with no preparation whatsoever, but
you’ll have a miserable first few days if you’re in really bad
shape.
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