Less than a month to JOGLE!

Oooer you could say! It's actually been rather a long time since my first post here, and considering that we are now in April, marching inexorably towards the start date of this ride it is perhaps time for me to post an update. I know that there are so many eager beavers that are waiting for updates throughout the ride, but you perhaps don't know what has been going on over the last couple of months so here we go... (this might probably be a bit of a big one so please bear with me!)

You would be surprised just how much work goes into something like this, and it has been no easy task to organise. Mum and Dad have done a superb job here. They have spent weeks and weeks planning the routes, organising camp-sites and B&B bookings, writing letters to other friends and local businesses (of which you may notice some posters up around some of the shops in Staines and Egham), arranging fund-raising materials with Parkinson's UK (of which you will see in a bit) and generally organising the whole logistics of the thing, leaving Alex and I to do the hard part and get our heads down and do the training!

So yes the route I hear you ask? Well it's all complete and we have produced these rather nifty route sheets that we can attach to our handlebars so that we never get lost (we hope). The route, and generally itinerary is as follows:

Day 00 Sat 28th April - Transfer via van from Inverness Airport to John O'Groats
Day 01 Sun 29th - John O'Groats to the Crask Inn near Altnaharra, 89.9 miles (a toughie this one takes us across the top of Scotland and then inland to end at one of the most remote pubs in the UK)
Day 02 Mon 30th  - The Crask Inn to Dingwall, 50.1 miles (Mum and Dad stopping at the Dalmore distillery)
Day 03 Tues 1st May - Dingwall to Fort William, 72.3 miles (this ride takes us past Loch Ness, and Mum and Dad past the Glen Ord distillery!)
Day 04 Weds 2nd - Fort William to Luss, 107.1 miles (the longest ride is to get us close to Glasgow giving us a short day to cross the city)
Day 05 Thurs 3rd - Luss to Strathaven, 52.2 miles (most of these miles are actually on cycle paths through Glasgow)
Day 06 Fri 4th - Strathaven to Ecclefechan, 78 miles (good tarts from Ecclefechan apparently!)
Day 07 Sat 5th - Ecclefechan to Kirkby Stephen, 70.1 miles (into England)
Day 08 Sun 6th - Kirkby Stephen to Waddington, 53.8 miles (we should see the Ribblehead Viaduct on route as we pass the Settle to Carlisle railway)
Day 09 Mon 7th - Waddington to Delamere Forest, 72.8 miles
Day 10 Tues 8th - Delamere Forest to Wentnor, 61.7 miles
Day 11 Weds 9th - Wentnor to Monmouth, 68.7 miles (into Wales)
Day 12 Thurs 10th - Monmouth to Bawdrip/Woolavington, 75 miles (this day we have the pleasure of riding alongside the M48 across the Severn Bridge and back into England)
Day 13 Fri 11th - Bawdrip/Woolavington to Crokernwell, 66.1 miles
Day 14 Sat 12th - Crockenwell to Belowda St Austell, 70.3 miles
Day 15 Sun 13th - Belowda St Austell to Lands End, 58.8 miles (apparently we go through a town famous for it's pasties (chance for a break Alex?), and naturally this takes us into the end of our journey at Lands End where a bottle of fine Champagne will be ceremoniously opened. I'm thinking of riding to the finish holding champagne flutes like they do on the final stage of the Tour de France!)
Day 16 Mon 14th - Return home

For those of you have cared to add all that up that's a total mileage of 1046.9 miles that Alex and I have to pedal! Certainly nothing that we will be able to do without considerable help. Fortunately the committee have thought long and hard about the logistics and we are now well prepared. On the fundraising side of things Parkinson's have been very generous is supplying us with a lot of fund-raising packs, donation pots, cycle clothing and t-shirts:

A selection of clothing and some rather splendid donation pots from Parkinson's

Stuart modelling the cycle jersey

It doesn't stop there, you would be surprised how much stuff you need, other than bicycles. Have a look at some other goodies which turned up recently:

Just some cycle stuff

As you can see, spare tyres, plenty of spare inner-tubes and a heck of a lot of energy gels. Those four huge packs still only give Alex and I three each a day. Considering they cost me nearly £80 the had better work! Then there is all the other clothing, some of which we already have, some we have had to buy, such as a decent water-proof for me costing me another £70, which I'm going on 100% chance that I will need. New clear cycle specs, oh and a HD helmet camera which wasn't cheap so I can record snippets of the ride (and hopefully dissuade any car drivers from being stupid).

Then there is all the non cycle related kit too, including a whole host of kit in the van to keep us clean, clothed, fed and entertained. We have a rather impressive stack of Mars and Galaxy milk drinks which we have figured by scientific study and through a strict taste test to be the best recovery drink. Oh yes and all the food too. Mum has been superb in planning all the potential meals to cook for us which will no doubt include lots of carbo-rich foods (I'm guessing a lot of pasta). Ah yes and then there is a rather nifty pop-up tent that will be arriving next week, sleeping bags, plenty of roll-mats to make sure Alex and I are comfy in the tent... need I go on? Oh yes and we haven't bought the booze yet (Majestic Inverness beware some crazy people wielding Parkinson's donation pots on the Saturday).

Oh and yes there are the bikes too:

Old bike

 My old bike now training bike. My colleagues repeatedly think I'm mad that I am on this every morning before work considering our long Majestic days. I figure if I don't train on this on work days it will be the difference in being able to ride from John O'Groats to Lands End, and being able to ride John O'Groats to Lands End (hopefully) with ease.

New bike

And my new bike, my most expensive piece of kit which I bought last year. Just don't ask me how much it cost, for I only had moths left in my wallet for a while afterwards. Being a full carbon frame with carbon fibre components it weighs barely 8kg (the same weight as a half dozen bottles of wine), half that of my mountain bike. We roadies take weight very seriously as the less we have to take up the hills the better!

As you can see there is quite a lot of work that goes into organising something like this, and I haven't got into how the fund-raising is going or how well the training is going. Keep 'em peeled for further updates as there are quite a few tales to tell. :)

Cheers!

P.S. (Comment from Dad about day 14 Crockenwell to Belowda). We thought that the routes were finalised at the end of February. I had spent many hours on the computer route finding and cross referencing with paper maps. It was only when Alex sampled some of the roads, when cycling in Devon near Dartmoor in early April a decision was taken to change the route on Saturday 12th (day 14). The bike ride will no longer be using the small country roads onto the moor from Whiddon Down but riding from Morton Hampstead and turning right to Postbridge, avoiding some rather horrendously muddy roads covered with debris. This added an extra 4 miles which has raised the total to hopefully the maximum of 1046.9 miles.

P.P.S. (Stuart again). As you can see that planning the route has been a colossal task, using Dad's knowledge of previous rides, paper maps, google maps and use of google streetview to formulate the route sheets, but even with all this planning you can never quite appreciate how good these are until we are actually there cycling.