Day 10 - Helmsdale to John o'Groats. The end.

The final stretch. The last 52 miles.

All of our hard work. It all came down to the final push and having finally set off at 10am, after faffing over Paul's rear tyre - AGAIN - realising that my front wheel wasn't actually attached to the bike (!) and then waiting while I bought the final supplies (then found out that the local shop didn't accept debit cards, so going on a wild goose chase to find a cash point).

The final day was genuinely fun. The only person low light was losing a contact lens at the top of a hill, then seeing both replacements blow away on the Scottish wind. I had to make do with replacing with a grit-filled lens that I somehow found on the road. Teary-eyed, but undeterred, we carried on.

We'd been warned that the final leg was hilly and there was a massive hill just a little outside Helmsdale. We found this hill and slowly, but surely managed to climb it. And boy did we nail the speed on the other side, I nearly broke 40mph, something the others had done several times over the last 9 days, but only got to 39.6mph. Good enough though, especially as my brakes stopped working properly several days ago.

Then something funny happened. An even bigger hill arrived. Yes, we'd got it wrong, the first hill wasn't "THE HILL". It was the warm up. We got through it, but my word we worked for our money.

After that we decided to have a little fun and raced our way to Wick, which was the final brief stop before getting there. Each of us averaged well over 20mph for the 10 miles to Wick. Each overtook at some point, finally after 9 days and nearly 900 miles, we got to enjoy ourselves.

At our stop in Wick, in the bright, summery sunshine, Paul uttered the immortal line "Well, even I'm going to tempt fate and say it's not going to rain before we get to John o'Groats".

20 minutes later, having waiting at the top of the final hill outside Jo'G while Paul caught me and Bri up, the inevitable happened. A massive hailstorm arrived.

Our descent into John o'Groats was wind assisted, plus also assisted by the burning desire to get the heck out of this hailstorm that Paul has brought upon us.

We were greeted, inevitably by our cheering support crew, Dave, Val, Mel and Maddie. They presented us with a bottle of champagne and their warmest congratulations. We'd finally made it.

Having posted for photos, we retired to the cafe and opened the champagne. Or, to be more accurate, Paul opened the champagne over the inside of the whole cafe. Smooth.

We settled down for a hard-earned drink and chatted to the other cyclists who'd turned up (like it or not, a lot of people seem to manage to do this challenge. At least a dozen turned up in the hour we were there!). In a brilliant coincidence, Gaz and Paul turned up 30 minutes after us, these were the two guys we'd met at Land's End on our first day, who had no idea how they were going to get to John o'Groats or how long it'd take (they were less prepared for me! One was doing it in hiking boots and they were both carrying their own stuff).

After this, we retired back to our B&Bs in Wick for a hearty, hearty dinner and drinks to watch the World Cup and unwind. It's probably only just starting to sink in what we've achieved.

Photos will follow soon. Laptop doesn't seem to recognise my iPhone at the moment. There's technology for you...

Day 9 - Auchterawe to Helmsdale

This was possibly the toughest day of the lot. We did 104 miles into a headwind. This doesn't sound much to write home about, but off the back of 8 days continuous cycling, it was enough to ruin us. We knew there was one day left to get through, but doing it was a real effort.

We trawled across central and eastern Scotland, past Inverness and the over "The Black Isle" a barren, bleak and generally dull stretch of Scotland which extends north of Inverness. Busy roads, lots of traffic, lots of leg work. Tough, tough going.

Thankfully, when we arrived at Helmsdale, the last minute accommodation seriously came up trumps. We were staying in a huge, old-fashioned Scottish hotel. Stags, deer, fish all sorts of stuffed animals on the walls. A hearty welcome from the hosts, local bottled ales and beers in the lobby. A group of girls invited the other Brian to their 18th birthday party. Dinner was absolutely top-notch, we could not have wished for a better last night.

Day 8 - Arrochar (Loch Lomond) to Auchterawe

104 miles knocked off, but my Lord what a day.

The first four hours of today were through a blazing Scottish summer heatwave. Or, more accurately, horizontal, driving rain, freezing winds occasionally reaching gale-force. All across a glorious backdrop of Scottish scenery. Sadly, Scottish scenery mainly consists of massive hills and mountains. And we were cycling up and down them

That aside, because we didn't stop for four hours (it was too cold and wet) we covered 50+ miles before stopping for lunch at the first place we found, a visitors' centre at Glencoe. The faces on the bemused faces of the tourists will live with me forever. Three drenched English idiots, dressed in lycra, drenced with a mix of sweat and rain stood shivering in front of them in the cafeteria.

Having consumed enough food to feed a small family for a month and our spirits being boosted by the news of the various toilet blockages in the office, we set off again. Miraculously, the weather improved as we approached officially the wettest place in the UK (Fort William) and the rest of the day was a (comparative) breeze. We cruised up to Loch Ness, no sign of Nessie but we did stay in a lovely converted farmhouse/B&B.

The only, hugely amusing downside to this place was that myself and Bri were in the converted attic. This, of course, meant low ceilings. So low I couldn't stand up in the rooms, let alone the shower. And I didn't fit in the bed either (it had a wooden end to it). The one thing you want to do when you've cycled 100+ miles is TO BE ABLE TO STRETCH OUT YOUR LEGS!

Everyone else found this hilarious though.

Oh and Brian snored and I couldn't shut him up. Even by kicking his bed.

We made it!

Not much else to say is there? All alive. All made it.

Full report for this time tomorrow.


Off to celebrate big time now.

Scottish Heatwave

52 miles into driving rain and headwind.

We are sat in Glencoe visitor centre, shivering, cold, soaked, hungry.

People are actually laughing at us.

We're only halfway through the day.


PS: Bruce, if you eat more fruit you won't block the toilet.

Day 7 - Kirkconnel to Loch Lomond

86 miles. We knocked it off without barely even breaking a sweat.

We're staying in what seems to be McPheonix Nights. Sadly this means no proper Internet access, so I'm doing this on my phone.

Proper write up will follow tonight I hope - we're going to be on the south end of Loch Ness tonight. In all likelihood we'll be finished by the time you all read this on Monday, but that's unavoidable given the backward technological situation north of the border (sorry Guy).

Hope you're all enjoying the heatwave. It started raining here last night and it will not stop now until we finish...

Day 6 – Ambleside to Kirkconnel.

Day 6 – Ambleside to Kirkconnel. 109 miles.

Long, long day. 9 hours of cycling. The first of which only took us through 3 miles. The Kirkstone Pass. This was Paul’s idea. You can fill in your own expletives directed at him here. You’ve done it before, there’s no need for me to help. It was tough going. In places it was barely even walkable, let alone cycleable. Once we’d regrouped, we had to go back down the other side. This was just as steep, perilously quick. And wet. And dark. Not a great start, especially when we were nearly 90 minutes in and still needed to cover 103 more miles. A late finish was very much on the cards.

We pushed on, there was no choice really. We headed up and into Carlisle. The home of Eddie Stobart, inbreeding and football hooliganism. Paul and Brian were not impressed and got involved in an altercation with some local chavs outside Subway. You can take the boys out of Essex/Sussex but you can’t take the Essex/Sussex out of the boys…
After that it became a real slog, the next 60-70 miles were into either a galeforce headwind or crosswind. One being a strength sapping nightmare, the other being extremely dangerous. Tough, tough going. We passed through Gretna and into Scotland, stopping for the obligatory photo on the border. Going into Scotland would make you believe the end is close, but in fact we’re only just over halfway through. Shows what a big “country” this is. Big. Cold. Wet. Hilly…

Scotland does at least appear to have a higher class of roadkill. We all saw a pheasant lying prostrate on the side of the road today, so that was a positive at least.

We stopped in a fantastically named village for a midafternoon “pep me up”. Having shared a room with “Naked Unwin”, as I’ve started to mentally dub him, the name of this place was too good to pass up…



After that the day flew by for me. I’ve no idea what was in the 39p Happy Shopper fake Lucozade, but I knocked the final 20 miles off in not much over an hour, leaving Brian and Paul eating my dirt. A satisfying turnaround compared to the rest of the week. That was until I got to Kirkconnel and had no idea where I was going, so had to sit on the roadside (fitting opposite a cemetery) until they turned up.


Accommodation is very good tonight. Our host excellent. We went to the next village and dined in a garden centre which has a café attached to it. We were the only visitors and were treated excellently.

Today, we go through Kilmarnock and avoid Glasgow by heading West and hitting the ferry over some sort of river or sea, I’ve no idea, but eventually we end up at the top of Loch Lomond after another very long day of cycling. Remarkable to think how far we’ve got up the country.