Wednesday 30 September 2015

R is for Recovery

I keep being asked how I am and how I’m recovering. The answer is that I’m fine and don’t appear to have any aches and pains but I thought that I wouldn’t really be able to see how I am until I went for a ride, which I hadn’t been able to do.



Yesterday I went out on my bike for the first time since Friday at Land’s End. I had planned to do a 27 mile route but by the time I should have turned back, I was going faster than I expected and so decided to carry on (I think that the amount of cake that I’ve had this transmission week might have helped with the energy levels).



I did the 42 mile route which I had been doing in my training and completed it faster than I have before. I thought that I had become slower over the three weeks and so I’m pleased that, having given my legs four days off, I’m back to where I was in terms of speed.



I was pushing more than I had been over the three weeks and so my legs were more tired last night than they were having done double the distance over the last few weeks. They also didn’t feel quite right when walking up the stairs but this morning they were fine.



Tuesday 29 September 2015











And today I’ve come into work and been given another cake and a real gold cardboard medal!

I have very kind friends (and a lot of cake)

Monday 28 September 2015







I went into work today to find that my desk had been decorated, which hadn’t expected. Later I was presented with a cake, and very tasty it was too.

Today the total donations went over £2,000 (excluding Gift Aid of over £400), so thank you to everyone who has donated.

Sunday 27 September 2015

Lejogle

And so the ride is done. I still woke up at about 7am yesterday but I didn’t have to get up, it was strange not going out on my bike but I had other things to do. I went to the Eden Project during the day and then in the evening went to a wedding do (sitting next to the buffet came in very useful as my body will take a while to try to adjust to not having to eat twice the normal amount of calories) of a friend of my girlfriend, strangely it was in St Buryan which is a couple of miles from Land’s End.

I’m writing this while on the train back to Southampton, I’ve got to be back at work in the morning. Taking three weeks off to ride means that I don’t have any leave left for an extra day or two off. The journey was going well but then we were delayed by the driver not being here to drive the train as they were on another late running train. Luckily one of my friends has agreed to meet me at the station so I don’t have to struggle back with three bags, two spare wheels and the bike.

Anyway, back to the ride. For the last three weeks I’ve resisted passing comment on the health of my bike or of me. One reason is that there hasn’t been a lot to say and the other reason was that I didn’t want to jinx it. I’ve had no punctures and the only mechanical problems are that my front derailleur has been slightly out of alignment for the last two weeks (I’m not very good at adjusting derailleurs, so I thought it best to leave it and not make it worse, I’ve just had to be careful as the chain got stuck every so often) and that one of the wheels needs some adjustments (but I had a spare, although that was with dad in Cornwall when I really wanted it). The bike certainly needs a service now though. I’m fine too, I’m slightly slower than I was when I started but I still have the strength in my legs to tackle any hill (I’m surprised that I managed the last big climb on Thursday but I did). I had a few twinges over the three weeks but that might just be that I thought that there should be some and they soon went away. The worst that I got was when driving back from Land’s End and I got a pain in my shin from holding my foot on the accelerator.

The lack of punctures is very good as I certainly rode over plenty of glass (I wasn’t trying to, it’s just not always easy to see until it’s too late). I had a few punctures last year and put a big hole in one tyre, so in January I bought some tyres which should be more puncture resistant. The front tyre is still the original one (it’s done over 8,000 miles now but still has enough rubber left, I checked it most days) and I had to change the rear one in August. I’ve only had one puncture this year and that wasn’t caused by anything come in through the tyre. They might be £60 a pair, but they’ve saved me so much in time and inner tubes.

I popped over to see my dad today and to take him a present, he’s looking refreshed. I had underestimated how tiring the trip would be for him. I think that it didn’t get off to the best start with the puncture that he got only 25 miles in and so by the time he got to Taunton he was exhausted. I was full of energy that day, I think the Swiss roll I ate after I arrived might have helped there, it was lucky that there was no ceiling to bounce off. By the end we both used to have a rest before putting up the tent and it took us longer and longer to get ready in the morning.

The weather was generally good. I’d been watching the long range forecasts in the weeks leading up to the ride and it had been looking like the first week would be OK, the second would be bad and then it would start to improve again. I think that the weather was reasonable, it could have been a lot worse (I think my dad might disagree with Mr there). I would have liked it to be dry every day and warmer but you can’t get everything. We did have some very wet days, the Saturday riding along the A9 to Alvie was the worst and there were a couple of wet days in the last week. Part of the problem was that, in order to keep costs down and because the motorbike couldn’t just be parked on the road or a car park, we camped every night. We therefore didn’t have a reliable way to dry our shoes and gloves. My mum was also a little shocked by the smell of my towel, I’m not sure it ever dried out completely while I was away.

When setting the route I used Google to check the distances between campsites and that there wasn’t too much climbing. Luckily Google seemed to overestimate the distance and so only two days made it over 100 miles. Unfortunately it underestimated the climbing (it’s probably that my more direct route took in more hills). I was expecting to do just under 60,000ft but on the end I did 84,079ft (that’s 15.92 miles!).

If you look at the photos from Land’s End and John O'Groats you will see that they both say that it’s 874 miles between the two (back in 2009, for some reason, they showed different distances), I didn’t manage to do a route to match them though. The distance up to John O'Groats was 889.4 miles and the distance back was 895.1 miles, a total distance of 1,784.5 miles.

Over the last couple of weeks the sponsorship has been slowly increasing and on Friday there was a sudden increase. I hadn’t set a target but wanted to raise more than I did when I went one way in 2009, that happened on Thursday and since then, and with me completing the ride, I the amount has increased significantly. Thank you to everyone who has sponsored me. I had been trying to thank everyone either in person are by email, but I lost track before I even set off. I will email everyone to say thank you very soon (please don’t feel offended if you don’t get a personal thank you). I know from meeting Donna at Age UK on Friday how grateful they are to receive the money.

Of course the biggest thank you is to my dad. Without him I wouldn’t have managed to do the ride. He went through so much in order that I could get to John O'Groats and back and didn’t give up even when the motorbike broke.
Dad was asked what he would do now that he’s back. As I thought it would be, the reply was that he’d be fixing the motorbike. He has a lot of work to be done.

Although he’s not to do with my charities, little Pudsey has been with me throughout the ride with all but one day in my pocket. I’ve got so used to him being there that I wondered what I’d done with him earlier and then realised that he’s still in my pocket. He was only lent to me but I’ve become too attached to him, thank you Karen for letting me keep him (and happy birthday), he’ll sit on my desk and remind me of these last three weeks.

I thought that I’d show a few of my favourite (or memorable, the broken down bike isn’t really a favourite memory) photos that I’ve posted in the three weeks and a couple which I haven’t posted before.





































































Friday 25 September 2015

Lejogle - Day 21

I didn’t have to get up early today to start riding, i did have to get up to go to the dentist though (it’s OK, it was just a check up). When he found that it was the last day of my ride, I had my photo taken with a few of the staff to go on their Facebook page (I’m always grateful of more publicity).

I set off on the ride at about 11:20, I wasn’t in a rush today as my family couldn’t set off to meet me until my nephews had finished school. It was quite warm today, probably helped by leaving later than other days.

I popped into the Age UK office in Truro to meet some of the staff and to have my photo taken with them. It was lovely to meet them and see how grateful they are of the money I’ve raised.

I then carried on to Penzance via Redruth, Camborne and Hayle. I arrived in Penzance at about 15:25 and went for a wander. I managed to find a bakers which was selling off pasties as it was the end of the day, which handily settled the craving that I’d been having for the previous couple of hours.

With my family on their way, I set off for Land’s End at about 16:40 but was over ambitious with my estimate of their progress and so had to wait again a short way from Land’s End to be overtaken.

I finally arrived at Land’s End (stopping to take photos as I entered) at about 17:50. As I crossed the line there was a lady waiting for her husband to arrive and so we had a chat. Her husband then arrived (so we clapped as he crossed the line) and chatted about our rides. He left John O'Groats the day after I did, which meant that he had unfortunately had bad weather when going over Shap.

We then went around to have our photos taken at the official signpost. Unfortunately the photographer had finished for the day and so we had to make do with the stand in signpost (it’s smaller than the famous one, but it serves the purpose and there isn’t a charge for using it).

I also signed the End To End finishers book. I checked but the book only went back as far as 2012 and so didn’t see what I wrote there on 25 September 2009 when I finished my Jogle.

And so the ride is complete and I’m back at my mum’s. I’ll end today with the normal mileage counts and tomorrow I’ll write some more as a roundup of the ride.

Distance Today - 59.1 miles
Total Distance - 1,784.5 miles































Thursday 24 September 2015










Lejogle - Day 20

We set off at about 9:00 and headed down to Cullompton in order to avoid the motorway junction and the very busy dual carriageway to Tiverton. It was then across to Crediton to then do the reverse of the second day of the ride. Unfortunately I missed a turning and went a couple of miles out of my way on the way to Crediton, but a quick check on my phone and I was back where I was meant to be.

With the rain overnight and the roads being muddy or little used, I had problems when going up hills as, every time I got out of the saddle to pedal, the rear wheel slipped due to a lack of grip on the road.

It stayed pretty dry until going towards Okehampton when it chucked it down, which wasn’t all that enjoyable with the headwinds. It was also annoying as I could see sunshine across the valley. By the time I got to Sourton Cross (a couple of miles south of Okehampton at the A30) the sun was out. My dad had stopped for lunch and ordered a bacon roll for me when I arrived.

We then headed to Launceston, where it rained. It was then down over bits Bodmin Moor. I’ve done the same route at Easter for the last two years and each time, when I’ve got to a couple of the hills, I’ve started walking up them. For this ride I decided that I wouldn’t walk any of it and so I have climbed every hill on my bike and there are only two places where I’ve walked (because the cycle path was gravel near the Forth Bridge due to roadworks and yesterday due to some roadworks with a long queue and not wanting to hold up the traffic). The worse climb came today, about 5 miles from my mum’s is the town of Lostwithiel where there is a steep hill (so steep that it has an escape lane and a ban on lorries going down). Having never made it up there on my bike before, I decided to avoid the main road so as not to hold up the traffic and go up a side road. Unfortunately I hadn’t thought about the side road being shorter and therefore it was steeper than the main road but I made it up in the end (although I did have to stop for a breather part way up).

I arrived at my mum’s at about 16:55. My dad had already unloaded the van and had waited as my mum wanted at take a photo of the two of us to go with the photo from the start, obviously with the van in place of the motorbike.

Tomorrow I have to go to the dentist before I can set off. I will probably set off at about 11:00 and will do the reverse of the first day but will also be popping into the Age UK office in Truro. There’s no rush to get to Land’s End though as my family will be meeting me at the end and they can’t leave until my nephews get out of school.

Distance Today - 88.7 miles
Distance from John O'Groats - 836.0 miles
Total Distance - 1725.4 miles

Wednesday 23 September 2015














Lejogle - Day 19

Last night was the first time that I’ve slept in a bed since the first day of the ride, all other nights I’ve been in my sleeping bag on a roll mat. I must say that beds are really comfortable and are likely to catch on. I therefore had a good night’s sleep. Dad, on the other hand, didn’t.

Dad was eventually picked up at about 19:00, by man who had first been to pick him up at Sedgemoor Services on the M5 in Somerset (dad was on the A38 in Gloucestershire). He was taken to Exeter Services, where he arrived at about 21:00, but there was no one there to collect him. On phoning up it was found that no one had been booked to collect him. That is why, at 23:20, there was something ringing me to say that he was on his way. Dad got home at about 3:00, that’s thirteen hours after he broke down.

I set off at about 9:40, having been well stocked with food by Adam and his mum. I hadn’t intended to eat them out of house and home, but my supply of food was in Cornwall. I found my way into the centre of Bristol but then twice took wrong turns and had to go back on myself. I eventually found the A38 again and then from Bristol it was just a case of following it all day. There seemed to be quite a bit of cycling into headwinds and I think the bike is starting to show that it’s done over 1,500 miles this month but luckily today was a short day.

I arrived at the pub next to the campsite at about 15:35 and dad was already here and had booked in. He’s come up in his van and brought everything that had been packed in the sidecar and trailer, so I’ve got my home comforts (well, I’ve got my blanket to keep me warm tonight and when eating breakfast in the morning).

We put the tent up (still wet from Monday tonight) and then I swapped over the rear wheel as it’s not as smooth as I would like and I don’t want to damage it. I now can’t get all the oil off my hands though despite having washed them twice and having had a shower.

Tomorrow we will cover a large part of day two in reverse, going across Devon to the north of Dartmoor and crossing into Cornwall at Launceston before going over Bodmin Moor and down to my mum’s house. The weather forecast is for showers overnight but hopefully they will clear by the time I get up and it should be a dry day although there might be headwinds.

Tonight is our final night camping (tomorrow I get the luxury of a double bed!) and so I thought that I’d end on a camping joke that a friend sent me the other day before it’s too late (thanks, Heather)

Why can’t you run in a campsite?
You can only ran because its past tents!

Distance Today - 69.4 miles
Distance from John O'Groats - 747.3 miles
Total Distance - 1636.7 miles

Tuesday 22 September 2015

Lejogle - Day 18

It rained heavily overnight and outside our tent were some puddles. Unfortunately there was also a slight puddle on the porch between my side of the tent and dad’s side. It had, however, stopped raining by the time we got up.

We set off at about 9:25. It started with a steep climb from the site up to the village and there was then quite a bit more climbing in the first 20 miles. It stayed dry until Worcester (about 25 miles in) when it started to rain and then it absolutely chucked it down for a while and continued to rain for about two hours. Although we both had problems finding our way out of Worcester (we both followed signs for the A38 but then they stopped providing signs) we found each other again.

All was going well, we went through Tewkesbury and then Gloucester, meeting every 10 miles or so. I was cycling along the road, about 5 miles south of Gloucester, at around 14:00, when dad appeared in front of me with the motorbike sitting in the bike lane……

I stopped, dad looked a bit dejected and there was a smell of electrical burning. Dad thinks that something shorted (possibly the starter motor), shorted out the battery (melting the connectors) and burnt out the starter motor (which dad said had started to smoke). He called the breakdown company (it comes with the insurance and once got him and his broken bike back from Spain) for someone to come and collect him and the bike.

He was told that they would be 50-60 minutes and then we were called to say that it might be two hours. The man turned up after about an hour and twenty minutes. First he had a look at what the problem was while dad got frustrated that the man seemed to want to see if it could be fixed while dad knew that it couldn’t be, even with the wires held on the battery the engine wouldn’t turn over.

Before the man arrived, dad and I had speculated at what might be sent for him, the insurance company should know that it is a motorbike and sidecar but as he had been told that it wasn’t on his policy (he has two bikes on the one policy), that information might not have been passed on. As it was the man arrived in a big van from a company which specialises in transporting motorbikes. He let the tailgate down and we tried to get the bike into the back of the van but, with the side car and the engine, it was too wide to fit in. The man therefore had to phone to get someone else to pick the bike up.

So, where does that leave me?

It is clear that the motorbike won’t make it any further under its own steam but that doesn’t stop me. While dad was on the phone to the breakdown company, I was having a look on the internet to work out a plan on how to continue but in the end dad came up with a better one.

As I said yesterday, today I was cycling to a friend’s house. I therefore packed some clothes, left dad at about 15:20 and continued on my way (about another 18 miles). I arrived at my friend’s house at about 16:30 and so I’m OK for the night (his mum has made sure that I’ve had enough food and they’ve washed some clothes).

It’s taken a while and a few different recovery lorries but dad should be on his way back to Cornwall with the motorbike, trailer and our things at the moment. I’ve just received a call (at about 23:20) from the man who is picking him up from Exeter Services. It appears that he’s being taken down in stages as it’s probably 180 miles to get him home.

Tomorrow I will continue on down the A38 to the next campsite (which is close to Tiverton Parkway Station) and dad will transfer our things from the trailer to his van, he will then drive up to the campsite and we will spend the night there. On Thursday I will then cycle to my mum’s as planned and then to Land’s End on Friday. That is the plan, at least. When it was formulated it was about 15:00 and the expectation wasn’t that eight hours later he would still be 90 miles from home.

If the motorbike was going to breakdown, today was one of the better days for it to happen. In some ways we’ve been lucky that a bike that was designed in 1932 and built in 1958 has survived such a long trip with such little trouble, it’s still very annoying though.

Today was therefore a lot more eventful than I expected as I thought that this was going to be another complain about how wet we got and how our shoes haven’t dried out fully for days (that’s caused by the rain and the morning dew on the grass). Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

Distance Today - 82.6 miles
Distance from John O'Groats - 677.9 miles
Total Distance - 1567.3 miles







Monday 21 September 2015

Lejogle - Day 17

It rained last night. It rained this morning. It rained when dad got up. It rained when I got up. It rained so much that I got onto my third bowl of cornflakes while waiting for a lull in the rain in order to take the tent down. Eventually we did take the tent down and pack up, but it was still raining.

We set off at about 9:45 and headed south over the Warburton Toll Bridge and, while I went around the cars and didn’t pay the toll (there wasn’t a sign saying that cyclists had to pay) dad had to pay the toll in full, all 12p of it!

We went down and skirted Crewe and Nantwich and then down to Market Drayton, where I’m sure I passed an Aldi on the way up but found a Lidl instead (I’m eating a lot of crackers at the moment and so had to stock up).

To me all went quite well until we left Market Drayton, which is, apparently, the Home of Gingerbread (I forgot to say that when we went through on the way up, finally I have!). From there dad’s sat nav was going to direct him along a load of unnamed and small roads and so I decided to do a slightly longer route along main roads so that I didn’t get lost and we would then meet when I got on the A442.

So I went off and followed my route, the reverse of the route I took on the way up, and dad followed the sat nav. I arrived on the A442 and cycled along, passing a few laybys where dad could have pulled in but dad wasn’t there. I stopped to eat and check my phone and found that I had a missed call and text message from my dad. He had got lost!

It was the same area as he got lost on the way up when I found him riding towards me. I called him but got no reply and so carried on along the road. I stopped again when leaving Bridgnorth to wait and after about 15 minutes he came along. His sat nav had kept taking him down dead end roads and so he had to keep turning around. Unfortunately one was a bit tight and he knocked an indicator on the bike with the trailer and it snapped off. Another thing to add to the mountain of maintenance the motorbike will need when we get back.

In that time the weather changed. I think it stopped raining at about 13:45, the sun came out a bit later and the roads started to dry up. We also started to dry out but still had wet feet by the end. As it was raining today, there are no photos, we only crossed one county border anyway.

We arrived at the campsite at about 16:25. I think that we’re the only people staying here. They don’t normally take tents but have kindly let us stay and aren’t charging us. It’s next to the Severn Valley Railway and there were a few trains making noise earlier but appear to have stopped now.

Tomorrow we’re staying with a friend on the outskirts of Bristol. We will be going down to Worcester (I’ve still got to look at the map to work out how) and then taking the A38 down to Bristol. It looks like they might be rain around the time that we’ll be leaving but it should clear by midday.

Distance Today - 81.5 miles
Distance from John O'Groats - 595.3 miles
Total Distance - 1484.7 miles



Sunday 20 September 2015

Lejogle - Day 16

There was a slight mist in the air this morning, but at least it wasn’t raining.

We set off at about 9:25, going through the centre of Kendal and down the A6 towards Lancaster. I navigated Kendal without any problems but dad missed a turning and was directed by his sat nav down narrow roads with grass down the centre, or, as he put it, a lawn down the middle.

The rest of the ride was uneventful. We made it through Preston and found each other on the other side, so that’s an improvement on the trip up.

I arrived at the campsite at about 15:30. Unfortunately the office closed at 14:00 so I had to phone someone on order to book in. It’s a strange site, it looks like most of the caravans are lived in permanently.

For most of the day I’ve had a creaking from the chain when pedalling. After a while it occurred to me that there was a very good reason as, other than the odd spray of GT85, I’ve not oiled my chain since I started. Hopefully, now it has been oiled, it’ll be quieter tomorrow.

Other than a couple of spots just after we set off and a few more about an hour from the end, today has been dry. It’s not looking like it’ll stay that way for the rest of the ride. It looks like it’ll rain overnight tonight and still be raining when we will be packing up.

The route for tomorrow might include a few B-roads. The site today is a bit out of the way (it was the only site I could find in the Warrington area) and tomorrow’s is out of the way too. This is the result of looking for sites in an area without looking closely at what roads they are on. Oh well, at least we’re deviating from the route we took on the way up.

Distance Today - 77.9 miles
Distance from John O'Groats - 513.8 miles
Total Distance - 1403.2 miles







Saturday 19 September 2015






Lejogle - Day 15

It was cold this morning as sat in my chair, wrapped in my blanket wondering why, in September, it was cold enough to see my breath.

We set off at about 9:10 and early on we passed Lockerbie. It’s strange to think that we went over the huge crater that was left there, not that there is any sign to hint at its past (there is a garden to mark the spot, but that’s on the other side of a fence and not visible from the road).

We crossed the border into England at Gretna before 11:30 and headed for Carlisle. I went along a road beside the motorway while dad followed his sat nav down the A7 and then got stuck in traffic in Carlisle, which meant that I caught him up.

We then continued down through Penrith and over Shap Fell, which is slightly easier from the north but still quite a climb. A few days ago when I checked the weather forecast rain was expected today, which I wasn’t looking forward to on that hill but luckily we didn’t have any and it was a lovely day.

I arrived at the campsite at about 15:15. When I looked at my helmet I had a lot of dead flies stuck to it, then I found that I had a lot of dead flies stuck in my hair. At least they weren’t biting me, dad has bites on his wrists and ankles.

Tomorrow is down to Warrington, it’ll be roughly the same route as we used when coming up. The weather forecast has rain from about 9am but I’m hoping that it’ll clear quickly and we can dry out early on.

Distance Today - 83.6 miles
Distance from John O'Groats - 435.9 miles
Total Distance - 1325.3 miles

Friday 18 September 2015

Lejogle - Day 14

It was a late start today, it was after 9:50 when we left the site. We spent quite a bit of time trying to find a route to Glasgow on which we both agreed but gave up in the end as I wanted an indirect route to avoid a long stretch of dual carriageway but it involved a lot of changing of roads and we couldn’t get dad’s sat nav to go that way.

In the end, I gave my dad the postcode of an Asda in Hamilton (about 40 miles from the start and about 30 miles from where we would go our separate ways) and we agreed to meet there as we would lose each other while going through Glasgow in any event.

I met with dad after about eight miles and then we went our separate ways. A couple of miles later I made a wrong turn and, while I was checking my sat nav to see which road to take, my dad rode past. He was having sat nav problems but neither of us is sure how I overtook him.

I found my way to Glasgow reasonably well and was following the route as best I could; I knew which road I would go into Glasgow on and I knew which road I needed to get out of Glasgow but I couldn’t work out how to go from one to the other. As I was going along there was a fork in the road and I was taking the right side when a taxi pulled along side and the driver said that I couldn’t go along that road (it was heading for the M8) on a bike, so I went to the left. This then meant that I went through the centre of the city as opposed to slightly to the south and that I wasn’t on roads which had signs to tell me where to go. I tried to go straight on as far as I could but then used my sat nav when I didn’t know where to go. In the end I found the right road and eventually found my dad who had been waiting for quite a while.

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful (well for me, dad took the wrong exit on a roundabout and ended up on a motorway. I almost made the same mistake) and the weather stayed dry all day.

I arrived at the campsite at about 17:20; going through Glasgow (I think that I lost about15-20 minutes at junctions and traffic lights) and going shopping at Asda had meant that it was a slow day.

Tomorrow we’ll be going back into England and stopping at Kendal. The route will be the reverse of the ride up, so hopefully we will be able to navigate it without any problems. The forecast is looking dry.

Distance Today - 88.6 miles
Distance from John O'Groats - 352.3 miles
Total Distance - 1,241.7 miles











Thursday 17 September 2015

Lejogle - Day 13

There was a mist over Ben Nevis this morning when we woke up, although it was clear at the campsite. It rained overnight but had stopped by the morning however the tent and ground were still wet.

We set off at about 9:20 and were making reasonable for the first 20 miles as they were flat (well flat in comparison to what was to come). The route then took us through Glencoe on a ribbon of road between some mountains. Although it’s between, there’s still quite a bit of climbing involved and you do go past a ski centre. The final 20 miles took us along the side of Loch Lomond to our campsite, which is right beside the loch.

It was another shorter day today as I couldn’t find a site further south before Glasgow, which we will be crossing tomorrow.

I arrived at the site at about 15:15. Once again dad’s sat nav took him too far and so I arrived first. Luckily the rain didn’t arrive for a couple of hours and so the tent was up and we were unpacked.

We do have a midge problem today though. We both look like we’ve got rashes. We’ve had a few flying around other days but nothing like this. The strange thing is that they are quite localised but sadly there is a swarm localised to our pitch. Maybe they will clear now that the rain has come.

Tomorrow is a ride down to and through Glasgow and then down to Beattock, which we passed on the way up. I think that the forecast at the moment is dry.

Distance Today - 79.0 miles
Distance from John O'Groats - 263.7 miles
Total Distance - 1,153.1 miles