Introduction - Conception and Preparation

This is my personal account of a cycle ride from John O’Groats to Land’s End undertaken in late June and early July 2009 by me, my brother Paul and my nephew John. All opinions and observations expressed are my own and represent nobody else's views on anything whatsoever.
The ride was John’s idea, coming soon after the death of my father, Jack, in June 2008 from liver cancer. It was to be a sponsored ride to raise money for Cancer Research UK, and as it was in Dad’s memory we would start on or about June 22, the anniversary of his death.
Tragically, Paul’s wife and John’s mother, Sue, passed away in January 2009. The ride would now be in memory of two much loved members of our family.
In the event, John was forced to retire by a foot injury at the half-way point, but Paul and I continued and completed the ride, recording 953 miles and raising in excess of £1500 for our chosen cause.
John’s Giant Defy 3 was the only modern bike on the trip. I had my Raleigh Randonneur hand built tourer, bought in early 1990 and the veteran of many thousands of miles. Paul used Dad’s old bike, a Raleigh Royale bought in the late 1980s.
I’m a bloke who sometimes rides a bike, as opposed to a “real" cyclist. I refuse to push myself, and I plod up even moderate inclines in low gear at little more than walking pace. I wouldn’t meet the criteria for acceptance into any serious cycling club. Nevertheless, I have considerable experience of cycling fairly long distances, and I knew I could manage the end to end ride.
My training was minimal, consisting of a few local runs with Paul and John, the longest of which was 64 miles. I struggled somewhat on these practice runs, and began to wonder whether I would be capable of regaining my fitness level of 15 to 20 years ago when I thought nothing of a 70 or 80 mile ride. Then I bought a pair of decent Continental tyres which made things a whole lot easier. I’d been using cheap tyres with knobbly treads which were not designed for distance and which made anything that wasn’t downhill hard work.
Although I’d now reached the point where I felt confident of my ability to complete the ride, I remained on a different level from Paul and John. Their idea of “taking it steady” is my idea of “going flat out”, and every time we set off from anywhere, they both became dots on the horizon by the time I’d got my feet into my toe clips. I thought of the ride as a cycling holiday which I intended to take as leisurely as possible given the daily target destinations, whereas Paul and John took a much more athletic approach. During the ride, they often discussed how few days they thought they could manage it in next time, whereas I on the other hand considered how many extra days I would treat myself to should I repeat it at some point.
Agreeing a route was difficult, as might be expected when attempted by three stubborn men, each of whom wants to go a different way. Eventually, a compromise was reached incorporating bits of everyone’s preferred routes. I was surprised to learn that Paul and John wanted to stay at home one night. I’d thought of suggesting this, but hadn’t as passing through Derby seemed a considerable diversion from the direct line.
Accommodation was pre-booked for every night of the trip. I had reservations about the resultant inflexibility, but it was reassuring to know that a bed would be waiting for us at the end of each day.
We were riding from north to south, so we needed to get ourselves and our bikes to John O’Groats. Eventually, in fact not until about a month before the trip, we decided to go by rail to Thurso, stay there overnight and cycle the 20 odd miles to John O‘Groats the next day before starting the ride proper. Having previously heard many a train/bike related tale of woe, I wasn’t expecting the arrangements to be easy. I knew that British rail companies don’t encourage cyclists and that the few spaces for bikes on trains could be difficult to secure.
When I phoned to purchase the tickets for the journey to Thurso, changing at Edinburgh and Inverness, there was predictably only one cycle reservation available. However, the nice man I spoke to, from Scotrail, reassured me that there’d be no problem if we took the wheels off the other two bikes and took them on to the trains as luggage. “That’s what people usually do”, he said in his comforting Highland lilt while relieving me of £390.
The tickets arrived a few days later.