Welcome to my Blog

I've created this blog to record my planned cycle ride from Lands End to John O'Groats (LEJOG). It is my 50th Birthday in August and in a moment of mid-life crisis bavado it seemed like a good idea to see out my 40's with a really big bike ride. When I had this barmy idea in the summer of 2008 I contacted a few friends who are into cycling to see if any of them were up for it and one was. So there will be three of us in total, myself, a friend Andy and his son Alex. I've done a few long-ish bike rides before. A number of times I have cycled the route of the Kennet and Avon Canal from Reading to Bath (or vice versa), around 80 miles of tow path in a day. And last September I did the Coast to Coast from Whitehaven to Tynemouth, About 160 miles over three days. But nothing like this, we will be averaging 73 miles a day and cycling every day for a fortnight.

Now if you are a fan of Italian motorcycles perhaps you should not read the next bit. Because to fund this trip I sold my Ducati Monster M1000s. And the proceeds paid for a Specialized Tricross Sport road bike, a copy of Memory Map, a Satmap Active 10 GPS, a fortnight's accomodation (B&B, YHA, etc.) and various other bits and pieces.

Bye bye Ducati!

I have kept cycling through the winter and have regularly done one 30 mile ride each week. My goal over the next few months, now the weather is warmer and the days longer, to get used to longer distances and cycling more often than once a week.

My son Tom suggested fundraising for the Dorothy House Hospice near Bath (http://www.dorothyhouse.co.uk/), who I am delighted to support.

I had no idea where to start with planning a route then heard that the Cyclists' Tourning Club (http://www.ctc.org.uk/) publish a selection of routes and also lists of cyclist friendly B&B's so I took out CTC membership which has been a boon. Last December I took a day's leave from work and plotted the CTC's Bed & Breakfast LEJOG route into Memory Map. I then divided it into 14 roughly equal parts of around 73 miles a day.

So that is the story so far. I will provide progress reports from time to time then when we are on the trip upload daily reports and perhaps photos.