LONDON TO LAND'S END

The last day was the toughest by far. We set off from Truro in the morning in chilly weather and heavy winds. We had cut down the miles due to timing and exhaustion. We also wanted to avoid major roads. We had a plan to meet for lunch around 1pm. We immediately encountered a path that was narrow, covered in mud and loose stones and overgrown with bushes. There was no way we would be able to cycle on it so we walked our bikes for miles. Many, many miles. On the plus side, we witnessed some of the most spectacular views of our entire trip, at one point walking down a mine trail with an old mine shaft on either side of us. Slowly. We were averaging 4 miles an hour. Twenty miles of what should have been cycling took us four hours. That's two laps around White Rock Lake and that takes us an hour and 15 minutes. Once we were off the muddy paths were had to climb hills all afternoon and because of the weather conditions we couldn't go downhill very fast. At the bottom of o...

Daniel and Michael have a SUPER support team. The wives Laura & Amanda West, the pals Matt & Paula Wildash (whom you will remember from the Meet the Wildashes blog post). Behind the scenes, we have being doing the miles our own way. Taking lots of photos as we go. (Really, there are a lot) We have a lot of work to do each day. -Navigate navigate navigate, then distribute sweets   -drive drive and drive some more, make a giant van fit in tiny English car parks   -make a plan, modify the plan, monitor the boys on our tracking devices -lug tons of luggage and up and down stairs,throw tons of luggage in and out of the boot -visit Boots twice a day for ice packs, ibuprofen, paracetamol, cooling gel, warming gel, ibuprofen gel, ice, water, lucasaid, more water, pickle juice, snack bars, bananas Blog blog blog In our free time we.... -go to spooky cemeteries (Peckham) -poke through ancient abbeys (Reading) ...

Started the day at an NHS clinic. The nurse told me that I probably have a slight tear in the meniscus ligament in my left knee. She wasn't encouraging about us cycling 150 more miles but told me that I should listen to my body and if it tells me to quit then I should. (Actually she started with "Nope, you aren't doing that.") She also suggested I put a bag of frozen peas on my knee. Ah, the marvels of modern medicine. Needless to say the visit to a clinic gave us a later start than we've had the last two days. So far we have failed to do the full miles we planned. Soreness, injury, big hills and rough terrain have delayed us every day and today was no exception.We started off around 11:30AM. Heavy hill work today. We climbed over a thousand feet in elevation and dropped down almost as much. The views were pretty spectacular, only slightly marred by having to listen to Joe Satriani. The hill climbs were trying though. Several hills had to be walked up w...

We set off from Salisbury just before 8am with hope that our journey would find better roads. And it did. Most of our morning we spent on country lanes and passing through small towns. Fields, sheep and old parish churches as far as the eye could see. Lots of hill climbing. We spend an hour climbing one hill to come down the other side in about 3 minutes which is liken to going up a flight of 5000 stairs to take an elevator down at the top only to do it all over again. An astonishing amount of horse poo on the roads too. Stopped at a pub halfway through and had a ploughman’s lunch and a pint. Second leg became difficult with another stretch of slow gravel road that stretched for 5 miles. We once again had to cut the day a little short. The hill climbing takes longer than anticipated and we were losing light. There are no lights on small country roads so trying to cycle at night would have been very dangerous. Staying at the haunted White Hart Inn in Exeter. We saw many wi...

...Or don't have them at all. It started out well. We left the rental house in Peckham at around 7:45am and zipped around busy London streets. We passed Battersea and Wembley and through Hyde Park, darting between buses and riding along side hurried commuters also on two wheels. Then everything went wrong. We came to the Thames and spend most of the day riding along side canals with pathways made out of loose gravel and sharp stones. All of these paths are designated bike paths but surely not for road bikes. Some paths were 18 inches wide of packed dirt surrounded by grass and nettles. Got through Slough and had lunch in Reading and started back out again. At this point we had cycled over 50 miles and 70 percent of it had been without roads. There were also stairs!!! With my left knee aching and my arms sore from gripping the handlebars over uncertain terrain I hit a patch of lose stones and lost control running into a fence and falling to the ground, popping the...

Made it to London without issue. We had to drag our luggage and massive bike cases around the airport, tube station and the streets of Peckham. Tube stations without elevators pose a challenge but weighed less than our suitcases. We put the bikes together this morning with no issue. We even took them to a local bike shop to be looked over and then rode a few miles on London streets to get used to the traffic (must remember to look right first, then left). Carbed up on Sunday roast at a local pub tonight so we should have plenty of energy in the morning. We have decided to start the first day at the rental house in Peckham instead of Tower Bridge which poses too many drop off and traffic hurdles. We have also decided to finish day 1 at Stonehenge instead of the inn where we will spend the first night. We spent the afternoon planning the route, all the stops and communication. One hundred and four miles tomorrow!