The Final Countdown

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 one particularly steep downhill we noticed the smell of burning rubber. Upon inspection we realized that both of us had burned through 50% of our brake pads. They had left what looked like wet ash all over the wheels.

We stopped and had lunch with the Snail 1 crew and set out to finish the final leg of the journey. We had 15 miles to Land's End. The last leg was supposed to be reasonably flat and easy. Not so. While we were riding, rain starting lashing down, stinging our eyes and making visibility very difficult. We were also at our highest elevation surrounded by grass lands and fields so the wind was strong enough to knock us sideways and keep us moving at a very slow pace.

We finally rode down the road to the Land's End Hotel on the cliffs at the western edge of England with our wives and friends waiting for us, soaked with rain, bodies aching and deaf from the wind howling. Nevertheless, we had no regrets.

 Now that we've finished, it's easier to look back on what went right and what went wrong.
Our route was a big problem for us. We had no way of knowing that the majority of bike paths out of London weren't paved. This slowed us down and wore us out early. It became apparent that there was no way we were going to be able to complete the miles on the first day. But we came very close. We also didn't account for how much the elevation would slow us down. Our experience is north Texas which very flat. Even areas in Texas that we've cycled couldn't compare to what we encountered. The inclines were steeper and much, much longer and frequently on rougher roads with more traffic.
The slow pace also guaranteed that there was no way we would be able to complete the miles before it got dark outside. This was massively dispiriting at first.
Once we accepted that there was no way around this we committed to putting in as much work as we could. We spent an average of 8 to 9 hours a day in the saddle. Better cyclist may have clocked more miles than us but they'd put no more time and effort into it than we did.
When our father broke the record for Land's End to London in 1959 he had a pace car in front of him and behind him which meant he would have been on major roads and many of the (impossible) paths that exist today wouldn't have done then.
This being said, we are hugely proud and very satisfied with what we accomplished. We took a chance with only a ludicrous idea behind it and put everything we had into it.

I need to say thanks to a few people...
Thanks to our families for all the support and especially our wives, Amanda and Laura,  for providing snacks, water and an ungodly amount of medical supplies from pharmacies. Thanks for being the road crew and lugging all the suitcases and bags up narrow flights of stairs in decrepit, possibly haunted hotels and inns. Thank you for cheering us on and keeping us in high spirits.

Thank you so much to Matt and Paula Wildash. You sacrificed your time that you could have had an enjoyable vacation with and used it to rent a gigantic Mercedes van that could accommodate bike cases, luggage and 6 people and spend hours racing around the countryside to offer us aids and buy us rounds. I'm sure the south of France would have been better than Exeter and slow motion Chinese meal but you've both been sanity and spirit that we've all needed and for that we are forever in your debt.

Thank you to all our friends, especially Marcos and Polly Prado, who are in our thoughts and are sorely missed.

Thanks to all the people that donated to this cause. We've raised more money than we set out to and have had generous donations from close friends to near strangers. I hope we have done you proud.

Thanks to my cycling partner Daniel, the navigator and bicycle repair specialist. Thank you for doing this and training so hard for it. Thank you for the fantastic web site and the time and effort you put into the planning that I wouldn't have had the hours in my life to accomplish. You've come a long way and had me working a lot harder. I wouldn't have been able to this on my own and not just because I can't navigate my way out of a paper bag with a compass. 

Lastly, thanks to Roy Neil West, our father. This was all for you. Thank you for being a larger than life presence in our lives for so long. Thank you for giving us someone to look up to and someone to admire, not just in your awe inspiring achievements, but in the way you raised us and what you taught us. You've left us a lot to live up to and I hope this was a fitting tribute to your zeal, tenacity and spirit.

Thank you all.