Updates.

If you scroll down you will notice that the posts for days 6 and 7 have been padded out a bit. They now include the misery and drugs involved in a tour of North East of England.

Exeter to Lands End 140 miles

The final day was always going to be tough. It was a planned 141 miles with some evil hills. Added to this Nick had not been able to walk properly since Kendal. He was having to cycle with his left foot pointing down all the time to minimise movement of his Achilles tendon which was in a pretty poor state. Dave was also carrying a niggly achilles and sandpaper knees and Steve – well he had his ego to drag along.

Dave planned the route in his head about 3 mins before we left and we knew we were in good hands when he declared he didn’t know where to go in Oakhampton. Never mind I have a map says Dave. Only trouble is it was a map of Cornwall and we were in Devon! After some supportive team spirit and muttered we love you Dave comments we decided to wing it for a bit on Daves best guesses. When we got a mobile signal nick was able to confirm with the GPS maps on his N95 that all was well and Dave did not need to be tortured. Yet.

About 10 miles later we had a splendid egg sandwich, In a place I can’t recall, before heading into Launceston. Then Dave had another blank expression so we found a News Agent and had a butchers at a map of Devon. It was more revealing than the one of Cornwall so we headed back the way we came for a bit of a battering on the A30.

From here on in though Dave got it all spot on and we had a tough ride into headwinds and ridiculous Cornish hills untill we ended up in Portreath at Dave’s In-Laws, Dawn and Graham. We had a fine reception there from the whole family and were served some very tasty tea and cake before heading down the last 35ish miles to Lands End. Dave had opted for the longer and hillier coastal route which we all initially thought was a bad idea however, Dave got it right, the scenery was spectacular and it made for a beautiful ride in to the finish.

We reached the Finish at 21-15ish and were greeted like superstars by Claire’s (Daves better half’s) family. There was a ribbon across the line and streamers and champagne and even beer! Great stuff and a huge thankyou to the Marks family for making the finish so memorable.

After photos etc we headed back to dawn and Grahams for a shower and a feast fit for royalty. A wonderful end to this fantastic trip.

The end!

On Saturday evening, Dave, Nick and Steve successfully completed the 9 day cycling trip from John O’Groats to Lands End. Many congratulations!

The final push

Today is the final day of the Jogle adventure.  This last day is going to be longest and hilliest of the stages with 141 miles and 12876ft of ascent!  The weather is forecast to be sunny intervals with a fresh head wind.

Route map: Exeter – Lands End 141 milesAscent 12876ft Descent 12864ft

This has been a significant and extremely challenging effort in aid of a very worthy cause. It is not too late to donate!

7 days down, only 2 to go

The Joglers arrived in Stroud at 8pm on Thursday evening.  They were very tired and required frozen peas to soothe sore Achilles tendons.

Undeterred, they left this morning to battle into the wind towards their goal.  Only two days to go!

Day 7 Whitchurch to Stroud

Day 7 involved more A roads, a killer head wind, aching knees and scarey truck drivers. The day was mostly a case of “lets get this over with” but there were some high lights including this delightful bun stop in Iron Bridge just south of Telford.

The climb out of Iron Bridge was also delightful with some great hairpin bends.

After this the roads were pretty anonymous until the Malverns with the exception of some amazingly aggressive and inconsiderate Truck drivers around Worcester. The Malverns to Gloucester was more enjoyable probably because Nick was on home ground and riding on familiar territory. It wasn’t long then untill we rolled into Nicks drivway to be greated by two very excited young boys and Nick’s Wife Alison who had put up welcoming banners and bunting and generally made us feel pretty special. Thanks Ali.

Day 6 Kendal to Whitchurch 130 miles

This day was always going to be one of the least pleasant. We left the beauty of the lake district to grind down through a mass of link roads, dual carrage-ways and city centres. We charged through Lancaster making our 1st planned stop in Garstang. Both Nick and Dave had Achilles problems at this stage and a visit to the chemist came up trumps.

The Brufen gel in particular helped stopped the pathetic whingeing from the older JoGLERS.

The ride then continued to Preston where we had our 1st real problem with inconsiderate driving. A bus Driver sat on our wheel trying to pass where it was not possible, resorting to honking his horn to try to intimidate us out of the way. He then over took and cut in dangerously close to Nick. We politely gestured to him that maybe he could have handled himself better and continued on south.

We arrived in the out skirts of Warrington after about 80 miles and then stopped at a Harvester in the middle of some road works for soup and a roll. As you can see we were already feeling jaded with the misery that is this part of the world on a bike.

We then took a detour around Runcorn as suggested in a JOGLE guidebook somewhere. This was not a better decison and we soon wished we had just blasted down the A49 to our destination. Runcorn is literally surrounded by a bike unfriendly dual carriageway so we decided to cut through the middle on the Spur Road. Unfortunately we had trouble locating it. After 30 mins faffing about we managed to use the GPS on Nicks phone to put us straight and allow us to escape the delightful place that is Runcorn.

Then it was a blast down the A533 to join the A49. We were relieved to find the A49 because this should take us down to our destination in Whitchurch. GPS batteries were dead by this time so It was a case of heads down, bums up and ride like the wind. We were really flying too at this stage chain ganging like pro’s and averaging 19mph+. Not bad for tubby middle aged guys. Unfortunately we were so into blasting home and imagining the food awaiting us that we didn’t notice the A49 was now the A51 and we were heading in the wrong direction. Doh!

We finally realised our error with 118 miles clocked up. Day light was fading fast and we had 12 miles still to go to get us to where we should already be. Suddenly there was no conversation just the sound of hard breathing and pedalling as we mashed the pedals desperatley to get to the B+B. Fortunately it was worth the effort. A mighty fine B+B owner stood in the road to welcome us and finish our longest day yet.

Stats:

130 miles

13hrs start to finish

Average moving speed 13.6mph

Route before GPS battery went flat is here.

Bag size vs gear size

Bag size

Each Jogler had a different approach to the amount of gear they took as is illustrated by the following photograph.  Both Dave, Nick and Steve had opted for the Topeak bags and racks.  Nick had the smallest panniers as he only had to carry a toothbrush and a couple of inner tubes, while Dave needed the medium sized bags for the tubes of sun cream and travel wash.  Steve on the other hand opted for the extra large panniers as he was carrying the spare bike and workshop stand.

Gear size

Interestingly, the size of pannier was directly related the to the size of gear favoured by each Jogler.  Nick with the smallest bags had the lowest gears and favoured twiddling away in the small ring.  Dave correspondingly favoured mid-range gears to go along with his mid-size luggage.  Predictably, based on bag size alone, Steve preferred keeping his chain on the big ring and small sprocket for most of the time.  Could this be a new record?  The first person to cycle end to end completely in the big ring!

The following video illustrates the different pedalling styles…

Google and other problems defeated!

If you have been following us intrepid JOGLER’s you may have noticed first our Blog disapear and then a total lack of updates.

Unfortunately Google made a false positive on our site as a spam blog on the day we left. This has certainly cost us sponsorship money for the Alzheimer’s Society as we had most people, including the papers and TV pointed to the Blogger blog. We would not have been able to sort this out at all if Not for Steve “The Engine” Evans who setup this WordPress blog for us before towing us through the wilds of Scotland. Thanks Steve!

As for updates we have not had access to a mobile signal or to be honest time to do anything other than ride eat and sleep. and eat, and er… eat.

Dr Steve has left us now to resume his respectable life in Scotland but will try to update the blog with tales of his adventures with us through Scotland.

Day 5 Dumfries to Kendal

1st day with a head wind today on boring A roads.

Gretna

The first stop of the day was at Gretna.  The bakery served great food.  It was tempting to order everything on the menu!

England

Penrith

Another coffee stop, this time at Penrith.  The A6 between Carlisle and Penrith went on forever.  It was good to have a break.

Shap

The day was saved by a fantastic climb to 1400ft at Shap summit on the A6 and the awesome descents that followed with speeds well in excess of 40mph. Great stuff!

Kendal

We had a great end to the day because the Hostel has turned out to be the best so far, ensuite facilities and friendly, helpful staff. Highly recommended.

This is a short clip of our thoughts before we went for a curry and a pint!