What have I got myself into?

People are always asking me "who would win a fight between a monkey and a badger?"  That one I can't answer, instead I can provide details of the route our LeJog trip will be taking.

If you are reading this and live along the route / somewhere near please come and either ride with us for a bit or meet us for a beer one evening.

Note that contrary to what you might expect the days with most climbing are not encountered during the Scottish leg of the trip but are in fact in Cornwall. This is good because it gets them out of the way early.  It is bad because it might put me off cycling the rest of it.

The primary reason for choosing a Lands End to John O'Groats approach rather than the reverse is the prevailing wind should be at our backs most of the way. The secondary reason is it is down hill by a few hundred feet, not much in the scheme of things but welcome nonetheless.

Despite the poorly punctuated sign at Land's End giving false hope, the total mileage adds up to 924 miles, which is good as until I added it up just now I thought it was 974 so before we even set off I have gained 50 'free' miles.

In fact given the 874 miles is 'as the crow flies' an extra 50 odd miles does not seem too bad considering we are avoiding main roads the whole way.

Day 1 - Lands End to Launceston - 87 miles +6911 ft / -6527 ft
http://ridewithgps.com/routes/2287329

Day 2 - Launceston to Weston Super-mare - 102 miles +5378 ft / -5980 ft
http://ridewithgps.com/routes/2287397

Day 3 - Weston to Bridgnorth - 96 miles +3089 ft / -2931 ft
http://ridewithgps.com/routes/4657156

Day 4 - Bridgenorth to Bamber Bridge - 114 miles +4840 ft / -4854 ft
http://ridewithgps.com/routes/4657243

Day 5 - Bamber Bridge to Carlisle - 100 miles +4345 ft / -4395 ft
http://ridewithgps.com/routes/2288087

Day 6 - Carlisle to Dreghorn - 95 miles +3222 ft / -3233 ft
http://ridewithgps.com/routes/2288208

Day 7 - Dreghorn to Inveraray - 76 miles +2327 ft / -2404 ft
http://ridewithgps.com/routes/4656794

Day 8 - Inveraray to Fort William - 72 miles +3483 ft / -3483 ft
http://ridewithgps.com/routes/2290799

Day 9 - Fort William to Tain - 96 miles +5088 ft / -4858 ft
http://ridewithgps.com/routes/2290816

Day 10 - Tain to John O'Groats - 86 miles +4159 ft / -4380 ft
http://ridewithgps.com/routes/2290862

For regular updates follow me on Twitter.

Twitter: @BigBensBike

To make a donation to Prostate Cancer Research and read a bit about why I chose that charity see my page at:

Just Giving: http://www.justgiving.com/bigbensbike/

The day I met Chris Froome and Martin Johnson

The two sports I take part in regularly are Rugby and Cycling.  From a practical point of view these two activities are an ideal match, for me cycling is a summer sport with Rugby filling in during the winter months.

Preparations for LeJog has provided me with a Rugby vs. Cycling crossroads in my life.  This being the case I though it would be a good idea to seek advice from two legends of those sports.  A couple of 'phone calls were made and I soon found myself at a top secret meeting with former England Rugby captain and World Cup Winner Martin Johnson and two times Tour de France winner Chris Froome.

As the following picture shows I am really not built for cycling, I am physically much closer to Johnson's 6'6" size and build than I am to that of the super skinny Froome.  However Rugby skills were not going to help me conquer LeJog.

I was able to have a few words with each champion to try and get some advice for the ride ahead.  Froome spent about six seconds sizing me up and gave me the following wise words:

 "All things considered you should stick to Rugby."

This was not encouraging so I hoped Johnson would be more positive, sadly this was not the case and he had the following advice:

"stick to Cycling."

So all in all not the most constructive meeting I have ever attended but it was a pleasure to meet two sporting giants.

Tomorrow will be my last day at work before leaving for Cornwall, today my bike is off for a last minute service before joining me at the office tomorrow ready for collection on Tuesday morning.

For regular updates follow me on Twitter.

Twitter: @BigBensBike

To make a donation to Prostate Cancer Research and read a bit about why I chose that charity see my page at:

Just Giving: www.justgiving.com/bigbensbike/

What is this Blog all about ?

Hello,

Welcome to my LeJog Blog.

Over the next couple of weeks a group of friends and I will be riding our bikes from Land's End to John O'Groats.

For my overseas readers that is as far as you can go on the British mainland, starting in the South West corner of England and finishing up in the North East extreme of Scotland, a distance of almost 1000 miles.

The Blog will give some background into the preparations that have gone into the trip but mainly will give a daily update of our progress on the ride and accurate details (but no photos) of the state of my undercarriage.

The picture below shows me and my bike.  I am wearing the new kit generously provided by my employers who are sponsoring the ride.  As you can see luckily for a larger gentleman like myself red is a very slimming colour........

Hopefully I will put more work into this than my previous foray into blogging which was all about electric cars.  That failed after two posts when I realised that I am not that interested in electric cars so didn't have much to say about living with one.........

For regular updates follow me on Twitter.

Twitter: @BigBensBike

To make a donation to Prostate Cancer Research and read a bit about why I chose that charity see my page at:

Just Giving: www.justgiving.com/bigbensbike/