Day 5 - Middleton in Teesdale to Threshfield - 62 miles

We woke up in Middleton to sun streaming in through the blinds, which was a pleasant surprise as we had gone to sleep listening to rain.

After a good breakfast, which was on a par with most we've had except for the fact that the eggs were the best cooked so far, we made our final preparations and started to load the car. As we were doing so we were accosted by a dog walker who inquired about the car and our ride, he said his mum used to own a 'moggy' which brought back memories for him (it seems the car is as much of a conversation piece as our ride), he then proceeded to pull £10 from his wallet for us and wished us luck. This takes the stranger donation total to £55. Truly amazing!

I was in the saddle first today as Lee had opted to take the second and final legs after having had the two biggies yesterday. The weather was perfect - sunny but with a fresh breeze, I was feeling good about the day ahead and our journey into the Yorkshire Dales.

After an easy few miles of undulating and quiet roads I hit the A66, a busy dual carriageway that connects Scotch Corner to Penrith. After a short run along it I turned south onto much quieter roads where I soon hit the start of my second climb for the day - our first category 3 climb of the week. Once up the first short and steep section (16%) I found Lee waiting in a layby. Having done 15 miles at this point we decided to swap. I think we both thought we'd seen the end of the climb, but our naivety soon shone through as within less than half a mile, now in the car, I drove up some hideous ascents with all manner of twists and turns, which went on for another 2 miles, all of which Lee now had to do.

All I could do at this point was wait at the top - neither of us had any phone signal as this was a remote stretch of road so if he had a puncture I wouldn't know about it unless he came walking up the hill behind me sporting a flat.

Sooner than expected he came grinding up the hill and into the Yorkshire Dales National Park, with a painful knee (probably an old footballing injury rearing its ugly head) so we stopped and consulted the chart and map and figured out that it would soon descend. So the plan was for Lee to continue for another 10 or so miles until the other side of Leyburn, where we would swap again, giving me two climbs, a category 4 and a category 3, to have a stab at.

The 4 arrived and didn't go unnoticed, but it was comfortable enough. One look at the GPS unit showed that I only had about 4 miles left before the next swapover, so I knew the category 3 climb was imminent. Having no experience of hills of this sort I was curious/nervous about what was to come, I didn't have to wait long to find out!

It was a steady incline for about 2 miles, which I was managing on the middle chain ring and in my saddle with any real discomfort, so I felt good about putting paid to this 'little hill' - until I rounded a bend and saw that there was a small 16% incline in front of me. I had no choice but to drop the the 'granny gear' and push to the top - except it wasn't the top, it kept going for another half mile. My heart rate hit 99% of my maximum, at 181bpm, I couldn't get the air into my lungs quickly enough and had no choice (not that it was a conscious decision) but to put a foot down and let my heart rate recover.


A few minutes and about 300 yards later I was at the top and rewarded with not only amazing views but a descent to match. A few minutes later, after hitting speeds of about 37mph, I was down in the bottom of the Dale and at the next meeting point. A quick change-over and after a nice run into Threshfield for Lee we were at our home for the night, The Old Hall Inn.

After the usual post-ride routine we headed out for a short walk before retiring to the bar at the Old Hall, where I couldn't resist trying a pint of Theakstons Best Bitter, Theakstons Lightfoot and a Timothy Taylor Landlord, all very well kept beers. Best Bitter was a darker ale so I preferred the other two, although I couldn't choose between them for a favourite. It was nice to get a good selection of ale, it's been surprisingly slim pickings until now, although last night's 'Flower Power' in Middleton was excellent and my favourite so far along with 'Fourth of July'.

This was soaked up with a huge burger and chips. The sign outside the pub says 'best food in the dale' , I viewed this statement with skepticism, as all pubs seem to advertise 'good food' as standard these days, but I have to say, the quality of the food was amazing, If the breakfast in the morning is of the same quality it could be a 'Balloch beater'.

Talking of Balloch, I must thank my wife for unbeknownst to me, contacting a load (about 18) of local papers in the hope of getting more publicity, she's already had one taker in the form of the 'Lennox Herald' in Dumbartonshire who are going to run our story.

Back to the room now for an early night, will see if we can stay awake long enough to watch any of the Olympic opening ceremony.

NEXT STOP: Holmfirth - 71 miles and the biggest day in terms of hills of the entire ride by far, there could be a bit of pushing tomorrow.

Day 4 - Annan to Middleton-in-Teesdale

Another prompt start today, however we found a beautiful spot behind the Blue Bell pub last night: under a  rowan tree was a bench that was afforded a view of a sweeping bend in the river Annan. We both agreed that Dad would appreciate this little spot, so after breakfast we headed there to sprinkle some more of his ashes.

We woke today in an oven - not literally, but someone forgot to turn the radiator/clothes drier off before sleeping. The weather outside was considerably less warm - overcast and cool ,but dry at least. The breakfast at The Old Rectory in Annan was very good indeed. Lee again opted for something a little lighter, but I now feel it's my duty to try the full cooked breakfast option all the way down the country - a kind of Pepsi challenge for pork lovers.

We had a chat with the B&B owners after breakfast who were originally from Oxfordshire, Didcot to be exact (small world), so after catching up about the changes over the last few years since their departure we thanked them for a comfortable stay and we headed off.

The climb chart as you'll see here appears very flat at first. Lee opted to do the first session, which turned out to be even flatter than the graph led us to believe, and driving along it made me feel a little jealous of the ride he had in front of him.

Very soon we were passing through Gretna Green and into England, where Lee let out a rather loud 'wooo hooo', to the bemusement of one passer-by.

From here we headed east and a little north to Longtow - not a very big place but pleasant enough, and it somehow felt a little more English, I stopped for a photo opportunity then we pushed on towards Brampton.

With a total mileage for the day of 64 miles, we decided again to break it up into a 'bottom friendly' four chunks. The first stopping place I could find was about 20 miles into the journey, just north of Brampton, so we changed here and off I went with a 20-mile stint of my own. By the time I hit Brampton, three miles in, the bottom numbness/pain had started, as usual - I guess this will become a constant theme throughout my journey, but I'm hoping that I'll become accustomed to the saddle at some point and the pain will subside a little. I'm certainly paying the price for not getting on my bike enough in the weeks preceding the ride (I blame the weather!).

The route was easy to follow all day and I got stuck in with the intention of trying to average 14mph. All was going well, and then I hit Northumberland. All too soon after crossing into the county the strong headwinds started, as did the hills and then the rain. This continued until the moment I crossed back into Cumbria. The winds were so strong that often cycling downhill into the wind was 6-8mph slower than going up them. To say I felt cheated out of my rewards for climbing uphill was putting it mildly! If the weather had been like this all day long it would have beaten Day 1 hands down in the 'worst weather' competition.




However, a few dry miles later I arrived Alston, the planned lunch break and swapover point. Alston is by far the prettiest town we've seen on our journey so far, and tourism is obviously rife here as there are surely too many pubs/shops/tea rooms to be sustained by the local population alone. The tourism hasn't spoiled the feel of the place though and the cobbled streets around the very centre make for quite a charming picture (though as a surface to cycle up, combined with it's steepness it is not ideal).

We went for lunch at Blueberrys tea room where we both succumbed to a pork-based sandwich before getting started again, which we were keen to do as we could taste an early finish today. The next two stints were nice and short at around 10-11 miles each, but this is where all the real work started - this is the price Lee paid for taking the flat easy run this morning. 

He immediately had to start climbing up out of Alston for over three miles without let up. He was rewarded with a short downhill section, only to hit the bottom of another climb at three miles, again without any break in the ascent - by far the hardest work he's ever done on a bike he assures me. I think it'd have been the same for me too but I was cheated out of this workout by his eagerness to start this morning (I'm sure I'll get over it, especially as tomorrow's climbs make today's look like child's play, on paper at least).

Lee handed over to me with 11 or so miles to go. What he hadn't realised when jumping at the start section today was that the finish section, albeit a short one, was pretty much all downhill - a fair payback for the 'Northumberland saga' I think, so our cycling world has equilibrium again.

A very enjoyable 40 minutes ensued with only a light splash of rain. Reaching speeds of over 30mph, I soon ran out of effective gears so had to freewheel a lot of the way (here I needed a road bike) averaging almost 18mph for my 'leg' (an average I don't think Ill see the likes of again on this journey). I arrived in Middleton-in-Teesdale at the Belvedere Guest House before 4pm.



NEXT STOP: Threshfield near Grassington - 62 miles and six big climbs, two of which are category 3. Lee's big climbs this afternoon were only category 4s, (4 being the easiest on the scale, 1 the hardest). GULP!!

Day 3 - Ayr to Annan - 85 miles

The longest (in terms of miles) day is now behind us, but that's not to say it's going to get any easier!

We woke to a clear blue sky today in Ayr, hoping to be on the road by half past eight to accommodate the extra mileage. So, after a respectable breakfast (on a par with the Clachaig Inn but nowhere near Balloch House), we departed just after half past eight, with Lee kicking the day off in the saddle.

Within a mile Lee was climbing a steep hill out of Ayr (as was I in the Moggy) - not the gentle warm-up he had been hoping for, and the hills kept on coming! But so did the beautiful scenery.

With the sun came the midges today - it seems that midges can either fly no faster than 10 miles an hour or just can't be bothered to as when my cycling speed dropped below this magic number I was instantly surrounded by a cloud of the little blighters. I think that if I was a bird and I liked my food, I'd be seriously considering cycling lessons!

The midges were only a tiny issue though, as most of the time we were managing to ride too quickly to be caught and so far I've found no bites - testimony to the effort I've put in today!

This stretch of the journey was so enjoyable to cycle and drive along it felt like it alone was worth the 12-hour drive up to Scotland.

We broke the day into quarters again, mainly to give our bottoms a break, so we did the journey in roughly 20-mile chunks. The first two were over all too soon, both of us feeling like we could have done more.

When it came to the second changeover, the half way point, we needed to think about a lunch stop. It was half past 12 by this time, so we decided to continue on the same route in the hope that one of the next two villages would yield a place to eat. Alas, neither had anything to offer! Before I knew it, the Moggy and I had landed in Dumfries almost an hour later. I knew at this point we had no chance of finding each other without considerable delay so I headed out the other side of town to wait on a road I knew Lee would need to travel on.

After another hour (and staring at a huge hill that Lee would need to climb) we finally made a pit stop for lunch at a coffee shop I'd passed a mile back. One haggis and cheddar panini and a tuna melt later we returned to the car - at which point I realised it was my turn to take over and therefore the huge hill I'd been staring at in front of us was mine to climb.

I attacked the hill with gusto fuelled by haggis and cheddar (yes, that was mine) and with the help of 'granny gear' climbed a couple of back-to-back category 5 hills for about three miles. Mere hillocks for the likes of Bradley Wiggins, but a big enough challenge for me. At the top I turned at the site of a ruined castle and headed down a nice quiet B-road.

This kept the climb going and all of sudden, like midges attacking a cyclist, the road turned into track. I thought it was just a small section that would soon turn back into the tarmac road I was expecting to cycle on, but after a mile of climbing over this (with road tyres) I realised there was a potential disaster looming.

I stopped to check my phone and realised that I'd missed two calls from Lee - who, it turned out, had decided to follow my route and thus had been faced with tackling this 'road' in the Moggy! The further I got along the track the more confused I became as to where he'd managed to turn around (assuming that he'd turned back), and only when I'd got off the road and descended for a couple of miles did I catch up with a slightly dirty-looking Moggy - turns out he hadn't turned around at all but gone through the whole lot. I was amazed!

This left me with about 10 miles to do, and with an average speed of 9 mph after the track debacle, I attempted to drag my average speed kicking and screaming towards 13mph (despite my bottom's best efforts to get me to get off the bike and walk).

I soon pulled into Annan, which had a nice market town feel to it. A lot of buildings were of a reddish stonework construction and the high street has a clocktower at each end.


The sat navs got us to The Old Rectory B&B without any problem, where we checked in, showered and sorted out the next three days' maps/routes. Then we went out for a couple of beers followed by dinner - nothing of any note here I'm afraid (yet again chips with everything, but it wasn't 'bad').

A nurse in the bar spotted our CMA t-shirts and after a lengthy chat about our route for the following day she handed over £5 for the collection.

A great day's cycling today - we both thoroughly enjoyed the scenery and the weather. I'm just going to ignore the dirt track section and pretend it didn't happen.

Oh, and to set records straight, I neglected to mention a sweet old chap who gave us £10 in the Erskine Garden Centre car park yesterday who, on seeing our Moggy and the signs on it, decided our efforts were worth a contribution - this takes our 'stranger donation' total to £45.

NEXT STOP: Middleton-in-Teesdale - 72 miles and a few climbs away.

The Smith-o-meter for the day reads as follows:

Day 2 - Balloch to Ayr 54 miles

Q: How many mechanics does it take to fix a Morris Minor?
A: 4 + 1 imperial spanner!

We woke up to a dry and almost bright day today - the heat in the room from the radiators being on full heat last night made it feel like summer had arrived though!

We headed down to breakfast around 8am and were presented with a very good looking plate of breakfast - not too big and all tasted great and was very well cooked. It set a high standard for the rest of our trip and it's going to take some beating - if anyone reading this should be visiting Balloch, I highly recommend the Balloch House Hotel.

During breakfast a gentleman approached us having overheard our conversation in the bar with the locals last night and gave us £20 towards our cause! It really is amazing how charitable people can be, and that takes our 'stranger donations' to £30.

We took our time a little in departing today, partly because our room was a long walk around the hotel, also because we were waiting until the tourist information centre opened so that we could investigate the cycle path from Balloch to Erskine Bridge (we were advised to use this by the charitable strangers in the bar last night). Once we'd done this and confirmed that the path did indeed exist and would take us to where we needed to get to, we collected the valuables from the room, retrieved the bikes from storage, consulted the map and arranged the day's meeting points.

I was in the saddle first again today, for no other reason than I had my heart rate monitor on and was in a slightly better state of readiness, so I dropped down onto the path and headed south. The path was indeed good, wide and smooth tarmac all the way to Dumbarton, at which point the path left the river and the signs disappeared altogether. After a couple of wrong turns and stops to consult the GPS I found myself under the Erskine Bridge - I just needed to work out how to get up to it. I happened upon a small 'path' sign for the bridge amongst other places so was soon crossing the bridge on the dedicated cycle lane.

Shortly off the other side I dropped down to the Erskine Garden centre where I found Lee with the Moggy's bonnet up - not a good sign, I guessed. It turned out that the windscreen wipers had stopped working - a bit of a problem considering how much we'd come to rely on them over the past two days!

We agreed that Lee should head off in the direction of Ayr on his bike while I attempted to find someone to diagnose our problem and then fill up with fuel... AGAIN!

I headed into Paisley town, knowing this to be a sizeable town, but not so big that I couldn't find my way out again in a hurry. Fortunately I soon stumbled across a garage, I pulled in and asked if they could take a quick look but was told they were too busy at the moment - my newfound faith in humanity, still fragile, started to crumble a little.

I headed back out of town to another garage I'd seen when filling up at a petrol station across the road and explained my problem. I dropped the word 'charity' into my explanation and upon seeing not only the car but also the signs on it, all four of the mechanics set to work - well a couple did, the other two mainly 'supervised'. After a few suggestions to oil this and that, and maybe buy a new motor for the wipers, one guy thought he'd stumbled upon the solution; he disappeared and reappeared with an imperial spanner, tightened a couple of bolts and twenty minutes after arriving I was on my way again with fully functioning wipers - and they wouldn't take a penny off me (my faith in humanity was swiftly restored and increased).

Thanks to everyone at Roadside Vehicle Service in Paisley.

As I was 'in town' and in the right part of town, I decided to pay a flying visit to our Aunt and Uncle a couple of miles away. They were suitably surprised to see me, and we had a quick chat before I set off to catch up with Lee. I wished I could have taken them up their offer of tea and food, but after the late start and the mechanical setback we had some ground to make up.

I caught up with Lee just north of Lugton after he'd cycled 19 miles since Erskine. At this point we decided to abandon dividing the day up into quarters and he headed off to Stewarton to finish his 'stint' for the day. I caught up with him (despite a closed road) at about half past two, so after a quick sandwich we swapped roles and I set about putting the final 19-20 miles behind me.

The ride was very enjoyable, and although nothing really qualified as a climb, it was very 'up-and-down' and was a great workout.

So all that's left for today's update is the 'Smith-o-meter':

NEXT STOP: Annan - 86 miles (longest day of the ride).

DAY 1 - Glencoe to Balloch 68 miles

First things first: the Smith-o-meter!

 Not too bad then, for the first day.

The weather when we woke up was not much better than when we went to sleep, but better enough for us to feel happy to have a good go at the ride ahead.

After a substantial breakfast we headed a little way north to meet the send-off party at the new Glencoe visitors centre.



Once we'd coaxed Nero out of the car we set about finding a suitable place to sprinkle some of Dad's ashes. Marie spotted a very nice little spot in full view of a mountain amongst a clump of trees. Happy with this we said a few quick words, gave the ashes a sprinkle and promptly headed back to the cars where I got ready for the first stint of cycling. We said our goodbyes (all too soon really, as Lee and I felt we weren't able to do their presence justice the evening before after having had such an early start and a long drive) and got ready to set off on our way.

Thanks all SO MUCH to everyone for making the journey all the way up here to send us off.

So off we went, south on the A82. As the climb chart at the top of the page shows, the first half of the day was all hills and the second half relatively flat, so we decided to break the day into four chunks and each do half of each section.

The hilly bits were certainly hilly and WET, but the hills were long and shallow rather than short steep climbs, which meant we could hit the 'granny gear' and stay in the saddle and grind it out. I was climbing for about 20 mins on one particular hill, but despite the pouring rain and passing trucks we both enjoyed the cycling.

The routine found its own flow and the Moggy driver would pass the cyclist and then sit in the next layby until the cyclist went past, and so it went, giving us the occasional photo opportunity. In the main though, we just had our heads down, stopping only if absolutely necessary, as we were keen to get out of the rain despite our enjoyment.

I handed over the first baton at the ski centre and Lee slogged out an average 12-13mph for 18 miles to our lunch stop at Tyndrum. We ducked into the Green Welly Stop for a sandwich and a break from the rain, and immediately bumped into a similarly dressed person who crossed normal social boundaries by starting a conversation with us without wanting anything (there seems to be something quite magical about doing this kind of activity - it breaks down normal boundaries so that people feel free to start up conversation).

It turned out he was also a native of Birmingham and was doing the JOGLE (John O'Groats to Lands End) - he had started out a couple of days ago, camping along the way. We chatted for the duration of lunch and traded information and routes for about an hour then bade each other farewell before donning our (wet) waterproofs once more and hopping on our respective saddles; he was heading for Glasgow, us for Balloch (12 miles or so nearer).

The difference in the roads at this point was marked - they were much flatter but with a larger aggregate on the surface so while easier, they didn't help our speed much: we averaged about 15-16mph during the afternoon stint.

Fewer laybys on this stretch (due to the road running alongside Loch Lomond) meant that we didn't see each other for quite a while and at various points we each thought the other had got lost, but we put our faith in my newly acquired Garmin bicycle GPS unit, which works really well and certainly has our seal of approval after today.

We finally arrived in Balloch at about half past four, checked into The Balloch House, locked the bikes up, showered and washed our clothes out. We had a couple of very good pints of Deuchars IPA with dinner and spent a few hours in our room (which was actually more like a sauna, thanks to the fact that we'd turned the radiators on full blast in an attempt to dry out our clothes/shoes) fighting the urge to sleep until we'd made all the preparations for tomorrow and updated the blog.

Verdict then for day 1: a great success! Oh, and another £5 donation from a kind local couple who saw our CMA t-shirts and after inquiring as to their significance promptly forced money on us - our plan of using the CMA shirts as our evening  uniform seems to be working!

NEXT STOP: Ayr - 51 short miles, hopefully a little drier although the same weather man seemed fairly certain that the rain was heading south at about the same speed as us.

THE DRIVE UP:

Prepare for longer posts, from now on we're going to have plenty to write about, so here goes!

THE DRIVE UP:


After finally getting all the pre-ride preparations done on Saturday night I went to bed with my alarm set for 5am - we were aiming for a 6:30-7:00am departure from Birmingham.

The alarm went off all to early, but I needed no 'snoozes' this morning - my brain switched straight onto the tasks ahead and after fitting the bike rack to the Moggy and my bike to that, I had a teary farewell with Helen and we set off in opposite directions.

I arrived in Redditch to find Lee chomping at the bit waiting outside so we were loaded and on our way before 7am.

So we this was it: we were soon pulling onto the motorway (having only driven the car for the first time yesterday!). I think we were both harbouring a fair amount of anxiety about the drive, but we'd cast the die a long while back. So off we went, at what we thought was a steady 55mph.


It wasn't long before we began to question the accuracy of the car's speedometer as trucks and even caravans started to pass us regularly. With the use of the sat nav we confirmed our suspicions: the speedo was overly optimistic by 5-7mph, nevertheless, we decided to stick with our comfortable 50mph progress.

We had started out with a full tank of fuel (guessing about 25 litres), and by the time we were approaching Manchester we were down to a quarter of a tank. Based on the precision of the speedo we decided to err on the side of caution as far as the fuel gauge was concerned, and from here on in to fill up once we hit the quarter tank mark. So we stopped to fill up (but not before dispatching a bacon sandwich).

We set off again, with our 120-mile range limit (we were getting around 29mpg) north along the M6 to the sound of the 50+ year old engine which, while novel, got a little hard on the ears by the time we hit Scotland (did I mention there is no radio in the car?). However, all these 'quirks' were not going to dampen our spirit as we had enough mileage behind us now for our anxieties to have abated and we could feel confident of making our destination - and indeed the rest of the trip.

We finally stopped around 1pm just north of Gretna Green where we decided to take a lengthy break for lunch to allow the feeling in our bums to return and for Granville (our mechanic) and Marie to catch up with us (which they did surprisingly quickly - our earlier calculations led us to believe they wouldn't catch us until mid-afternoon).

After a bite to eat and a walk around for little Nero (Granville and Marie's pug) to stretch his legs, we got under the bonnet to check oil etc. and headed off to the fuel pump once more, before pushing on towards Glasgow. Did i mention that within about 30ft of passing the 'welcome to Scotland' sign the rain started?

I attempted to take a picture of this landmark sign, but even at 50mph my phone couldn't sort its focus/flash out quickly enough to capture it but as i'd gone to the effort you may as well see it.

Once we'd cleared Glasgow and hit Loch Lomond we joined what will be our cycle route (following it in reverse) so could see what we've let ourselves in for (well, we would have been able to see, were it not for rain which was now falling very steadily). We trundled on alongside the Loch for what seemed an age - the roads had become hilly and the wind had picked up considerably at this point so our progress slowed down somewhat. We were so engaged in our journey at this point that it escaped our notice that the fuel tank was heading rapidly towards a quarter of a tank and we couldn't imagine there was any chance of a petrol station presenting itself to us any time soon! Our earlier anxiety about the journey started to creep back in as we weren't sure a quarter of a tank would take us the final 50 or so miles. So we switched on the sat nav, which informed us that there was fuel to be had in Tyndrum - we headed there and were relieved to find that indeed there was. Waterproofs were needed for refueling at this point - the rain was getting heavier the further north we went.

Happy to be full of fuel again, we left the Loch safely behind us and headed into the hilly bit towards Glencoe. From the little we could see, the scenery around here was stunning - though with rain now falling so hard all we could really make out were the white torrents of water cascading down from the hills and mountains in every direction. Our full attention was now required in the car as its little wipers were really struggling to keep up and the windows were starting to steam. The only effective way of dealing with this was to keep the windows open, but this turned out to be a very damp pastime, so the final stretch of the journey involved a cycle of winding up and winding down the windows.

'Every cloud has a silver lining' so the saying goes, but we couldn't see any clouds - just a wall of rain. However, the rain did help us identify two leaks in the windscreen seals - not that we can do anything about that now, but it will save me a lot of time trying to find them in the future.

With Lee now at the wheel, we were in for a hair raising journey due to his determination to get to the end of the day's 12-hour drive as quickly as possible. He was seemingly now so comfortable in the car that he'd forgotten exactly what he was driving - but despite efforts that brought Stirling Moss to mind (all of this in a car with no seatbelts, I might add), we were once more overtaken by a truck. Shortly afterwards, we turned off the A82 to find the Clachaig Inn.

Feeling very truimphant we unloaded the car (still in the pouring rain), locked the bikes in the storage shed and changed into dry clothes before heading to the bar to find Mum, Jean and Dave (neighbours and close friends of the family). We donned our CMA t-shirts and went for a well earned pint. The t-shirts promptly earnt us a £5 donation from a kind stranger on the table next to us.

Once Granville, Marie, and of course Nero arrived, we ordered dinner. I opted for a venison burger (when in Rome) and three pints of 'Fourth of July' from the Alloa brewery (an American-style IPA full of hoppy goodness, which was a great pint).

We retired fairly early and set about getting organised for the morning's events which involve a 9am meeting in Glencoe for photos and the first sprinkling of Dad's ashes before we wave goodbye to our send-off party and head off into a wet and windy morning.

NEXT STOP BALLOCH: 68 miles of what the BBC weather man assured me would be wet weather.

more moral support with a 1 day cameo

Adrian from Forresters in Abingdon, a good friend of mine, has recently changed from running to cycling as his means of exercise due to lower back problems, and as a consequence he is now the proud owner of a carbon road bike (if I could find a green-eyed monster emoticon there would be one here). 


He's taken up his new sport with gusto and asked if he could join us for a day of our ride. We gladly agreed (and our thanks at this point go to Gemma, his understanding wife, for letting him off his family duties to indulge in his new sport and give us some support).


He'll be joining us to do the stretch from Shrawley in Worcestershire to Stow on the Wold, and plans to do the full 72 miles that day so it will be great company for us both on the road - we'll have had over a week's lone cycling up until this point so it'll be a great source of moral support.


Adrian has also offered to bang the sponsorship drum for us in his salon while we're away, so thanks again Ade and we'll see you in Shrawley!


When he leaves us in Stow, my wife, Helen, will pick up the baton and finish the ride with us. It'll be great to see friendly faces at this point in proceedings - it'll feel like the start of the end and we'll be able to begin to think about the finish line - I'm sure that will give us an extra boost and push us on to Bournemouth.

Printed jerseys, we're the real deal now!

I collected our printed cycling jerseys yesterday courtesy of Colin Berryman of Berryman Fitness fame and  SE Workwear and VERY pleased we are with them too!

Colin has been the instructor leading most of the spinning classes I've endured this year and he has helped  me push myself to (I hope) new levels of fitness, thanks largely to huge amounts of military style shouting - it really does work! It will soon become apparent exactly how much benefit all of these gruelling hours have been as we start the ride in only 5 days now. Look out for the 'Smith-o-meters' on this blog at the end of each day to see if 6 months of spinning classes have helped (I'm as curious as you).


Once Colin learned of my ride he offered to arrange to get me some jerseys printed, which he did via SE Workwear in Abingdon (Ady from SE Workwear also teaches spinning). They took a logo that I designed (which will also be appearing on the Morris Minor) and printed it in reflective grey on the back of each of the jerseys. Lee and I each have one in blue and one in white, so now we should look like official charity workers!

Expect to see some 'action' shots of us in these jerseys soon, right here on this blog (that is assuming that they're not covered with waterproofs the whole time)!

1 week to go!

One week from now we'll be thinking about getting out of bed on what I'm sure promises to be a gloriously sunny summer's day in Scotland, and getting kitted up ready for our first day's cycling (following a hearty breakfast).


We'll be heading a short way up the road to the centre of Glencoe to find a suitable spot to sprinkle the first of Dad's ashes and then, having waved goodbye to Mom, Jean, Dave, Granville, Marie and Nero, we'll ride off into the sunset in the direction of Loch Lomond.


I'm sat here writing this post at such an early hour as I've just been turned away from my usual 6.45am Monday morning spinning session because the gym has had the fire brigade in overnight due to problems with their gas detection systems - so my final week's training schedule prior to the ride has stalled before it got started! Well, I suppose if I'm not in shape now, then another week of exercise isn't going to make any difference.


While I've been spinning now since New Year, two or three times a week, Lee's actually been out on his bike/saddle - something I'd been hoping to do plenty of before now so that I can acclimatise to my seat and get ready for hours on it day after day. However, as the weather has been WET and I've at least been getting my cardio workout, I've not been out on my bike for any lengthy rides for a while now. I know I'll be regretting this before I've even cycled my way out of Scotland but there you go, it's just the way it's played out. I have, however, at least bought myself a new seat on the advice of my mysteriously named cycling guru 'Q'.

Looks comfortable, right? Well supposedly the longer the ride the smaller the saddle - apparently the less of your bottom making contact with saddle the better. I bought into the science and went for the pictured saddle, the success of this decision will be apparent on the 'Smith-o-meter' (see previous post) as the days progress.


By way of a 'combo' I didn't just settle on the saddle (a pun for those that missed it) I also changed my mountain bike tyres a.k.a. 'nobblies', for the narrowest tyre I could get on a mountain bike wheel - again on advice from Q, but backed up with plenty of internet reading. It seems like the biggest improvement you can make to your bike for road riding is to reduce the rolling resistance of the tyres by making them narrower. I opted for a pair of Continental gatorskins with kevlar reinforcement. I have to say the difference these tyres actually make is amazing, I can't believe I put up with my old nobblies for so long.

And to finish off the combo I now also own a pair of 'clippy' SPD cycling shoes so that I can greatly increase my chances of falling off my bike at roundabouts or t-junctions - if nothing else it'll be a good blog post and pictures of cut knees may encourage a spike in sponsorship.

So that's all the bike gear sorted, and the toolbox is now too small for all the tools i have in it so think we can be no more prepared now in this respect. Next job is to turn our attention to packing the clothing.

Welcome to the 'Smith-O-meter'

Here is the Smith-O-Meter!

We thought this would be a good visual daily gauge of how we were progressing so we'll update it each day on the ride (while nursing a pint hopefully) and for anyone interested it will provide an 'at a glance' gauge of our physical and mental well-being.

So let us know what you think or if there's is a meter you think we should add to this.

Great British weather

Will it ever stop raining? We keep hearing about roads being closed due to flooding in almost every part of the country, events being cancelled due to waterlogging, and every time I look out the window it seems to be raining. At this rate the boys and the Moggy will need water wings!

I don't think anybody reasonably expected 12 days of unbroken sunshine for the trip - this is the British summer after all - but I hope it won't turn into a 750-mile paddle (or swim)!


Still, the waterproofs the lads have invested in should keep the worst of the wetness out and there's always hope that over the next two weeks the sky will simply run out of water to dump on them... Start practising  your anti-rain dances!

Game on Moggy!

On Friday, after an early morning spinning session for me and a trip to the doctor about his recent hernia for Lee, we met Granville (our mechanic) at Mom's house.

On the drive up to Birmingham I was told by a weather lady on the radio that there were severe weather warnings in the North and West Midlands and a month's worth of rain was due to fall over the coming 24 hours - an ominous sign maybe?

We (Granville) started by looking the car over and doing a few routine checks. Once we'd found the bonnet release the engine was checked over too (it was at about this point that the month's worth of rain started falling). Despite Granville insisting he needed no protection from the rain, Lee produced a Gazebo from his car boot which we threw up to make the day more bearable.

Having passed its MOT 'with flying colours' we weren't expecting anything too traumatic to turn up on closer inspection, and as I was preparing for the worst I think I can say the shopping list of bits was pretty easy to swallow. It comprised of:

1x new radiator
4x spark plugs
1x set of plug leads
1x bottle of engine coolant
1x can of vintage car oil
1x new spare tyre
1x foot pump
1x bottle of lead replacement additive
1x spare fan belt
1x bulb kit

After a short but wet trip to the Morris Minor centre in Oldbury we had everything we needed except the new tyre (which is being collected and fitted next week) and Granville set to work. Three sodden hours later 'she' was running as well as she ever could and confidence was restored in the Moggy's ability to carry us and our gear up and down the country. Nevertheless, on the advice of the 'expert' at the car centre I'm trying to acquire a spare fuel pump (from eBay), as this apparently is the only other component likely to catch us out.

So overall, despite the weather and shopping bill, it was a successful day - especially as we found that my bike rack fits the back of the Moggy perfectly, so no new acquisition will be required (this could have been a huge stumbling block as none of the rack manufacturers I contacted were happy to sell me anything that would definitely fit a Morris Minor).

The other small job for the visit was to get a photo or two of us wearing the CMA-supplied T-shirts for publicity purposes. I think you'll agree we look like real charity workers!!