preparation

Firstly we had to decide whether I was going to do the ride on my own. There was also the decision of riding supported or unsupported.

The web was a great source of information with people’s personal pages giving details about supported and unsupported rides. It was soon decided to go for a supported ride on my own.

The thought of riding a bike for 976 miles with panniers and having to wash my clothes every night did not appeal. Caroline also felt it was an opportunity for her see the country and was happy to drive the support vehicle.

Martin recommended I buy Chris Carmichael’s book about Lance Armstrong as a starting point to understand training and preparation.

We then agreed that the best time to consider the ride would be the first two weeks in June. The children’s half term holiday would have just finished. The roads in Cornwall and Devon would not be choked with holiday traffic and the hotels would probably have rooms available.

This meant I had from October to June to train and get ready.

It soon became evident that the winter months meant that mountain biking would be a better way to train. Riding on the UK roads early in the morning on wet dark winter mornings was going to be a recipe for an accident.

Through October to the middle of January I managed about 450 miles a month of training. This was mainly on the mountain bike with longer rides on the weekend on the road bike.

Then a major set-back occurred I came down with a flu bug which put me out of training for five weeks. Even on returning I was laid low for a further three weeks as the last of the virus stayed in my system. This meant I lost February and March as training months.

Chris Carmichael discusses training with an objective in mind. To this end Willy and I had entered The Fred Whitton Challenge.  This is probably the hardest road race in the UK covering 112 miles and 12,000 ft of climbing up the fells of the Lake District.

The flu virus had left me feeling weak and I only had six weeks to get ready for The Fred Whitton.

Over the next six weeks each weekend was used to complete longer rides with a final ride the weekend before the event of 75 miles.

I managed to get through the Fred Whitton and finish the course in 8 hours 10 minutes.  I am vowing to go back next year and break the 7 hour 30 minute mark.

During the next three weeks training consisted of weekly averages of 450 miles with a long ride on the weekend.

The week before the planned start day riding stopped and I rested completely.

 

Equipment

The chosen stead for the journey was a Trek Madonne 5.8. Having very little knowledge of cycling I was pointed in the direction of Sigma Cycles in Hampton Court (www.sigmasport.co.uk)

This was probably one of the best pieces of advice given to me. I cannot recommend this shop more highly to anyone considering purchasing a high performance road bike. Lee Dumbarton and his colleagues took me through the process of being properly measured and having the bike tailored to my height and build.

It is not just about buying a bike and putting some shorts and a tee shirt on for a ride.

Clothes, shoes, helmet, waterproofs and spares are all important. Sigma impressed me because I would explain what I needed and Lee would recommend what he had tried and found to work for the guys in the shop. This often meant they suggested less famous branded products rather than the popular makes I had read about.

Without question everything purchased from Sigma has worked without fault for me.

Like a car it is not only about the purchase. The equipment also needs maintaining when you use it. Having completed 2,400 miles Sigma’s mechanics Dan and Sam have kept the bike working in perfect order with the minimum of fuss.

 

Navigation

Dave’s advice to me was to buy an A5 size UK road atlas and mark the route with a marker pen. Remove all the pages which do not form part of the journey. Dave also recommended a larger scale OS Map Travel Map 1:625 000 also with the route highlighted for use in the support vehicle. This worked very well.

The route was taken from the excellent Lands End To John O’ Groats Cyclists Guide written by Simon Brown, published Cicerones Guide again provided by Dave.

Over the last six months there has been a huge influx of hand held GPS units becoming available. The technology has become so good that mobile size handle bar mounted units are now available with screens that give near TFT screen quality.

I decided to purchase the Garmin GPS 60CS. A GPS not only provides navigation it also records where you have been. I thought this would be good if someone wanted proof that I had actually cycled the route. It would be possible to drive with the GPS in the car but I think you would upset a few people if you drove the 976 miles at an average speed of 16.2 mph.

The GPS provided amazing data. During the ride I ascended for over 48,000 ft of climbing.

The Garmin City Select software allowed the route to be broken up into 12 separate sections each with an average of about 82 miles per day. These routes were then downloaded into the GPS.

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