Lands end to John O'groats 2005 alone and unsupported on a Bicycle
Or the longest toilet roll journey in history
Hello my name is Harry Pevie I will try and tell you about the journey in a none politically correct and honest way
There are 4 parts to this ,the journey, the route, some photographs and the technical bits.
The links below show you my other pages
Le = Lands End. jog=John O'Groats
Statistics
14 days 6 hours with 1 day off
887 miles
88 hours 7 minutes sitting on my bike
average 10 mph (I am really proud of this bit)
max 36.1 (had a mad moment)
When you tell people you are going to do this there are 3 ways they look at you.
1.Oh wow that's amazing (he is never going to make it.)
2.Are you stupid
3.Why (almost all women do this one).
Planning get on a train get off a train get on your bike and ride. I only booked my first night everything else just happened as I went along.
training get an electric sander bolt a bike seat to it sit on it in front of the television for 8 hours you bum still won't be hard enough.
you will get fitter as you progress, to do this and still have your job and wife when you get back you will have to ride at least 50 miles a day
Why do this? the male menopause is setting in, I could not afford a motor bike, because it is an achievement, for my 15 minutes of fame, so I can tell people I did it, so I can wear the tee shirt. all of the above.
Why not for charity? the first reason is selfish I was not sure I was going to make it and to go round asking everyone for 30 pence each felt a bit embarrassing ,secondly collecting money off people can take longer than the journey. a lot of people quietly give to charities at the moment anyway
Why do it this way round? anyone who cycles will tell you it is not the cold or the rain that can get to you it is the wind ,in this country the prevailing wind is from the west so on a journey like this the wind can be behind you for long periods this may seem like a wimpy attitude .unless you have tried this don't think you can understand. I walked with a man on a Scottish mountain who was going from Manchester to jog because he was going faster than I was on my bike.
Getting to the start and finish, it has to be by train this can be a bit of a nightmare as I am writing this my bike is still at jog.
I went from Wigan as the virgin train pulled in it had not occurred to me where I was supposed to go for a split second I thought I can get out of this by not getting on the train suddenly a red coat appeared and helped me on at the back. great it is the quiet coach except 4 Japanese guys never got off their phones for the whole journey before anyone thinks how could I tell one of them kept saying hi! hi! I know from watching world war 2 movies that this is what those blokes bombing pearl harbor were saying.
A hint to anyone who does this buy yourself a set of sleeping blinkers for Devon and Cornwall put them on and don't look out of the window till you get to penzance that way you won't see some of the hills you will be climbing on your way back.
Penzance be warned the train stops on this side of the town and the hills out are 1:14 I had booked my only planned stay at a place called st buryan about 8 miles from le it was nearly dark by the time I found it lovely place but only 1 channel on the telly chan 4 I hate big brother so early night.
AT LANDS END
The story of the sign, on all the web sites they show the people happily standing in front of the sign unfortunately if you arrive before 10.oclock in the morning there is no top on it since the 50's a guy has been living in a box near the sign he puts the top on and your home town and you get your picture taken for a "small" cost. anyway at 9.30am you feel as if you should be on the road so I got my picture taken with no top on by a guy guiding some Germans they asked me what was going on and I got several looks all combinations of the ones I mentioned earlier.
As it turned out I waited till 10 to get my proof sheet stamped and filled in a little message to myself in the registration book.
At this stage you are still running on adrenalin after all this is probably your largest personal achievement this lasts for about 5 hills which at least gets you as far as penzance.
If there is a flat road down there I never found it