Note for Cyclists

This is a brief note on my experience on a Land's End to John o'Groats trip in May 2011.

Bikes:
I was riding a Boardman Hybrid, my friend Robert had a LaPierre Audacio 300 road bike.
The main differences were with handlebars and pedals.

Robert's drop handlebars were great for long downhills and when pedalling into the wind, giving him a more comfortable position. I felt a bit cramped with my arms folded up to give me access to brakes.

My MTB-style handlebars worked well in towns, where I had a more upright position (better for seeing what the traffic was doing).

I also used MTB-style clipless pedals and shoes; Robert had Shimano road style pedals and cleats. I think the MTB-style were easier to use in stop-start condition for these reasons:
- double-sided pedal, so pedal was never upside-down
- flat-ish pedal top, so even if I didn't clip in immediately, it was easier to keep pedaling
- shoes better for walking around shops at lunchtime.
It's said that road style clipless pedals are more efficient, but for reasons I don't understand.

We both bought Brooks B17 leather saddles. While not armchair comfy, I found that the saddle did a great job absorbing vibration. Both our bikes had aluminium frames, not known for absorbing bumps and thumps. The standard saddle faithfully passed on all vibration and bumps, where the leather on the Brooks seemed to dissipate them and give me more confidence in going at speed over broken surfaces.

Before going, I changed the 11-32 cassette for an 11-34; I was mighty glad of the extra gearing for Devon and the Pennines.

I put rubber grips on my bar ends - this made them much more comfortable.

A special mention for the Zefal mirror I got (I think it's the Cyclop model). This was invaluable for town and knowing if there's someone behind when speeding down a hill. It took a bit of a battering over the fortnight, but is none the worse for wear.

Luggage
I had a pair of Ortlieb panniers - waterproof canvas with a roll-over top. These proved to be waterproof and very effective at keeping the water out. Closing the pannier top is a 20 second job, and not as quick as Robert's Vaude luggage that had more conventional clips.

I also had a Bontrager handlebar bag where I kept stuff like my camera, wallet, tissues, notepad, glasses. It too was good at keeping out the water (if you've read the rest of the blog, you'll know everything got well tested). I found it useful having the easy access to frequently-used things right in front of me. On the downside, there's no easy way to have a front light with the handlebar bag in place, without cramping the handgrips.

Food
I tried various combinations throughout the fortnight, and I reckon this was the optimum
- breakfast of cereal, porridge and toast
- snacks of bananas, dried fruits, nuts, cereal bars ("Eat natural" brand tasted the best)
- Sandwich with protein and flapjack at lunch
- Pint of milk just after finishing for the day
- Light dinner

We found that fudge made for a great quick energy boost - it seemed to have the perfect combination of calories, taste and didn't risk breaking teeth.

Clothing
I took two sets of cycle clothing (bib shorts, long-sleeved shirt, socks)
a set of clothes for the evening, including fleece jumper
Waterproof jacket
Gloves
pyjamas
Everything was synthetic fibre - I though about what to do for underwear and eventually took two pairs of running shorts to use as boxers / pyjamas along with two running t-shirts. This meant that everything I took could be washed and would be dry the next morning

It's worth remembering that Scotland is quite a bit further north than Cornwall. We started cycling in one shirt, and ended up wearing 3 layers and a decent waterproof. Because of the weather we met, we also got waterproof gloves and overshoes in Pitlochry.

Training and fitness
We started in the autumn and trained as best we could during the cold months. At the beginning of the year, we started adding 20 miles to our daily total each month. With busy lives and work that has me travelling, our training was borderline, especially as it was in a county with no discernible hills (certainly compared to Devon). What we did manage was invaluable, though, and I would not have survived beyond day 2 without it. If you're thinking of doing end2end, it's worth remembering that cycle training takes up quite a lot of time.

Route
Robert had planned out the route, used the pages from the Phillips atlas recommended by the CTC and used a highlighter to mark it out. We still ended up changing our route for various reasons.

As we rode, so we got a feel for how fast we would go on different roads, depending on what we thought would be the gradient, how easy navigation would be (much easier to go along the main A-road than looking out for signposts for that next village whose name I can't now remember). As a consequence, we sometimes would take an A-road in the afternoon to do the miles, having had a pleasant morning on back roads (or vice-versa)

We also had to re-route because of severe weather.

Both of us had smart phones that were great for those occasions when the paper map either wasn't large enough scale, or when we weren't sure of just quite where we were. We relied on them for one day going round Glasgow when we didn't have maps. The iPhone has a 1:25000 OS map that is loaded on the phone, so doesn't need a network connection or download any data once it's installed.

Final thoughts
14 days was a good length - it gave us enough time to see a bit of the country and not have to be making best speed all the time. It also gave us flexibility to re-plan our route. Also, we did the training we could, which wasn't enough to allow us to go faster by the time we had panniers and it was the third or fourth day of continuous pedalling.

It was good to be travelling with one other person- finding accommodation wasn't extra difficult and the company and mutual encouragement was great. Having trained together, we also knew each other's strengths and speed. We met another pair doing end2end, one of whom was much faster than the other. It didn't seem to be a problem for them, but it could be for some people.

I started off thinking we could arrive in a place, find a B&B using my smartphone and be settled in 5 minutes. Wrong. Network connections are often poor, so it can take 5 minutes to load a web page. Battery life is rubbish on smartphones, so at the end of the day, having used the phone for a little bit of navigation / verification, I was also running out of juice. It worked much better when around 3/4 pm I got someone else to book accommodation, having told them where we thought we'd get to that day.

If you do go for it and do Land's End to John o'Groats, I wish you a great experience!

Douglas