The Long(ish) Ride

The plan was simple, start in Bedfordshire, ride down to Land’s End and straight up to John O’Groats. It was a 1200-mile route and let’s get this out the way. I didn’t manage 1200 miles. It was 961 miles in the end. The aim was to raise some money for the East Anglian Air Ambulance. Pretty straight forward right? I thought so too.

Miles Ridden

Hours in the Saddle

The Route

route-map

As I said it all looks pretty simple; head down the A1, around the M25, onto the M3.

The M3 is where it started to go wrong, I thought leaving at 8PM would give me a clear run, which it did to a point but the M3 had been shut. I was forced to pull over and fiddle around with the sat-nav as when I tried to avoid the M3 by continuing around the M25 further anti-clockwise all it kept trying to do was make me turn around back to the M3 junction. So I fiddled with the avoidance settings, told it not to take me down the M3 and got going again.

The trouble here was it took me down south towards Southampton which was massively out the way. Around 30 miles from Exeter and low on fuel I pulled up outside The Hunters Lodge, I saw two people sitting inside so I waved through the window. Who knows what they were thinking as it was approx. 11.30PM. After explaining what I was doing (I’m pretty sure they thought I was mad) and asking where the nearest 24-hour petrol station was, I was hoping for some local knowledge that wasn’t available on the sat-nav or internet, but it turned out the nearest was 17 miles north. After some consideration and due to the lack of open petrol stations I decided for the sake of the trip not to go to Land’s End, not a decision I took lightly as I knew I’d never make the 1200 mile target I’d hoped for.

stint1

 

 

Arriving at Ilminster services was a huge relief, the bike refuelled, John O’Groats set as the destination I had a Mars bar and some water. Onto the ‘second stint’, it had gone midnight now and I was into Saturday. I just had to head north towards Taunton and from there onto the M5.
My next pit stop was Donnington services, I was getting pretty cold by this point and put on all the layers I had. Another chocolate bar and a Red Bull and I was back on the road.
I was starting to feel extremely tired now, it was 7AM and I’d been riding for 11 hours. My arse was hurting from the stock 990 SMT seat and I was still cold.

stint2Pulling into Wetherby services feeling pretty low, lowest point of the whole ride in fact. Looking at the mileage left it was around the 500 mark, I wasn’t even half way. I kept telling myself I’d never make it. Not feeling how I was with so far left. I’d almost given up, if it wasn’t for a hotel room being £170 I would of, then I rang my Mum. Yes, that’s right, I rang my Mum (haha). After a quick chat I got two Greggs sausage roll’s, feeling a little better after my 50-minute pit stop I refuelled and got going again.

You might be looking at the route wondering why I headed so far east, I was trying to make some mileage up. It would have been easier to of stuck to the A6/A74(M)/M74 but mileage was playing on my mind and I’m glad it did! I came into Scotland on the A68, what a road. There was a couple of long corners and the first proper turns were three hairpins, Stelvio Pass-esque. The A68 really kept me going I think, all the corners gave my mind something to concentrate on and not just want to sleep. It was around 10:15AM as I went over the border.

The next part of the journey which proved difficult mentally was the A9 after Perth. It was just one long road. The sat-nav telling me my next turn was over one hundred miles away, forced to stop in Aviemore for some fuel and a quick break as the fatigue was getting to me again.

After that hundred mile stretch I knew I just had one more hundred or so miles to go, it might sound a lot but after 850 miles it really felt like nothing. I perked up realising I was actually going to make it, the last stint was fun, amazing roads and absolutely ridiculous scenery. Arriving at John O’Groats at 17:10 I felt a massive feeling of relief that I hadn’t let myself or anyone following along down. A fair few people knew what I was doing and some were following along with the tracking app I had found. This helped me massively in not giving up when it got hard. So thank you to all those who did follow along and send words of encouragement. Without you I’d of never made it.

Sometimes you just have to accept not everything will go to plan, this ride didn’t go quite how I wanted but the important thing is I made it to the end goal. Sadly missed out Lands End but I will revisit this route hopefully next year and I’ll beat it.

But here I am at John O’Groat, Thank You 🙂

The whole aim of the trip was to raise a bit of money for the East Anglian Air Ambulance, if you would like to kindly donate to such a great cause please click the button below.

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