Postscript to our LEJOG; Some thoughts of the Parents who took their 11 year old son on a cycle ride the length of Britain

We started our planning for our LEJOG about 12 months or so before we undertook our adventure and relied heavily on the excellent resource of the CTC forum and Rob ‘s End to End website. Our tour started on the first day of Tommy’s summer holiday break and was scheduled to last 22 days.

Training for our Adventure

We had decided that our tour and our daily rides should be set by the riding ability of our son anticipating that he is likely to get fitter and stronger as the tour went on.

Serious training –if you could call it that – did not start until the spring of 2011. By this time our accommodation had been booked and we would be averaging 45- 50 miles per day. Our longest day ride was 62 miles.

Training was restricted mainly to weekend because of school and work commitments. On bank holidays and short breaks we did longer weekend rides. The first of these was on the Kennet and Avon Canal from Bristol to Reading which we did over three days. Tommy started to cycle to school each day: not a great distance in itself but it meant that he was on the saddle daily and clocking up 40 miles per week on ‘the school run’.

We entered a small number of charity rides that extended to around 30 miles each and conscious of the hilly beginning and ends of our tour we took advantage of living close to the South Downs to ensure we got at least 3 or 4 hill climbs around Petersfield and the East Hampshire Hangers most weekends.

The longest  day ride we did prior to the LEJOG was actually only about 43 miles, but having read numerous accounts that you don’t need to train the actual distance you intend to cycle we thought this would be sufficient since Tommy was able to cover the 40 miles or so comfortably in about 5  hours. The challenge would be of course would he be able to do this amount of cycling each day for three weeks?

This goes to the very point of making the ride achievable. We planned this as a series of daily rides of around 45 miles per day (which we knew our son could achieve) rather than a 1030 mile tour.
We were worried that constant time on he saddle would bring saddle sores but apart from a few grumbles on Days 4 and 5, Tommy didn't complain of this problem. During the LEJOG, we religiously applied Assos Chamois Cream to his sit bones on his backside each morning and this, together with a shower as soon as we stopped cycling, seemed to do the trick.

Planning Our Route

The first ‘port of call’ was Phil Horsely’s excellent handbook ‘The Great British Bike Adventure’ and we decided to use this as the basis of our route.

We also decided that we would pre-book accommodation all the way up to JOG having decided that it would be best to start at Land’s End on the basis of being frightened to death of finishing in Devon and Cornwall with all the horror stories about the hills. As events turned out, we didn’t think the hills of Devon and Cornwall were quite as bad as some had made out: the biggest factor as to the severity of the day's cycle was ‘weather’ driven not the terrain (also more about that below). It was also fortuitous of us the pre-book accommodation since many of the hostels were fully booked on the nights we were staying.

Our priority was road safety bearing in mind we were cycling 1000 miles with an 11 year old. We spent a lot of time reading and researching routes taken by others but the priority was minor or ‘B’ roads which generally meant a longer (and hillier) ride - but less traffic. We also made good use of dedicated cycle tracks (eg, Granite Way, the Strawberry Way around Cheddar and the cycle path from Oban to Ballachulish).  North of Bonar Bridge you can use the A roads with virtual impunity (but take the B road via Falls of Shin!) since they are often single track and very quiet.

I subscribed to the OS Getamap service for just £18 and traced our route onto printable A4 pages. Copies were given to Tommy’s Grandmother who was in her car carrying our kit. We had a stapled small bundle of OS 1:50.000 Land Ranger Maps courtesy of Getamap with the route depicted in blue. At the end of each day, that bundle was discarded and the following days bundle taken on the ride. This was an excellent way of route finding and generally we did not miss any major turns. The 1:50,000 maps were supplemented with Multimap  street maps with road names when we went through main towns (eg Preston) and again this worked well other than some of the chosen roads were ‘one –way’ but going the wrong way!

Tommy’s Bike

We decided to invest in a ‘child specific’ road bike for Tommy and bought an Islabike Luath 24. We visited the factory in Ludlow and had Tommy measured and fitted by Isla Rowntree herself. The basic cost of the bike was £400 and we had the factory added extras of mudguards, cycle rack, Schwable Marathon tyres and a water bottle. The final cost was about £500 but I believe it to be money well spent. We had no mechanical problems at all with Tommy’s bike and no punctures either.

The bike only has just one crank at the front and a cassette of 8 at the back, but they were a quite wide ratio of gears. The real benefit was the addition of short reach brake leavers which meant braking was easy for Tommy with his smaller hands.

Accommodation

We had discounted the idea of camping since we were able to ‘press gang’ the mother in law to support our ride. Our accommodation was predominantly Youth Hostels and the remainder Travelodge’s, Premier Inns and Holiday Inn Express. We had one night in a B&B.

At Youth hostels were had pre-ordered breakfast when it was available. The standard of Scottish Youth Hostels we found to be superior to the English ones. Oban SYHA was akin to a 4* hotel!

Travelodge’s however were fantastic value (in two cases just £19 per room). With the availability of an en-suite with a hot shower and a good night’s sleep, this set us up for the following day’s ride.

Never the less, Tommy enjoyed the camaraderie of the Youth Hostels and being able to talk about his adventure with other cyclists and hostellers: something you cannot do in a Travelodge environment!

We ought to add here that all the YH Wardens were first class (bar one!) but special praise must go to the Scottish wardens who went out of their way to make us feel welcome. On each of the 6 occasions we spent a night at a Scottish hostel the Warden took the trouble to suggest and then telephone on our behalf to make a table reservation for an evening meal at nearby restaurant or pub.

A typical day’s ride

 Generally Tommy was allowed to sleep in until he was ready to get up, but typically we started cycling around 9.15 – 9.30am.

We would have numerous short breaks for getting our breath back, a drink, a snack, a photo call or checking we were on the right route. We found that Tommy had to be hassled to drink more than he did. He was given an almost ‘free rein’ on what he could eat at snack times and we only really controlled his main meals to ensure he had a nutritious diet. We found that his appetite in the evening was first class.

We knew the miles we had to cover that day and made a conscious effort to cycle at least 50% of the required  miles before a lunch break. Accordingly, if our ride was 45 miles that day, we would aim to stop after about 30 miles.

We religiously stuck to a break of at least one hour ‘off the saddle’ at lunchtime. This meant that our destination was achievable by 5-6pm each day and on only one occasion (to Oban) was this objective breached.

Having read about the experiences of others, we decided not to have any ‘rest days’ but instead cycled on two' half' days. This worked out very well and in the case of our second half day (Carlisle to Dumfries) we decided to cycle on an extra 10 miles to lessen the length of the next day’s ride from 60 to 50 miles.

Safe Cycling

This was of paramount concern for us. As well as a helmet, Tommy’s bike was equipped with a Safety Lollipop. He was also required to wear a Hi-Viz waistcoat except when on cycle paths or on quiet minor roads.

His wet weather gear was also Hi-Viz and flashing front and rear lights were used on his bike when the weather turned dull or rainy.

On a ride of this nature it is inevitable that the riders will split up due to different cycling abilities. Nevertheless, we tried to ensure that Tommy cycled between two adults although some of the hill climbs in Scotland made this difficult! It was impressed upon Tommy that walking up a steep hill was no disgrace but this seemed to spur him on to cycle every part of the route!

Our Blog will tell you that despite their intimidating size, HGV drivers we found to be the most considerate drivers towards cyclists. The same could not be said of Coach drivers who paid scant regard to the safety of cyclists in their quest to get their tourist passengers to the next sight. This was particularly prevalent on the A82 (Fort William to Inverness road) and at Windermere where it is unavoidable to cycle on the main road due to the absence of quieter alternatives.

The Weather and Terrain

Hill climbing is tough for everyone, irrespective of where the hills are located. Unquestionably, Devon and Cornwall have far more than their fair share but no hill is insurmountable and hey! there is no shame in getting off your bike and walking for 5 or 10 minutes!

We had excellent weather in Devon and Cornwall and I think we were all secretly pleased with ourselves when we eventually left Whidden Down and cycled to the flatter lands around Taunton. I think it was at that point that we all thought that we would be able to achieve our objective and finish the ride.

In contrast Carlisle to Dumfries was an easy day on paper. It is as  flat as a pancake and just 30 miles. The weather was sunny but we had a fierce headwind that sapped everyone’s strength. Tommy will freely admit that this was his worst day of cycling and would have happily ended the tour there and then.

The second bad day was on Arran. We had a steep 200m climb over a mountain pass to reach the Lochranza YH which had to be done in a torrential downpour and headwinds which the BBC said that evening was the worst Scotland had suffered in August. The climb would have been a challenge in calm conditions but it was the weather that made the task nigh on impossible.

The purpose of this is to explain that at no time was the terrain itself to be the main inhibiting factor but the weather. If the gods are kind to you on your End to End Tour , we believe it is achievable by any reasonably fit person

Closing Remarks

We are so pleased we took up this challenge. We saw parts of the country we had never visited before and met some great characters and many other like-minded cyclists. Our countryside is exceptionally beautiful and when we were able to witness wild otters on the Caledonian Canal and salmon leaping at the Falls of Shin this all added to the fantastic adventure.

But most of all we are most proud of our 11 year old son who achieved a fantastic feat and yet left John O Groats wanting to know what all the fuss was about.