Lands End to Scotland Cycle, please read

[aserota]

Hi all,

I am thinking of attempting a cycle from Lands End (Cornwall) to Scotland (not sure on exact point yet) for a local charity, next summer.

I am currently working on a schedule of training, which will be daily for the next 6+ months, building up more and more over time.

My aim is to cover between 70-100 miles a day, camping on route, therefore completing the distance in around 10-12 days.

Has anyone on the site ever completed this sort of long distance ride and have any advice? I am in the very early planning stages at the moment and would welcome any advice.

FYI i am ppurchasing a Trax VR trainer, so i can work specifically on different aspects of my cycling and will be continuing my running and general fitness dueing the winter.


Thanks

 

[Amanda P]

Hi

Lots of us have done Land's End to John O'Groats (LEJOG), stand by to be deluged with advice.

If you're planning to carry camping gear, your proposed schedule is going to be quite challenging. Do-able, but challenging. If you settle for B&Bs, youth hostels and the like, 70+ miles a day will be no problem.

The advantage of camping is that your options for where to stop are much greater. The downside is that you'll be carrying a lot more gear, and that makes the riding significantly harder work.

For me, the point of camping is that, if I want to stop off and see the sights, or take a detour, or just have a slack day, or even have a good day and just want to keep on going, I can do it. I can camp pretty much anywhere. But if your schedule's limited to 12 days, it might be better to be more disciplined.

It helps to do this if you've pre-booked your accommodation - you have to do your day's mileage to get to the next B&B.

So discipline vs being spontaneous: it's up to you.

Fitness: you will get fit quite rapidly as you do the ride. It almost doesn't matter how much training you do: your body won't be prepared for doing 60-odd miles a day, every day, unless you train by doing just that. But you will get used to it quite readily unless you're seriously unfit.

If you are seriously unfit, then getting training now is the way to go!

 

[cheadle hulme]

The CTC have a forum for this stuff

http://forum.ctc.org.uk/viewforum.php?f=22&sid=d4101aa250db3799f144e8c174384828

 

[aserota]

thanks guys

Regards fitness, i cycle daily but only around 10-15 miles on average. I feel comfortable riding 30+ miles, however on my only other long distance ride (london to brighton) i had really issues with cramp after 45 miles. However, since then i have focused far more on cycling.

I'll check out the site and update here later

 

[roadiewill]

Im hoping to do it next year too with a group of mates, should be good...

 

[Notsoblue]

Fitness: you will get fit quite rapidly as you do the ride. It almost doesn't matter how much training you do: your body won't be prepared for doing 60-odd miles a day, every day, unless you train by doing just that. But you will get used to it quite readily unless you're seriously unfit.

+1

I'd say I was of below average fitness before I decided to do LEJOG. I trained 26 miles a day for three months, but this was almost entirely in the London area which is really quite flat. As a result, the first two days cycling from Land's End to Okehampton were really quite a challenge. This is probably the most difficult bit of the whole journey. Don't underestimate the amount of climbing you'll have to do. After Okehampton though, it got alot easier, as Phil said you do get fit quite quickly.

Also agree with the point about your body not being prepared for the daily mileage (in my case it was between 55 and 100 miles per day, with the average being around 70). My training consisted of commuting to work by bike, and then extending the evening return trip with a circuit of Richmond Park (London) bringing the total up to 26 miles a day. Most weekends there would be a 50-60 mile ride. The main benefits of the training in my opinion were getting used to being in the saddle, working on my cycle technique and some muscle conditioning. Regarding the latter, my musculature changed quite significantly over the two week we did LEJOG, which to me at least, reinforces what Phil has said about your body adapting as you go along.

The only problem I really had during the trip was some pretty serious knee pain every morning after about day 5 for the first three hours of riding each morning. I put this down to the fact that I had to change my seat post about a week before we set off, this changed the geometry of my riding position subtly, but enough to cause problems.

I'd recommend making sure you're totally happy with your riding position, as muscles will recover but any knee problems will be more painful!

 

[Notsoblue]

Oh, and I can't recommend the YHA highly enough for accommodation. We stayed at some really great ones along the way (and a couple duds). Noteably the hostels at Glencoe, Kendel and especially on the last leg; Helmsdale (http://www.helmsdalehostel.co.uk/). I'd avoid Inverness youth hostel though, its pretty soulless.

The people we met there were always friendly and up for a chat and don't underestimate how much of a comfort it is to be able to arrive, have a hot shower and dry your clothes over night if you've been cycling in the cold rain for 8 hours. We met a group of three other LEJOGers that started and finished at the same time as we did, they went a similar route (though we took a scenic detour through Argyll, adding another 100 miles to ours) but they camped the whole way. There were three days in Scotland where it literally rained 24 hours and we were *very* glad that we didn't have to climb into a freezing cold wet tent to sleep and then get on our bikes with damp clothing like they described!