Today was a pretty good day. Matt and Jonathan left early in the morning for Gloucester, they made it to lunch after 60 miles in good time. The route was quite challenging, and as a result Jonathan decided to retire for the day and allow Matt to continue unhindered.

A highlight of the day was the hot lunch of bacon butties behind the trailer in a lay-by, hats off to the chef(Ross) who cooked the bacon to our individual tastes. Matt finished the second leg late but still in time for a good dinner.

Matt maintains that he would have arrived more promptly at the campsite if the sat-nav hadn’t led him over several steep and unnecessary hills shortly before arriving at the site.

The support crew enjoyed a relaxing evening at the campsite, and turned in for an early night. Matt was just glad to hit the hay.

Our two cyclists (Jonathon and Matthew) set off southward today from Kendal. The going was reasonably hilly with the start being positioned in the lake district. After the support crew had picked up some much needed Kendal Mint Cake, lunch was served from Chorely Tesco car park! Matt continued the leg down to Whitchurch on his own after lunch and arrived at around 8:30pm.

The support crew were hugely excited to note that the Whitchurch campsite included a variety of wildlife our favorites being the hoard of ducks that toured the campsite in search of food (and ended up attacking our equipment).

A big thank you to the Karners for traveling all the way across to Whitchurch to wine and dine us! This was much appreciated and just in the nick of time (Ross cooking and everything!).

After Alistair’s reluctant decision to join the support crew instead of risking a permanent knee problem, Matt had to cycle the rest of the way to Kendal from Dumfries on his own.

Now that Alistair cannot cycle, we have managed to source another cyclist to keep Matt company on the rest of the journey. Jonathan Price is now going to try and help Matt make his way down to Land’s End. Good luck to them both!

The team enjoyed a rather scary night of old timers karaoke at our backup campsite!

Disaster struck today. Yesterday I (Alistair Wooldrige) developed a knee injury which I continued cycling on for the 115 miles. Hoping it would have got better overnight, we set of in earnest for Kendal. After 20 miles of cycling on one leg because of the pain, I had to get our support crew to take me to the nearest hospital. I was diagnosed with an inflamed ligament just below and under my knee cap and was advised that if I continued it would most likely result in a permenant knee problem. We decided to camp overnight near the hospital area to give a chance to think. The result of this was that I was not prepared to cause myself a permenant knee problem. Matt continued to cycle to our substitute campsite in Dumfries.

Another quick update by phone go afraid as the laptops internet continues to play up (and ate yesterdays news).
On the cycling front today was fairly demanding with many ascents required. On the road for a total of 13 hours today with a large portion of time spent stuck in Edinburgh.

On the support side of things the day was mainly spent attempting to source a new alternator for the car (a mean feat for a 38 year old car). Luckily a call out to the RAC resulted in a brand new unit which fitted turning up unexpectedly in the back of the van. Many thanks RAC! We got to campsite with time to spare and had a meal ready by the time the cyclists (finally) arrived.

Thats all for now. Until tomorrow!

On the cycling front, its been a pretty good day in terms of the terrain. However, the aches and pains resulting from yesterdays cycling have surfaced. We’re currently suffering with painful knees, hands, feet, backs and obviously saddle sore. Most of the journey seemed downhill for the 80 miles, resulting in an easier ride. The weather hasn’t been too kind today, with heavy rain being quite predominant. Today we’ve gone through 2 new inner tubes and two punctures, all on my (Alistair) bike!

Unfortunately today we had a bit of a problem with the car, thankfully it only occurred when reaching the campsite and will hopefully be fixed tomorrow morning. All the luggage from the trailer is drying after getting wet yesterday. We’re currently enjoying the Perth campsite (for the second time on our journey) and the dry weather.

Day 3 tomorrow is about 130 miles, travelling from Perth to Peebles.

Sorry for the lack of updates everyone! We’ve had some real difficulties getting online using our mobile modem (no thanks to the Carphone Warehouse hotline).

The trip up to John O’ Groats was long but went without any real problem; making it all the way in the planned two days. Unfortunately, despite our previous booking at our planned Perth campsite, the owner decided to turn us away (having neglected to tell us previously that an all male party would not be allowed) as a bunch of rowdy charity cyclists and classic car enthusiasts. However we were taken in by another kind campsite who have offered to put us up for free! This has slightly altered our route (making an especially long day 3) but the cyclists are ready for the challenge.

Leaving camp at 8am (this is why the cyclists are pictured next to an empty sign post - which is only fitted with the John O’ Groats sign at 9am), the first 60miles went without a hitch thanks to the reasonable weather and strong north-westerly winds. This resulted in some over-exertion and the price was paid in the second half of the journey (taking almost double the time for the same distance again) where the weather turned for the worse and moral was down. In total 130miles covered in just over 10 hours. A sterling effort considering the difference between the hills of Scotland and the mighty peaks of Cambridge.

The weather report says we might be in the clear for rain tomorrow, so fingers crossed for a good days cycling.

Off to search for a pub, hopefully we shall update again tomorrow!

The End to End 2008 Cycling Team is about ready to leave for John O’ Groats!

A few key dates:
7th July - Leaving for John O’ Groats
10th July - The Start. Day 1 of the cycling!
18th July - Final Day. Should be reaching Land’s End.

As shown above, we will be leaving tomorrow (Monday 7th July) and driving up to Perth. We will camp there overnight and continue up to John O’ Groats on Tuesday. Wednesday will be spent relaxing in the sunshine (hopefully) before 8 days of solid cycling.

We would also like to say a big thank you to Adrian Verity from AVIT Research Ltd who has covered our fuel cost for the entire trip!