I managed to provoke a little envy when I mentioned a few months ago
that my employers had agreed to stump up for my accommodation costs for
an end-to-end ride this year.
Sorry 'bout that ;-)
I completed the ride a couple of weeks ago and, as an occasional poster
here, just to show I wasn't trolling, I've stuck a few details on my
website: www.fulker.org. For anyone given to random acts of
philanthropy, it also includes a link to justgiving.com & the charity
for which I was raising funds.
There are enough tedious LEJOG reports in existence already so I won't
bore you too much here. But for anyone who fancies giving it a go, it's
a great experience, and I'd echo many people's sentiments when they say
that it's not really about physical fitness. I only managed a couple of
training rides and completed the trip in under 2 weeks. I suffered with
my knees a bit, so I should perhaps have taken flatter route. But
that's not the sort of thing you find out until it's too late :-(
It was nice to remind myself that the world we live in is nothing like
that as described by the Daily Mail, although I would probably have
slapped Nigel Havers for good measure had I met him en-route. In 971
miles I was only cut up once by a driver, and even he apologised for it.
My faith in humanity was restored by the number of people who were
prepared to take me at face value when I said I was riding to raise
money for my disabled son's school, and who were prepared to give cash
to a total stranger. Perhaps they took pity on me cos I looked so
knackered.
I managed to get a first class sleeper train back, which was nice.
Unfortunately my bike didn't, and had to travel back by courier.
So, a great experience and, despite vowing never to do it again, I'm
already getting all misty-eyed about how little time I had to spend in
some of the places I stopped and how great it would be to do it again
but to take more time...