In addition to the dedication to sampling local ales, we tried to partake of local/regional food wherever possible. Not quite as successful, but we did manage the following:

Scottish Shortbread – all through Scotland
Scotch Pies – wherever we found them
Oatcakes – Muir of Ord
Haggis (and chips) – Fort William
Isle of Skye Black Pudding – Glencoe
Bridies – New Cumnock
Assorted Jalfrezi’s – Gourock
Kendall mintcake – Kendall
Filled Yorkshire Puds -Warrington (well it’s close-ish)
Cornish Pasties – Land’s End

Unfotunately didn’t stop in Chorley for Chorley cakes…..

Part of our challenge incorporated the need to replenish liquids and carbohydrates. There is no better way to do this than that old British faithful – beer!. In the spirit of the journey, we made a serious effort to sample local ales wherever possible.
This wasn’t always so easy to achieve, but special mention goes to two places in particular:
Firstly, the Claghaig Inn in Glencoe (the village that is, not the vale of Glen Coe). They had a fantastic range of ales (we duly sampled the lot), confusingly renamed for the night with ridiculous Aussie titles, to complement the Aussie folk band who entertained us so well.
Secondly Base Camp Monmouth, where Paul had gone to lengths to search out some local bottled ales for us to relax with (credit also to the policies of the Waitrose Beer buyers in supporting local breweries – just as important as supporting local farmers in my book)

Anyway, here’s the list for any beer addicts to salivate over:

Deuchars IPA (Caledonian Brewery)
Tennents Ember 80/- (Wellpark, Glasgow)
Red Cuillin (Isle of Skye Brewing Company)
Tradewinds ( Cairngorm Brewery, Inverness)
Black & Tan (Houston Brewing Co., Houston, Renfrewshire)
Seven Giraffes (Williams Bros. Brewing Co. Alloa)
Skye light (Isle of Skye Brewing Company)
Rambo the Mighty Midge (Houston Brewing Co., Houston, Renfrewshire)
Peter’s Well (Houston Brewing Co., Houston, Renfrewshire
Belhaven Best (Belhaven Brewery)
Ball’s Up – Tirril Brewery, Cumbria
Traditional Cumberland Ale – Jennings Brewery, Cockermouth
Bombardier (Charles Wells)
Cotleigh Kiwi (Cotleigh Brewery, Wiveliscombe, Somerset)
Wye Valley HPA (Wye Valley Brewery, Stoke Lacy, Herefordshire)
Ludlow Best (Ludlow Brewing Co.)
Butty Bach (Wye Valley Brewery, Stoke Lacy, Herefordshire)
Wild Hare (Bath Ales, Warmley, Bristol)
Dorothy Goodbody’s Country Ale (Wye Valley Brewery, Stoke Lacy, Herefordshire)
1503 (Kingstone Brewery, Tintern, Monmouth )
Barnstormer (Bath Ales, Warmley, Bristol)
Classic Bitter (Kingstone Brewery, Tintern, Monmouth )
Hobgoblin (Wychwood Brewery, Witney, Oxfordshire)
Lizard Bitter (Lizard Ales, St Keverne, Lizard peninsula)
Doom Bar (Sharps Brewery, Rock, Cornwall)

Ian sampled two local malts in Lochmaben (sorry, dinna ken the names) and when times were hard, we made do with Stella, Murphy’s, Strongbow & Kronenburg. A job well done I reckon……..

Hi all, incase you were after more photographic proof of our escapades I’ve just uploaded a big batch of photo’s to our flickr page:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28276768@N06/

Yes, we finally completed our self set task by all successfully completing the BUPA Great Capital 10k run in Hyde park yesterday. Despite a full set of achilles, ankle and knee problems we all somehow actually managed to run it, and all in quite respectable times too…. quite amazing really.
Pictorial proof will follow shortly, which I’ll leave up to David’s technical wizardry.

For the record, we set off from John o’Groats at 6am on Sunday 6th July and reached our destination at land’s End at 11:28 on Wednesday 16th. 10 days, 5 hours 28 mins later. A grand total of 1017.88 miles, 87 hours of actual cycling and an average moving speed of 11.7mph. Way too many hills to accurately recall……

Highest point reached was Shap summit, a smidgeon over 1400 ft. Lowest point, possibly Ian’s 8th puncture, in the rain, somewhere around Dumfries!

Fastest speed achieved collectively, 35 mph, on the downhill approach to Milton, near Drumnadrochit and Castle Urqhart on the north side of Loch Ness. Would have been a lot quicker if the gps wasn’t on my bike and I’m a bit of a coward when it comes to hurtling down hills, with S bends, in the rain, on skinny tyres, with half a hundredweight on the back. I recall descending all the way down from Shap summit with my brakes hard on, spray everywhere, and still doing about 30… Ian may well have been faster down some descents.
I did record 40.6 briefly on a madcap late night dash to Heads of Ayr campsite, in total darkness, but thats another story.

Lowest speed…… lots of 5mph’s up lots of hills!

I’m now hobbling around like the geriatric old man I’m fast becoming (the run has finished off my achilles tendon properly), but was it worth it?. Of course it was!

We left the tent erected and went light to Lizard Point, the five mile burn was exhilerating both fast and furious and I enjoyed every minute of it. The view was staggering and we could see Land’s End from a vantage on the way through. It was a reality now, we were on our way home for sure today, I could run the distance if anything went wrong. We left Lizard Point and made our way back to camp, baguettes stuffed with bacon, eggs and sausage would be waiting for us.

We arrived back to find that there were no baguettes stuffed with bacon, eggs and sausage waiting for us, well thats a lie there were but only the baguette was cooked. I bought my baguette and munched my way through it, it was still delicious even if not stuffed with bacon, eggs and sausage. The ironic thing was as we were leaving the site the woman said here boys what are you doing, we played our card and she said ‘oh, if I’d known I would have cooked you baguettes stuffed with bacon, eggs and sausage’, I could have cried.

With a hole in my stomach we made our way directly north again towards Penzance, we passed through RNAS Culdrose and Helston and then headed north west to Goldsithney. I was storming until my left knee cap popped forwards on a hill just outside Helston, we only had twenty miles to go and I don’t know why it did it then, as my knee’s had ached since the first day, but now was the time and I was in excruciating pain. I tried to box the pain but it wouldn’t park and it just wouldn’t go away, I tried focussing on other things but found myself almost crying when thinking about my Nan, Nellie was the one I’d always called first when I’d done something stupid like this, she always liked my mad world. before I knew it we were on a flat stretch and I managed to hit Penzance without too much incident. We then tried to obtain some caffeine but the local tesco didn’t have a coffee shop, so we soldiered on without baguettes stuffed with bacon, eggs and sausage, and now without coffee.

I started day dreaming more and found myself off the pace, struggling up mounds of dirt, thinking about the kids, my Fluffy and completely losing the plot, I had to focus and then we hit the seven mile marker. That was it, we were nearly home, David and Mark had stopped to talk to Claire and I asked to carry on, they caught up in no time and we were very shortly on our approach to Land’s End. Its a weird feeling on the run in, suddenly all the road signs are limited from three or four Towns either side, to one or two, and then just one – Land’s End. A mile out and we formed a chain and rode in together. We approached the gates at a gentle pace and saw the gang at the finishing post. For a moment we thought we’d have to divert or even stop, but the security guard made his way over to unlink a chain to allow us through, I blew him a kiss, don’t know why, and high fived him on the way through, he was chuffed to bits for some reason, and let out a whooah! May be he was American or just felt sorry for me, or may be it was the beard, anyway, in one long line we rode in together and let out our cheers, we’d done it and we were in the club.

We did some modeling for the camera’s and then Mike treated us to Cornish Pasties and coffee, they were delicious and cemented the event for me. We were then subjected to more modeling and then we signed our names in the club book before hitting the shops.

We were then escorted back to the car where we were forced to drink champagne, I love champagne, and then we had an emotional moment when we were each given a beautiful plaque marking the ocassion, it bowled us over completely, the generosity, the event and the pain all rolled into one, and even a hard nosed fat boy tree swinging rugby playing assassin like me had trouble hiding the tears, but the protective sun glasses had worked after all.

I have so many people to thank that I’d be here forever, and I can’t do that, you know who you all are, and yes thats everyone, I love you all and thanks for all your support.

All the best.

Ian.

Here’s to riding the three peak challenge…

Distance cycled 50 miles.

Time 3 hours 29 minutes.

Heart rate average 120 beats per minute.

Calorie expenditure 2,022.

Fat percentage of energy during exercise 55%.

I had a lovely nights sleep again, the bed was amazing and I felt refreshed and invigorated in the morning. Completely replenished it was a shame to leave the gang as it reminded me so much of home again.

It was a shame to leave Mike and Kathy’s without spending good time with them, I love their company and Rach and I have spent many an hour chewing the fat with them both.

We left MKM’s quite late but got into rhythm very quickly, we pushed hard down through Copplestone, North Tawton, Okehampton, Launceston, Bodmin and Indian Queens, where we stopped for fuel. A large MacDonalds Big Mac meal squared I was ready for the next stage. I had trouble today with the hardware, the rear wheel had buckled slightly the evening before and the vibration was difficult to ignore. The steering required correction all the time and with the weight wind gusts tended to throw me sideways and it required ultimate concentration. The A30 is not really built to allow such situations but there is little I could do but push on as hard as I could. I was definitely off the ideal pace today but the energy was definitely there.

Having refueled we pushed on to Redruth and then Helston, beautiful countryside and great scenery, quite flat and passing RNAS Culdrose we knew we were nearing our last overnight stop.

We were welcomed to the campsite and was told of a fantastic breakfast facility, baguettes stuffed with bacon, eggs and sausage, served from 08:00 and were drueling at the prospect.

We popped into Cury for a gastronomic delight and enjoyed a few local brews.

Distance cycled 103 miles.

Time 10 hours 10 minutes.

Heart rate average 125 beats per minute.

Calorie expenditure 6,448.

Fat percentage of energy during exercise 50%.

The alarm call drew me back to life, and fully resuscitated with tea, I packed up my kit and enjoyed two masterpiece sausage sandwiches. We said our goodbyes and made our way to my foremost milestone, the River Severn.

We headed south through Redbrook, Newland, Whitebrook, Llandogo and then we hit the mountains hills at Tintern Abbey, I remember taking the Mother in Law (Julie) and Mrs here a few years ago and commented that I’m glad I wasn’t riding my bike up here, strange how comments come back to haunt you. I had my crash here, being a bit weird I tried to lean over the stone barrier stopping cars falling to oblivion, and peer down the shere drop beneath us, whilst doing so I whacked the barrier with my pannier and roll mat and nearly bounced into the side of an Iveco lorry, not my smartest moment by far but the view down was awesome all the same, still I survived again.

Excitement over, the route to Chepstow though was excellent, down hill pretty much all the way and then we approached the truly magnificant Severn Bridge.

We stopped briefly on the approach to discuss where the pictures would be taken, then too my horror I was virtually half way across when I realised Mark and David had already stopped, and were merrily taking snaps of the moment. We met at half way and enjoyed the moment as team Madelin.

Having enjoyed the splendour around us we pushed on through Aust, Easter Compton, Avonmouth and Bristol. Quite hilly terrain we headed south slightly along the A38 through Abbots Leigh, Upper Town, Langford, Sidcot, Badgworth and Tarnock to Highbridge. This part of the journey felt like a long haul through Bridgwater, Taunton, Wellington to Tiverton where we stopped for fuel. The result of the effort was a short stint to our next stop.

I stupidly left the MacDonalds without sufficient fueling and the next twenty miles hurt big time, low on energy I started to slow down, I drank my water and scoffed sweets but I couldn’t keep the usual pace, I drank some of David’s spare water and then finally my body responded and we cracked on to my Uncle Mike and Aunty Kathy’s.

We arrived late and tired but it was so good to see the gang, my Cousin Matty is a propper little chap now and is picking up some of Kathy’s Kathism’s. It is just being with your brothers and sisters at home for Christmas, and a little like being in a cyclone when they work on you, but its all good fun and very very amusing. You can try to keep you head down or fight your corner but either way you’ve got to enjoy it.

Distance cycled 123 miles.

Time 13 hours 1 minutes.

Heart rate average 118 beats per minute.

Calorie expenditure 7,318.

Fat percentage of energy during exercise 55%.

We took it very easy today, not by choice as we hoped to stage an even couple of days, but with the camping predicament yesterday we were left with little or no option.

The route started at the Craven Arms and then we encountered a number of inclines through Ludlow, Leominster, Hereford, Callow, Kingsthorne, St Weonards and Llancloudy. We then passed into Wales and through Buckholt, Dixton and Monmouth, where we diverted out to Dingestow.

We arrived at camp Dingestow quite early in the day and were greeted by my Uncle Paul, I’m very lucky with family and friends, he’s a great relative and a very good friend and in some ways helped forge my career. When I was a mere tadpole I remember visiting places where he worked with my Dad, and he would simply create the most delicious culinary delights out of what seemed like thin air, ten minutes of gentle mixing, stirring and baking, and out would pop the most incredible dishes. I was always amazed by the feat and wanted to emulate him. Paul and my Aunty Sue are great company and my gang always enjoy spending time with them, nothing is ever an issue, they love kids and are always easy going.

Anyway, we arrived and he whacked on a brew, some bacon and within minutes we were scoffing a double helping of sandwiches, and yes they were delicious. I spent a little time on my bike, servicing the brakes, gears and chain, things start to loosen after seven hundred miles or so. After servicing the bike I started on my knee and achilles, I’d been doing the daily rub with deep heat but gave it a severe massaging to stimulate the healing process, it hurt but I’d benefit later.

With the afternoon off we piled into Paul’s car and experienced the exhilerating phenomenon of driving fast again, it was great going at forty plus but the route we had riden took only seconds in the car, and it made me feel a little dejected. We popped to the local Waitrose to stock up on provisions, with staples acquired we returned to camp.

The last camper van had moved and we had finally cleared the corner we were based in, not even the kids were riding passed us now, time to clean my kit I think.

We enjoyed a sumptuous pasta meal and copious amounts of fluid, and completely obliterated I hit my pit and snored for Britain.

Distance cycled 56 miles.

Time 5 hours 24 minutes.

Heart rate average 116 beats per minute.

Calorie expenditure 2,864.

Fat percentage of energy during exercise 55%.