tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46965856711103875232024-03-04T21:12:13.437-08:00Penny farthing madnessDavephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.comBlogger100125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696585671110387523.post-4575606781879000032016-02-25T13:04:00.001-08:002016-02-25T13:04:54.580-08:00Day 15 penny farthing LEJOG<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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After another brilliant breakfast we got ready to leave for our final day on the road. We hadn't asked how much the b&b was going to cost us but after 2 weeks on the road we had a fairly good idea. We were in for a shock, everywhere we stayed had been good value, but a new standard was about to be set. They were so impressed by our journey all they asked for was a token amount to go towards paying for our breakfast!</div>
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We paid our tiny bill and said our goodbyes, hitting the road feeling slightly guilty that we'd been treated so well and for so little payment.</div>
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As we rolled out of Helmsdale we once again chatted about how we would celebrate in John O'Groats. We were both excited about finishing the ride and I for one was really looking forward to a lazy day tomorrow.</div>
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Seeing the signpost for John O'Groats was a lovely moment, I guess lots of cyclists probably have a photo similar to the one above.</div>
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The road away from Helmsdale was a tough one with lots of hills that were too big for me to ride. Our progress was slow but it was a beautiful morning and today's distance was short so we didn't stress about our tortoise like average speed. We walked a bit and cycled a bit, stopped for a few photos and gradually made our way towards John O'Groats. </div>
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At one point we cycled through a police speed trap, I was clocked at 9 mph so no further action was taken! We had a brief stop in Wick for food and also posted a few photos on Facebook. I tweeted an update with our ETA in John O'Groats and then we moved on.</div>
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The road leading from John O'Groats was busy with fresh faced cyclists who were just starting out on their end to end adventures. I was excited for them but glad my ride was coming to an end. It had been a hard two weeks of very long days in the saddle. One of the cyclists just starting out had been following my penny farthing ride on twitter and when he spotted me he stopped for a chat and a photo. Embarrassingly for me I was pushing and not riding my bike when we met. The hills were too much for my tired legs, the final day was proving to be a tough one. </div>
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Above is the photo Jason took and later emailed to me, his ride went well and I think he finished inside 9 days. Like a lot of end to enders he also raised a huge amount of money for his chosen charity.</div>
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At this point my fundraising was also going well, my just giving page was at around £2000 with donations coming in from friends and strangers alike. I even had one anonymous donation for £100.00. I thought this was incredibly generous, Mickey thought it was more likely that they had intended to donate £10.00 but had put the decimal point in the wrong place.</div>
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Our tired legs eventually passed the final signpost to our target and the efforts of the last 2 weeks were soon to be rewarded, I couldn't wait to step off my bike for the final time.</div>
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The moment when we eventually rolled into John O'Groats was a memorable one, Mickey captured the moment on camera and our ride was almost complete. There was still time for another surprise though. The first building that we passed on our way into the village was the John O'Groats guest house, the b&b that we were due to stay in that night. As we approached we could see some people outside of the building. The owners of the b&b were waiting to welcome us, and even better they popped the cork out of a champagne bottle to greet us!</div>
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It was such a nice gesture and a memory I will never forget. When me and Mickey finished our first end to end in 2003 I remember John O'Groats as being a bit of an anticlimax but this time it really was a warm welcome at the end of a very long road. We stopped for a few minutes before being encouraged to carry on and get that final photo by the famous sign post.</div>
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So there we have it, 970 miles and 15 days after we set of we had made it! I was now in a rather exclusive club of people who had done the end to end on a penny farthing. It's not clear how many people alive today have ever done this but from my research I think it's only about 10. It's an achievement that I am very proud of but I'm also fully aware that without Mickey's help I would never have made it, so I owe him big time. All those years ago when I first bought the bike I said one day I would do it and now I had achieved it. All that was left to do was to let people know, I phoned my wife, tweeted a photo and uploaded my final day to strava before sitting down for a coffee in the cafe.</div>
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My phone then started to go wild! I was getting text messages from friends and tweets from all over the world! Notifications from my just giving page were coming in so regularly it was starting to flatten my battery!</div>
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There was only one thing left to do, get back to the b&b to start the celebrations!</div>
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Our hosts welcomed us back like long lost friends and after a quick shower we were treated to some fantastic home cooked food with the other guests joining us at the table.</div>
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The company was great and the beer had never tasted so good, our ride was done and at last we could relax. It was the perfect end to our adventure. Looking back on the ride now I have some fantastic memories but this final night really stands out. Mary and Mark at the John O'Groats guest house could not have done any more to make us feel welcome. Of all of the places we stayed, and we stayed in some brilliant ones, this final place was easliy the best. If ever you get the chance to stay here you really should, one day I hope to travel back to see them, but when I do you can rest assured I won't be cycling there on a penny farthing!</div>
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<br />Davephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696585671110387523.post-68223350326533319182016-02-24T11:52:00.001-08:002016-02-24T11:52:10.737-08:00Day 14 penny farthing LEJOGWe were so close to the finish of our ride now. I was exceptionally tired and looking at myself in the mirror before we left the hotel it was obvious for all to see.<br />
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While I was feeling very second hand my bike just kept absorbing the miles. We'd covered almost 900 miles and apart from some wear to the front tyre my bike looked as good as new.<br />
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When I was planning the ride I was quite concerned about how the bike would hold up but I needn't have worried. It was almost certainly going to get me all the way to the finish.<br />
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Every year hundreds of people do an end to end ride. Some go from south to north like I did and others go north to south. Today as we were nearing the end of our ride we bumped into some people who was just starting theirs, going in the other direction. One of the riders turned out to be a TV celebrity and while I looked and felt completely shattered they looked fresh and had the whole of their adventure to come.</div>
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As our fellow end to end riders approached us they spotted my bike and stopped to say hi. It wasn't an unexpected encounter as in previous days I'd been looking on twitter to see how other people's rides were going. When I discovered there was a chance our paths would cross I sent a good luck message. They responded to this and were amazed that I was on a penny farthing.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtmBU20e835OG6hODdNOnV7N5qa9iGw8coQq6ll3pSv5zZ2if5U4Kv7z6Xhyphenhyphen0_HnDQIPTgm6UA2kYDTtOlNfJmMriGshS7ZZkLjwNy3Yx-WeJkF3sV1T24qAv0OD4Femv6jiqMb_BRT4Q/s1600/DSC04567.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtmBU20e835OG6hODdNOnV7N5qa9iGw8coQq6ll3pSv5zZ2if5U4Kv7z6Xhyphenhyphen0_HnDQIPTgm6UA2kYDTtOlNfJmMriGshS7ZZkLjwNy3Yx-WeJkF3sV1T24qAv0OD4Femv6jiqMb_BRT4Q/s320/DSC04567.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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So there you have it, I rode 900 miles to meet Fern Britton, and very nice she was too. We chatted for a while and both took some photos before cycling off in different directions.</div>
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The good weather continued, even if it was a little cold. At one point I stopped to tweet my picture of me and Fern and I also sent a message to a cycling friendly cafe in Helmsdale to check how long they were open for if we called in for food. They quickly got back to me and also asked me if we had any accommodation organised. I responded that our plan was to find a b&b close to Helmsdale once we arrived in the village. Almost as soon as I'd sent the message they replied saying they would find us somewhere to stay. This was brilliant news and it really took the pressure off for the remainder of the day. </div>
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We rolled into Helmsdale and made our way to the cafe, the thyme and plaice, greeted us with open arms and fed us well. Soon we were being introduced to the owners of the local b&b where we would be staying. It was only about half a mile from the cafe so after a short ride, and push up a big hill, we found our bed for the night.</div>
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It was a lovely spot, high on the hill side looking out over the sea. The room was perfect and we settled down for an early night.</div>
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Day 14 was another long day, but we were now very close to our goal. The final day would also be a shorter day so hopefully we would finish in good time to be able to celebrate in style!</div>
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Davephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696585671110387523.post-46731184905957916372016-02-24T10:57:00.001-08:002016-02-24T10:57:47.559-08:00Day 13 penny farthing lejogThe bad and changeable weather of the last few days now seemed to be behind us and we woke up to a glorious morning.<br />
The breakfast at the clan macduff was excellent, we started with porridge, moved on to a full cooked breakfast including haggis and finished with toast and jam. With plenty of energy on board we set out for another long day.<br />
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As we cycled through Fort William we called in at the train station. We were having a few problems finding a rental van to get home so we thought the train might be an option. When I asked the question at the station the guy on the ticket desk said we could travel back by train no problem, but they couldn't guarantee to have space to transport our bikes. He also had serious doubts about even getting my penny farthing on one of the smaller trains that run out of Wick. So we left and rode on, still uncertain how we were going to return home.</div>
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Just outside Fort William is a wonderful memorial to the commandos who lost their lives in the second world war. We were lucky to have great weather for a photo, the setting in the mountains is breathtaking.</div>
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If you ever get the chance to go and take in the view yourself you should. This part of Scotland is so beautiful.</div>
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We moved on from the memorial and carried on heading north, getting ever closer to our goal. It was looking like we would reach John O'Groats on day 15, we were both confident of this so as we cycled on we chatted about how we were going to celebrate once we got there.</div>
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Having done the end to end once before we were both well aware that John O'Groats isn't exactly party capital of the world, so our plans were not that grand. Ideally we wanted to find accommodation in John O'Groats so that we didn't have to turn around and cycle straight off again. We decided that as long as we had a bed, a bar that served alcohol and some food then that would do for us. Our plan was to get on line tonight and try to book something, as well as try to plan a way home. </div>
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Today's cycling was not too strenuous, the roads were undulating but without too many big hills. The road we followed from Fort William towards Inverness never strayed far from the side of one Loch or another. We kept a lookout for the Loch Ness monster but today Nessie was being shy.</div>
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Unfortunately we were getting a bit pushed for time when we cycled past the various Loch Ness museums and we didn't have time to call in.</div>
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After following the Lochs for much of the day we turned away from Loch Ness and we were immediately greeted by a monster! A monster of a hill that is, one of the worst of the whole journey! I had no option but to get off and push and Mickey decided to take the same action. Although Mickey's bike was lightweight his luggage was not and after almost two weeks of dragging our belongings with him this hill got the better of him. For me it was nice to have some company on the long slow walk.</div>
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Soon after we creasted the hill we started looked for somewhere to stay. Tonight our requirements were much the same as every other night but we also were looking for Wi-Fi. We need to look for accommodation at John O'Groats and hopefully book this in advance as we really wanted to finish our cycling as soon as we got to the famous sign post. We also still had to organise transport home.</div>
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The Lovat arms provided everything we needed, and was exceptionally good value too. We ate at the hotel and drank a few pints of beer as we searched the net. The search for accommodation at John O'Groats was successful, a guest house that had a twitter page had frequently been favouriting my tweets so I sent them a hopeful tweet. Almost immediately they got back to me and insisted we stay with them!</div>
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The best we could come up with for transport home was to hire a car one way from Wick airport, then buy a bike rack from Argos in Wick and hope for the best that we could somehow mount my penny farthing to the rack for the 750 mile drive back home. We booked a hire car and reserved two bike racks at Argos. We figured that once we'd finished the ride we would get a taxi back to Wick to pick up the car then drive to argos and buy the cheap bike rack, put it together in the car park, if it looked good then we'd not bother with the other one, drive back to the b&b, load the bikes up and head home.</div>
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The journey was almost over and my body was certainly ready for a rest!</div>
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<br />Davephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696585671110387523.post-27541900258494798772016-02-22T14:16:00.001-08:002016-02-22T14:31:29.602-08:00Day 12 penny farthing LEJOGIt was another grey and damp start to the day. We ate another excellent breakfast and soon made our way outside. It was raining heavily again today but we had no choice but to carry on.<br />
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The roads that followed the shore of Loch Lomond were undulating but all perfectly ridable. Although the weather was shocking we were making good progress and I was averaging 12 mph for the first time on the trip.<br />
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The main road we were following, the A82, was providing some beautiful scenery through a very remote area but shops and food stops were going to be few and far between. So we stopped and stocked up on food as soon as we passed one. The weather was still bad and we were about to start climbing so there was every chance the rain could turn to snow.<br />
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We forced down some cake and bought other food to take with us, if we were going to get caught out in a snow storm at the very least we didn't want to be without food.<br />
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Fortunately as we started to climb the mountain road towards Glen Coe the clouds started to break up. Although we were gaining altitude the gradient of the road was not that servere and I was able to ride 90% of the time. We were making good progress, it was such a releaf that the weather has changed for the better. I can imagine that this part of an end to end ride could be awful in bad conditions but today it was looking good.<br />
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The scenery here is fantastic, there were signs of recent snow on the mountain tops which made for some great photos.</div>
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As well as stopping to take plenty of photos we passed the time by planning how we were going to get home once we reached John O'Groats. Now we were getting close we felt confident enough to book something for a particular date. We decided our options were either a train journey or one way van hire.</div>
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We came to the conclusion that one way van hire from wick airport was our best option and as soon as we found a place to stay that night we'd Google our options.</div>
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Back to the riding and it was just beautiful mountain after beautiful mountain. The best part was I was able to ride all of the time. The road snaked its way past the biggest mountains and although we were climbing for a large part of the day the gradient remained shallow and rideable.<br />
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We'd been cycling for about 4 hours and we'd not seen any other cyclists, then on the horizon I could make out a figure on a bike.</div>
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As the rider got closer I couldn't believe my eyes, it was superman! Or to be more accurate it was super cycling man and he had just started his adventure.. He was aiming to be the first person to ride around the world while dressed as superman. I bloody love stuff like this! What a hero! As I type this, almost a year after I finished my ride, superman is still on the road and he still keeps in touch with me. People like this guy make the world a better place. </div>
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I waved superman goodbye and we wished each other good luck for the rest of our respective journies. After many hours of gradual climbing we crossed the summit of Rannock moor and started to descend</div>
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The only thing that was slowing our progress was the constant stops to take photos. For me, this is the most beautiful part of the whole 1000 mile ride.</div>
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Mickey was also enjoying today, the lack of town traffic and nice quiet roads made for a relaxing day. It was easy for us both to ride at our own pace and not run the risk of getting lost as there is literally only one road. We decided that we would try to end our day in fort William.</div>
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If you get the chance to go to this part of Scotland you must. Words can't explain how beautiful it is.</div>
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It was hard to believe that when we set out this morning the weather was dreadful. For most of the day we had bright sunshine but the weather had one last laugh at us late in the day. As we cycled off the mountain road it poored with rain, Mickey was ahead of me as I had to keep my speed under control on the descent. We had planned to split up on the downhill and then regroup at the first petrol station that we passed.</div>
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By the time I caught up with Mickey I was frozen, my gloves were soaked and I couldn't feel my hands. Fortunately this petrol station had a toilet and that had a hot air hand dryer. I spent about 10 minutes warming up under this while Mickey bought us a coffee each. The final thing I did before cycling on was to take some of the disposable gloves they provide at diesel pumps. My gloves were still soaking so I used the disposable gloves as a liner, it worked to a point and was certainly better than doing nothing.</div>
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At long last we rolled into Fort William and set about finding somewhere to stay.</div>
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We picked out a prime spot on the road into the village. We decided to stay at the clan macduff hotel. We had stayed here before on our first end to end in 2003 and it was lovely. Good food, good beer and a fantastic location.</div>
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Just look at that view from the bar!</div>
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So the day was over, looking back on the journey now we both agree that this was the best day we had. It started out in grim weather and we were uncertain how much progress we would make. It finished up being a thoughly enjoyable day in beautiful scenery.</div>
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<br />Davephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696585671110387523.post-44717210274926801482016-02-20T15:03:00.000-08:002016-02-20T15:03:06.628-08:00Day 11 , penny farthing LEJOGAfter the tough finish to yesterday's ride we had hoped to wake up to better weather today. I drew back the curtains and tentatively looked outside, at least it wasn't snowing. However, it wasn't great news. Hail stones had replaced the snow and the sky looked full of it. We put the TV to watch the weather forecast in the hope that it was going to clear up but it looked bad all day.<br />
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We had no choice, we were just going to have to get going and hope for the best. We needed luck to be on our side today but 100 yards into our journey our luck ran out. At the first road island we came to disaster struck. I was first on the road and had already made my way into the busy flow of traffic. Mickey was close behind but when i looked back he had stopped in the middle of the road junction. Cars and lorries were all around him but he wasnt going anywhere fast. His chain had snapped right at the worst possible moment.<br />
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He managed to avoid getting run over and made his way to the side of the road, I made my way through the traffic and joined him. We had some tools with us so we found the chain splitter and I set about fixing the broken chain, in a hail storm. I'm quite good with a chain tool as I use them all the time at work so I soon had the chain repaired. Even though it was a quick pit stop my hands were now freezing. We needed to get moving, this was no fun anymore, after 100 yards of cycling we both wanted the day to be over.</div>
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We rode on, the hail turned to rain and we both remained miserable. We took shelter under a bridge in the hope the rain would stop but it just kept coming down. The next couple of hours were the longest and toughest of the journey far. The roads were not difficult but the weather was really getting to us. Mickey's hands had gone so cold he resorted to putting his spare socks over them as well as his gloves.<br />
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Finding shelter became the theme of the day, as previously recommended to us bus shelters proved popular. Then later in the day railway bridges gave us some rest bite from the rain.<br />
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Eventually the rain eased and we were able to make reasonable progress. We found a good traffic free cycle path and made our way through Glasgow. We ended up going a bit further than we needed to but it avoided traffic. Mickey was pleased by this as he had less confidence in my chain repair than I did.</div>
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A short section of busy road led us to the Erskine bridge, with storm clouds still looming we crossed the bridge and continued on towards Loch Lomond.<br />
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As the scenery improved so did the weather, sunshine replaced the rain as we cycled along another nice cycle path into Argyll &Bute.</div>
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Tatty signpost welcomes us to a beautiful part of Scotland.</div>
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We arrived at the tip of Loch Lomond just before the tourist information office closed so I popped in and asked them if they knew of any accommodation on our route. A quick phone round had us booked in to what turned out to be one of the best places we stayed at. The inn on Loch Lomond in the village of Luss.<br />
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Our room was fantastic and our bikes got to stay in the beer cellar. The food was great and so was the whiskey. We'd made it though a hard day. Tomorrow was going to be equally tough as we had to cross the mountain range between the lochs but if we could do that and stay on schedule then the rest of the ride should be a piece of cake.<br />
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Another 70 + mile day. I'm glad our island isn't any bigger!</div>
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<br />Davephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696585671110387523.post-38408781229528361012016-02-20T13:36:00.000-08:002016-02-20T13:36:37.705-08:00Day 10' penny farthing LEJOG.We were both really looking forward to our first full day of cycling in Scotland and although the weather forecast was dreadful when we woke up we were greeted with clear blue sky.<br />
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Our first few miles of cycling were on nice quiet roads that were pleasing flat. We cycled on at a slow pace, enjoying the peaceful surroundings and stopped frequently to take photos.<br />
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After about an hour on the road we spotted our first cyclists of the day. The road was long and they were some way off but they were cycling towards us. The reaction I got from other cyclists was usually one of surprise and this time was no different. They were really pleased to bump into us as they had been following our ride on social media. A few of the other cyclists we met along the way had also heard of our ride but this couples story was a bit different as I knew of them as well.<br />
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Here we were, 500 odd miles from home and I'd bumped into Mark and Anne Brazier. My link to them was through a mutual friend, Simon Wix. It's complicated, but the shortened version ( and even this isn't that short) of how we knew of each other goes a bit like this.<br />
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One November Simon, who i knew through competing against him in local time trial cycle races, was cycling some huge distances each day in a bid to become the rider with the highest monthly total of mileage in the world. At this point i didn't know Mark or Anne. Simon was uploading his rides to the web site strava and competition for the top spot was fierce. To start with the top spot was changing hands between about 3 or 4 riders from all areas of the world. After about a week the battle for the top spot looked to be btween two riders, Simon and one other guy. I was looking at the web site every day to see how Simon was getting on and after about another week of watching I noticed something strange. As soon as Simon uploaded his ride for the day his main rival would immediately post a ride a couple of miles longer. Sometimes Simon would go back out and do another ride, and we're not talking about a spin around the block. He was doing 150 miles and then doing another 50 odd in the evening to try and stay ahead. Even after doing this his rival would always post another ride to beat him. After about a week of this it got even stranger, the rival rider started to post exact duplicates of very long rides, sometimes 200 miles plus. It looked to me as if the other guy was somehow uploading rides without actually riding them and Simon was almost killing himself in an attempt to keep up. So I posted on my Facebook page and asked friends to take a look to see if they thought it was suspect. Everyone did, so I contacted strava and asked them to look into it. To cut an already long story short, independently Mark Brazier was also lobbying strava to investigate and a combination of both of us pressuring them got them to look at it. It turned out the rival rider was actually not cycling anywhere near the distances it appeared. Strava were able to tell from the data he uploaded that he was faking his rides and Simon had been cycling himself into the ground to beat this Muppet. anyway, Simon won the competition fair and square after looking like he was going to miss out and he thanked me and Mark for getting involved. Simon put us in touch with each other and we became friends.<br />
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Mark and Anne are serious mile munching cyclists, they do far more miles in a year than I do but they were seriously impressed with my progress on the penny farthing. To get recognition from people like this was great. After chatting for a while Mark shared with us his advice on how to avoid the worst of the forecast bad weather. His advice was to stick to bus routes as the roads will be gritted and ice free. Bus routes also bring bus shelters that we could take cover in. Other places he suggested that would make suitable shelters included domestic wheelie bins, hopefully we wouldn't get that desperate!<br />
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Everyone kept telling us the weather was going to be bad but that seemed hard to believe, as we cycled through Dumfries it was a beautiful day and the miles were rolling past with no worries at all.<br />
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We soon passed into another county, my bikes problems from the lake district were a distant memory and apart from a little saddle discomfort I was having a good day on the bike. My average speed was good at just over 10 mph and I felt the best I had in days. I had become so used to riding the penny farthing it didn't seem unusual to me at all. I was really enjoying the ride today, then it started to rain.</div>
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The rain got heavier and it suddenly went very cold. We were on fairly busy roads at this point and the traffic had managed to split us up. Mickey was somewhere in front of me so I kept pushing on, keeping a look out for him in bus shelters and wheelie bins.</div>
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Then things went from bad to worse, it started to snow. The temperature had dropped and there was still no sign of mickey. I was sure I hadn't cycled past him so I continued on. We had covered about 50 miles at this point so we were some way short of our planned stop at 70 miles. It was too cold to stop riding and with no cover I rode on. Eventually I came across a bus shelter so I pulled over and phoned Mickey. Somehow I'd managed to cycle past him, he'd been waiting for me in a bus shelter that I hadn't noticed and somehow I'd cycled past him without either of us realising.</div>
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We decided the best thing to do was for us both to continue to ride, I would stick to the main road and go 8 mph or so and Mickey would at some point catch me up. So we both rode on alone, in the snow, for about an hour before we regrouped, both cold and wet and in a bad mood.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBFJv6_gpx1Z960ZR0_D015Q031q3dJ3ZlWwXMqEcLIjeyEfutyVeu7kQXGc4E_jgq6K0HmNxQxXzeudcbY3ZRYpth9HXVnnSbM0skX5cp1udxr8nxddLagfWmc03aTyIp3xsrqbgHFwI/s1600/DSC04507.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBFJv6_gpx1Z960ZR0_D015Q031q3dJ3ZlWwXMqEcLIjeyEfutyVeu7kQXGc4E_jgq6K0HmNxQxXzeudcbY3ZRYpth9HXVnnSbM0skX5cp1udxr8nxddLagfWmc03aTyIp3xsrqbgHFwI/s320/DSC04507.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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We both had enough for the day so we decided we would stop in the first accommodation that we passed, this turned out to be a travel lodge on the outskirts of Kilmarnock. We were both ready to stop, it had turned out to be a really hard day. The terrain wasn't a problem but the cold conditions had really taken it out of me. I was so glad to get out of my wet clothes and into the warm shower. Then it was time to eat.</div>
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The travel lodge kindly let us order some Chinese food to be delivered to our room, Mickey walked across the road to a garage for beers and we were set up for the night. I don't think I have ever eaten as much as I did that night. After the food I lay in bed unable to move, but I was warm and dry and I was one day closer to John O'Groats.</div>
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My attempt to dry my 10 day old, wet and smelly cycling clothes.</div>
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Another day done and dusted.</div>
<br />Davephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696585671110387523.post-11992153797281128712016-02-17T08:10:00.000-08:002016-02-17T11:02:35.555-08:00Day 9 penny farthing lejog<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
The familiar morning routine continued at 7:00am and we woke up to a beautiful day in the Lake district. Our hot buffet breakfast was amazing and I took full advantage of the calories on offer! It's amazing how much you can eat when you are cycle touring.</div>
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After breakfast we checked out and were reunited with our bikes that had been locked away in the guest house garage. Towards the end of yesterday I had noticed my rear wheel had gone slightly out of true so before setting off I got my spoke key out and did my first bit of maintenance in about 500 miles. 10 minutes later we were underway again, I was really looking forward to today as the Lake district is seriously beautiful and as an added bonus there was every chance that we might make it to Scotland by dark.</div>
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We'd been cycling for about 15 minutes when we encountered a rather unexpected problem, a cow had escaped from a field and was causing chaos on the road. I didn't fancy my chances against half a tonne of beef so I got off the bike and kept at a safe distance until the cow was recaptured.</div>
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The cow was relocated into a field and we cycled on. Or more acuratley I should say Mickey cycled on and I pushed up the hills, cycled a bit and pushed some more. At this stage of the journey I had come to terms with the slow progress and it didn't bother me. It did mean that Mickey and I ended up cycling alone for quite large periods of time as I just couldn't keep up. This worked out fine though as it gave Mickey plenty of time to stop now and again to check the map. Although we were both recording our rides to strava we chose not to follow a gps sat nav as we felt this takes away from some of the adventure of cycle touring.</div>
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The hilly terrain did provide us with ample opportunities to stop and take photos. I've been to the lake district quite a few times and this time we were so lucky with the weather. It can be pretty unpleasant but today we got lucky, but snow was forecast for tomorrow..</div>
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Considering we were cycling together for such a long time we haven't ended up with many photos with both of us in. This one was taken by a fascinated motorist who stopped to ask us about our journey.<br />
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After an hour or so our route must have taken us onto some roads that were being used for a local cycling event. Suddenly it wasn't just Mickey that was cycling past me, large groups of road cyclists shot by on the downhills. A few slowed up to chat to me and they asked how far I was going. I replied "today probably only about 60 miles." They were amazed and then one of them asked where I had come from. I replied, "well I started at lands end 9 days ago and I hope to be in John O'Groats in a further 5." They couldnt believe it!<br />
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The day was going well, it was slow progress but we were looking good to finish the day in Scotland. Then events took a turn for the unexpected. I was riding slowly up a gradual incline and I noticed I seemed to be having to fight the handlebars to keep the bike going in a straight line. To start with I thought it was just my arms getting tired, but the sensation continued even on the flat roads. I got off and checked the bike over but couldn't see anything obviously wrong so I remounted and continued.<br />
Mickey was some way ahead at this point as the hilly terrain had split us up, so I pushed on thinking that when we regrouped we could both take a look at the bike. Unfortunately I didn't ride the bike much further. Climbing up a slight gradient the steering almost locked solid and I had to jump off. It was now obvious something was not right. I phoned Mickey to ask him to stop and wait as I was going to have to walk to meet him. I wasn't carrying any tools other than a spoke key, Mickey had some in his panniers and I hoped that we could sort the problem out, but I wasn't that confident.<br />
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After a long walk of about 30 mins we regrouped and I set about dismantling the bike at the roadside.<br />
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I was quite worried about what I might find. There was clearly something wrong with the steering but the bike is so simple it doesn't even have any bearings in the head tube. Hopefully when I got it to pieces I would find it was just a lack of grease that was causing the problem but I couldn't help thinking it was something worse. If the steering tube was damaged in any way it was going to be ride over and the end of the adventure. I cleaned off the old grease and the steering taper looked fine, all I could do was reassemble everything and hope the new grease had sorted it.</div>
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After half an hour of roadside bike surgery the bike was ready for a test. I tentatively mounted the bike and started to pedal. To my releaf it seemed to be OK, our journey was not ending at the roadside outside a petrol station, we were good to ride on.</div>
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For the rest of the day we rode together just incase i had any more problems, Mickey waited for me on the hills and rode along slowly with me on the flat. My bike seemed to be fine and Scotland was only just around the corner.<br />
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The hills of the lake district were now behind us. Considering the tough terrain, and the unexpected mechanical, we had made great progress. England was done, I'd cycled the length of the country on my penny farthing and when we reached the welcome to Scotland sign post the enormaty of that achievement hit me. I was now a long, long way from home and although we still had some tough days ahead of us I felt for the first time that without doubt I would get to John O'Groats.<br />
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Although we had been on the road for a long time today we both felt strong and we pushed on. This first part of Scotland is fairly flat and we were keen to make progress. The weather today was good, a bit windy but not bad at all. Unfortunately, the forecast for tomorrow was not good. There was every chance we were going to get snowed on.</div>
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As we cycled on and passed the 60 mile mark for the day my legs stared to get tired, my legs suddenly felt weak. It was no surprise given the tough terrain of the lake district so we stopped, used my phone to get on line and found a local hotel that had a room for the night. The hotel turned out to be one of the best we stayed at all trip. At first glance, looking at it on the internet on my phone it just looked like a cheap place to stay. It was on offer at £39 a night in total for both of us including breakfast. I was tired and neither of us were fussy about where we stayed so we checked in.<br />
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As soon as we were inside it seemed too good to be true, a lovely spacious room and a really good shower. Our bikes stayed inside in an unused function room and they had a 3 course food menu on for £5:95 each. The food turned out to be lovely and the beer was fantastic, they could have charged us double and it would still have been excellent value.<br />
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So, England was done, and without too many difficulties. Hopefully our journey through Scotland would go just as well. So far apart from a few windy days we had been lucky with the weather, but that was about to change.<br />
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<br />Davephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696585671110387523.post-20663924779174406962016-02-13T13:46:00.000-08:002016-02-14T01:58:44.045-08:00Day 8 penny farthing lejogToday was going to be a big day as we would at last past the half way point on our journey to John O'Groats. I was really looking forward to this milestone as for the last few days I had felt like I wasn't getting much closer to the finish.<br />
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After our massive meal the previous night we decided to make an early start with the hope of finishing a little earlier. The weather was still OK, not as sunny as previous days but still pretty good. However, the forecast for the next few days wasn't looking promising with snow due the following day.<br />
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We had hoped that our early start would enable us to cover some good distance today so that we had the option of a shorter day later on if the weather really turned against us.<br />
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We cycled for about an hour before stopping at a roadside garage for some food. Despite his huge calorie intake from last night even Mickey was getting hungry! While we were eating our prepacked sandwiches at the garage a motorist came over to chat, he had seen us cycling yesterday and was curious as to where we were heading. When he found out we were doing end to end he quickly reached for his wallet and made a very generous donation to the charity.<br />
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I had chosen to raise money for the national deaf children's society as my wife was born deaf and she received a lot of help and support from them as a child. The fundraising was really starting to mount up now, at the half way point in the ride we had raised just over £1000. Most of this had be donated on line through my just giving page which I had promoted on my twitter page.<br />
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Quite a few famous people had helped to promote it by retweeting my links. From the cycling world I had retweets from loads of people including, Jens Voigt ( legendary tour de France rider and recent world hour record holder) and Graeme Obree ( another previous holder of the hour record).<br />
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At the time Obree was challenging for the hour record his main rival was Chris Boardman. Cycling fans were split about 50/50 in their support of each rider. I was very much in the Obree fan club. To me he was a hero, Boardman was an established pro rider and i had nothing against him but here was Obree beating him on a bike he built himself, famously using parts from his washing machine! Obree gave me hope that one day I might achieve great things on a bike, if he could do it then why couldn't someone like me? Of all the people who had noticed the tweets about my ride Obree was the one that really stood out. I might not have turned out to be much of a racing cyclist but to know that Obree was taking interest in my ride gave me massive motivation to get to John O'Groats.<br />
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Another cyclist who i really admired was also often retweeting my links. The rider was Michael Hutchinson, a time trial legend who attempted the hour record and just missed out before going on to write an excellent book about it called "the hour". Its one of my favourite books that I've ever read, I really like the way he writes. The list goes on and on, Tom Smith ( a successful deaf racing cyclist) was tweeting me encouragement, even Sir Chris Hoy gave me a retweet, I felt quite the celebrity!<br />
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It was great to know that these athletes who I looked up to were interested in my ride. I'd grown up cheering on Obree as he battled with Chris Boardman to break the world hour record. Jens Voigt was a true living legend, I'd watched and cheered for him on the slopes of French mountains as he dragged himself up those climbs. In British time trials Hutchinson was the man. At the point when I was starting to race he was winning everything, often by huge margins. I also really enjoyed his booked on the hour record and It was a real source of motivation to me that these people were interested in my challenge.<br />
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Anyway, back to the ride and for most of the day the weather held off and we again stayed dry, the beautiful scenery of Cumbria was helping to pass the time and almost before we realised it we were approaching the end of another long day.</div>
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For the last part of the day we were caught in two minds as to where our route should take us. The most direct way would have been up and over shap, but the daylight was fading. We decided that the sensible thing to do was to turn into the heart of the lake district and head for ambelside where we had a much better chance of finding accommodation.</div>
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As we made our way into the lake district we noticed that every b&b we passed had no vacancies. We rode into ambelside and although every other building seemed to be a b&b they all seemed to be full. After knocking on a few doors the first one we found that had a room was ridiculously expensive so we risked looking for another place. Our search eventually struck gold. A lovely b&b that did a hot, all you can eat buffet for breakfast. It was ideal so we checked in, had a quick shower and then went out to find a pub for food. </div>
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We made it through yet another day and we were now over half way through the trip. The cycling was going well but I was starting to feel really tired. I'd trained as hard as I could for the ride but its impossible to replicate back to back 9 hour days on the bike when you also have to work full time. I didn't feel like I had any particular injuries but I was seriously drained. As much as I wanted to stay out for a few beers each night it was all I could do to stay awake long enough to eat. I'd done the end to end once before but on a modern bike. The first time I rode it in 2003 I was nowhere near as fit as I was for this ride but I had found it much easier back then. I guess 120 years of progress in bicycle design had something to do with this.</div>
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So it was back to the room to sleep again. Eat, ride, sleep, repeat.</div>
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<br />Davephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696585671110387523.post-55761268064527355712016-02-08T12:01:00.000-08:002016-02-08T12:01:28.210-08:00Day 7, penny farthing lejogAfter a great nights sleep and another huge breakfast it was time to pack our panniers again and get back on the road. It was less than 12 hours since we had checked into our room and now we were leaving it but the sun was shining and I was keen to hit the road. Today our route would take us through Knutsford and as anyone who is into penny farthings knows this is a very good thing. I say this as Knutsford is home to the world's first penny farthing museum. So it would make a great place to stop for a break and take a few photos.<br />
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On route to Knutsford we stumbled across a nice quiet cycle route. Now I'm not normally a big fan of cycle lanes as they are often covered in broken glass but on the solid tyres of the penny farthing this would not be a problem. Fortunately for my friend , Mickey, this cycle path was really good and he escaped any punctures. In fact so far on our journey neither of us had had any mechanical problems of any sort.<br />
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The cycle path then rejoined some minor roads before a couple of main roads led us into Knutsford. Knutsford seems to be a wealthy place, I say this as the first car garage we saw was a McLaren dealership that had an F1 car in the window. But we weren't here to see that, we'd come for something far more valuable. If you ride to the penny farthing museum on a penny farthing they will give you a free cup of tea and a slice of cake!<br />
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The museum is part of a lovely cafe so we parked up and I claimed my free drink, we bought a sandwich each and chatted to the people there about my journey. A few road cyclists were also there, stopping off for a rest on a 50 mile ride. They couldn't believe I was cycling the length of the country on my bike. I think they thought I was mad, as to them cycling was all about having the latest carbon framed bikes and lots of flash kit. Their bikes were probably worth more than my car but I wouldn't have swapped them for my penny farthing.<br />
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Inside the cafe there are penny farthings everywhere. Previous readers of this blog might remember that Knutsford is home to the Knutsford great race, a 3 hour long race for penny farthings that is only held once every 10 years. I rode the race in 2010, riders came from all over the world and I managed to finish as 4th placed solo rider. I'd only had my bike about a year so I didn't do too badly. In 2020 I'll be a bit old at 47 but I fancy my chances of going at least one place better and getting on the podium. If I get lucky and have a magic day I might even go a couple of places better than this.<br />
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After looking around the bikes and taking some photos, including the one below of a signpost to lands end and John O'Groats, we cycled on. I was keen to finish a bit earlier tonight as I felt like I could do with a rest. Our schedule was so tight that we hadn't got the luxury of taking a day off as we both had to be back at work almost as soon as we were due to finish the ride.<br />
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The penny farthing theme continued as we cycled on, this lovely model was in the middle of a new traffic island.<br />
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After a slightly shorter day we spotted some accommodation in the form of a premier inn. We asked if they had a room and they did so we called it a day and checked in. There was a pub across the road so after a quick shower we headed over for food.<br />
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It had been another good day, we'd managed to cover almost 70 miles but in much less time than yesterday. We'd still been on the road for over 8 hours and all this exercise was making us hungry, really hungry. The pub we found ourselves in had a good looking menu with an interesting section entitled "challenge meals". These meals claimed to contain so many calories that they were almost impossible to finish. Now I like a challenge and so does Mickey so we ordered two meals, a couple of beers and set about our task. I was confident I would finish mine, but then it arrived. It was the biggest burger you have ever seen! I wish I had taken a picture. The challenge was on. I battled through about 75% of mine before stopping for a rest, Mickey however was not about to be beaten and he pushed on. I tried to eat some more but I was finished, while Mickey just kept on going until there was nothing left!</div>
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It was a great victory for Mickey, he could hardly move from his chair when we got up to leave. He looked a bit like a boa constrictor that had just eaten a zebra but he had the victory and that was all that mattered!</div>
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<br />Davephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696585671110387523.post-43591720397395957492016-02-07T11:46:00.000-08:002016-02-07T11:46:00.123-08:00Day 6, penny farthing LEJOG.After a good nights sleep in my own bed I was ready for another long day in the saddle. On the subject of saddles I had chosen a leather brooks b17 for this trip and so far it was proving to be a wise choice. Usually one of the first things people would ask me about how I was coping on the ride was " how's your backside doing?" And so far it was fine. The brooks b17 also looks ace, especially the one I've got as it has nice copper saddle rails and it really looks the part on my penny farthing.<br />
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My cold didn't seem too bad this morning, so after an early breakfast we were soon on the road. We started the day by cycling to worcester royal hospital, which is Mickey's place of work, for a few photos with the local press. After chatting to them and some of Mickey's work friends we then met up with some member of Worcester St Johns cycling club. They had turned out to ride a few miles with us. It was great to have some fresh company. It helps to pass the time to have people to chat to and I really appreciated them turning out to cycle with us for the first hour of another long day.<br />
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Although my home county of Worcestershire doesn't have the biggest hills in the country the roads are quite undulating and the morning ride from Worcester to Bewdley was hard going on the penny farthing. I was having to walk up some of the hills as my knees were still feeling sore. I figured it made no real difference to my average speed if I walked up at 3 mph rather than working really hard to ride up at 5 mph. I was slowly coming to terms with my slow pace, in fact I had almost forgoten what a normal bike felt like. When I was walking I could also eat so this was useful to top up on energy for later in the day.<br />
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We rolled slowly out of Worcestershire and into Shropshire, still in lovely sunshine and on nice quiet roads. After trudging down the A38 all day yesterday it was nice to be back on minor roads. The scenery was great and the lack of hgvs trying to kill us was welcome.<br />
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When we had looked at the route for today it didn't look that hard, but I was really starting to feel the effects of the rolling terrain. After about 60 miles we decided enough was enough and we turned our attention to finding somewhere to stay for the night. As with the rest of the journey we hadn't pre booked any accommodation as it was impossible to tell how far we could travel each day. However, we had planned our route to take us through towns and villages that had places to stay towards the end of each day. So far we had not had too much trouble finding somewhere to stay and we'd found a b&b each day by about 6 pm. Today was proving more difficult. All the pubs we cycled past were either full or didn't do b&b and there were no hotels for miles and miles. We stopped to check the map at 7 pm but it wasn't looking good. Nowhere off our route looked anymore promising so we turned to the internet. I was fine for signal on my phone and it was fully charged as it was connected to a charger that ran off a dynamo hub on the rear wheel of my penny farthing. I'd built the wheel myself and so far it was running really well, it still looked the part as I had removed all of the markings from the hub and disguised the wires. The tyre was still a solid one so at first glance it looked fairly authentic. It might not have been very original to the bikes history but it was extremely practical! Unfortunately a Google search for accommodation didn't help so we counted out our remaining food supplies and decided to eat half of it, switch our lights on and prepare for a difficult night on the road.</div>
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As we cycled on we started to come to terms with our situation and I'd almost convinced myself that it was in fact a good idea to keep riding, maybe we could even cover 100 miles today.</div>
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At about 9 pm we rounded a corner on the now dark country lane and in the distance we could see some lights coming from a large building. It might have just been a big house so we didn't get our hopes up, but as we got closer it became apparent that it was a pub. At worst we could stop for food and then cycle on, at best they might have a bed for the night. We turned into the car park, got off our bikes and went inside. I asked if they were still doing food and they were, then the million dollar question.. "Do you do B&B?" the reply was YES!!! We'd hit the jackpot, lady luck was shining on us again.</div>
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It was too dark for a photo when we arrived so here's one I took the next morning. I've never been so pleased to find a bed for the night!<br />
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So another long day in the saddle came to an end, today we were moving for over 9 hours 30 minutes and on the road for almost 12 hours. To say I was tired doesn't really do it justice! After a shower I felt a bit more human and after a huge meal in the pub and a couple of beers I felt great. We came close to being without accommodation tonight but it turned out fine, so far we had been pretty lucky and everywhere we had stayed had been great. Hopefully that luck would hold for the remainder of the trip.</div>
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72 long, slow and hard earned miles. Now we had cycled away from our home town it really felt like we were well on the way to John O'Groats.<br />
<br />Davephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696585671110387523.post-349045930371161542016-02-06T13:28:00.000-08:002016-02-06T13:34:30.524-08:00Day 5 penny farthing lejogThe plan for today was to get out of the city of Bristol and head towards my home city of Worcester, using minor roads rather than the main A38. As soon as I woke up I had doubts about the plan. I felt pretty dreadful, I had suddenly developed a cold. I had a really blocked nose and felt terrible. Also from nowhere my knees were really feeling sore. I was feeling really down in the dumps and having serious doubts about not only the day ahead but the rest of the ride.<br />
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Fortunately the weather was still good and my traveling companion and best friend Mickey offered his encouragement and restored my confidence a little. After a magnificent breakfast in the lovely farm house we packed our pannier bags and hit the road. Our revised plan was to start slowly and just chip away at the miles, aiming to get at least 30 miles done, more if I felt better as the day went on.<br />
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We made a slow start through Bristol, walking and riding through the heavy traffic and after about an hour we were clear of the city. I was still feeling awful so to make as much progress as we could we had a change of plan. We decided to stick to the main road, the A38 and just accept that today was just about getting some miles done and not really enjoying yourself on a more scenic route.<br />
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After stopping for a rest and some food at a small roadside store I started to feel slightly better. My knees were still aching and my nose was running like a train but I wasn't getting any worse so we push on. We were so lucky with the weather today, had it been wet and windy I'm sure we would have at best fallen behind schedule and at worse I may have been tempted to abandon the ride. As it turned out we made decent progress, Mickey was a great help today, chatting to me and helping to pass the time. Solo cycle touring would be so much harder. It really helps to have someone with you on the bad days and its great to have someone to share the good experiences with too.<br />
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As the day went on we decided to keep riding until we reached our home city of Worcester. At one point in the day I posted a photo to my Facebook page and put a few rough details of the plan for the day. I thought nothing more of it at the time and we were soon back on the bikes and cycling slowly onwards.<br />
It was a great surprise later in the day to see a familier face cycling towards me, Ed Dursley, a friend and fellow member of Worcester St Johns cycling club had seen my earlier Facebook post and calculated roughly what time to intercept me on my way towards Worcester. It was a real boost to my spirits to see Ed and to hear from him that loads of people were taking great interest in my ride. Soon the three of us were approaching Worcester. We had somehow managed to cover almost 70 miles today. When I got up that day I had doubts about doing half of that distance but as the day came to an end my confidence had started to return and I figured if I could do 70 miles feeling like I did today there was no reason why I couldn't do it again the next day.. And the next day... And.... Well you get the picture.<br />
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I have to say, don't trust the calorie counter on strava.... I don't think it's calibrated for penny farthings!<br />
so we made it to Worcester and my reward was a night in my own bed. Just what my tired body needed!Davephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696585671110387523.post-684225021892607192016-02-01T13:33:00.001-08:002016-02-01T13:33:14.978-08:00Day 4, penny farthing LEJOG.The plan for today was to ride to Bristol, a journey of about 70 miles, so hopefully it would be our longest ride of the trip so far.<br />
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The weather was again looking good and surprisingly my legs felt OK as well. After 3 days I was starting to grow in confidence, I found myself cycling along and actually starting to think I may have a decent chance of getting to John O'Groats after all.<br />
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The roads were far flatter today and progress was, well not fast but much better than the previous days. At one point in the morning I was actually averaging just over the magic 10 mph that I had hoped for.<br />
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As the day went on we continued to make good progress and it was looking good for us to reach Bristol as planned. Our route took us into Bristol fairly close to the airport and we had thought this would make it easy to find accommodation for the night.<br />
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Unfortunately everywhere we passed was already full. The only place that did have a room wouldn't let us store our bikes anywhere that was secure. All they offered was to prop them up against a wall in full view of the busy A38 main road about 10 metres away. Now I'm not that fussy were I end up for the night but I'm not going to leave my bike outside for anyone. So we rode on.<br />
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Earlier in the day we had an unexpected problem... Sunburn in April!</div>
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Finally we spotted a sign for accommodation and the place looked great. An old farm house that was sure to have a suitable outbuilding for our bikes. We made our way down the long gravel driveway and knocked the door. No answer. Then a car pulled up, a guy got out and made his way towards us. We asked him if there were any rooms available but he was not the owner. He did have his phone number though so a phone call was made and a few minutes later the owner turned up.<br />
At first he said he was really sorry and he didn't have any rooms.. Then he saw my bike..... He was also a cyclist and had previously done all sorts of cycle tours. We were in luck, he said he'd been really busy on the farm today and the only room he had was one that hadn't been cleaned after its last occupants left that morning. If we didn't mind it not being done it was ours for the night. We snapped his hand off, I was pretty tired and would have slept in a bus shelter if I had had to.<br />
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What a result! I think you will agree this is a very nice looking house, and the inside was even better. We had half of the downstairs to ourselves. In fact we had more square footage than my first house! Our bikes had a room, we had a bedroom each, a kitchen, 2 bathrooms and an amazing living room with a huge fireplace.<br />
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The icing on the cake was that we ended up less than 100 yards from a really nice pub, I refuelled with a massive steak and ale pie and a couple of pints of beer. All in all, a very good day.<br />
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<br />Davephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696585671110387523.post-80066294143133761722016-02-01T12:15:00.000-08:002016-02-01T12:19:26.625-08:00Penny farthing LEJOG day 3Today was going to be a tough day, there is no easy route through Devon but at least the weather was on our side. We couldn't have asked for better conditions, bright and sunny but cool enough not to worry about dehydration.<br />
We fueled up well at breakfast and set out. Up until today we had managed to ride at a similar pace to one another but the hills of Dartmoor would change all that. I was going to be slow going up, and slower coming down as I would have to walk to avoid losing control of the bike on the steep slopes.<br />
As it happened we got split up before we even got to Dartmoor. Mickey was about 100 yards in front of me and crossed a level crossing, then the barriers came down and I had to stop. I waited and waited for what seemed like an age. Eventually a train did come through, they don't do anything in a hurry in Devon!<br />
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As we approached Dartmoor the terrain started to slow my progress but it gave me plenty of opportunities to take some photos. The countryside in this part of the world is beautiful, we would be well into the journy before we had better scenery than today's offerings.<br />
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When I had been doing my training rides I had hoped that on most days I could average 10 mph. The first day was much slower than this, the second slightly closer but today was proving tough. I tried not to worry about my average speed but I do get a bit obsessed with it when I'm riding. I guess this comes from the fact that most of the time when I'm cycling I'm either racing time trials or training to race. For me the hardest thing to cope with on the penny farthing is just how slow it is. It's a lovely thing to ride and on a flat road you could roll along at 12 mph all day. At that rate progress isn't a million miles away from a normal touring bike. However, throw in a few hills and the average drops like a stone. After 20 miles of today's roads I was averaging a mere 7 mph. I was having to walk as much as I rode. Hills going up were too hard to ride and hills going down too dangerous!</div>
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As the day went on I walked even more and rode even less. I was recording my rides to strava , the cycling web site that logs your journey and tells you how fast (or slow) you had completed sections of the ride. One of the strava segments on today's ride was a long climb up and over Dartmoor, I was slow... Really slow. Normally on hilly segments on my modern bike I'm pretty good and get into the top 10%, but not today... When the day was over and I uploaded my ride I was consistently in the slowest 1% of riders!<br />
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The one thing we did get right on Dartmoor was just by luck, the weather was fantastic. Dartmoor often gets really bad weather but today it was perfect. There were lots of other cyclists out, I don't think they could believe their eyes when they saw a guy on a penny farthing. The ones that caught me up and rode along slowly chatting were astonished when I told them I was aiming to be in John O'Groats in a couple of weeks time. Some were so impressed that they gave me some sponsor money to donate to my chosen charity. I had downloaded an appointment for the just giving web page so when I finished that night I was able to donate the money from my bank account to the fundraising page. Over the duration of the ride this proved to be a brilliant source of motivation as I could see the amount of money raised going up each day.</div>
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The ride on Dartmoor eventually stared to get easier as we went down more hills than we climbed and after a really tough 9 hours and 13 minutes on the bike we found a lovely b&b and were soon tucking into the best steak I have ever eaten. A good end to a very hard day!</div>
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<br />Davephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696585671110387523.post-85695127745749061482015-12-24T11:33:00.003-08:002015-12-24T11:33:36.302-08:00Penny farthing LEJOG day 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
After a huge cooked breakfast it was soon time to set off on day two. This was going to be a longer day than our first one, we planned to get as near to the edge of Dartmoor as we could. It would be about 60 miles and as anyone who has cycled in Cornwall knows, its quite hilly.</div>
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On the plus side the weather was now great, no rain anyway but we still had a bit of a headwind. We made pretty good progress over the first few hours. I had aimed to cover about 10 miles an hour but we were slightly slower than this at the moment due to the headwind. But all in all we were going well and confidence was returning after the hard start on the first day.</div>
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At about midday we pulled over and found somewhere to buy food. At this point in the journey I was almost forcing myself to eat before I was hungry. The massive breakfast had filled me up but when you are exercising all day hunger can suddenly catch you by surprise. In 2003 me and Mickey did LEJOG for the first time. It was a very steep learning curve for both of us as we had never taken on a long cycle tour before. On day 2 in 2003 Mickey found out the hard way what happens when you don't eat enough. In the middle of Dartmoor he completely ran out of energy and could hardly keep moving. From that day on we ate loads, probably far more than we actually needed!</div>
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All in all day 2 this time around was an enjoyable day on the bikes, but we were both aware that day 3 would be harder, probably one of the toughest of the whole journey as we were returning to the scene of mickeys worst ever moment on a bike from 2003, we were going straight over Dartmoor.</div>
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After almost 8 hours cycling we found a nice b&b that also had storage for our bikes and we went out for yet more food. </div>
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Dartmoor awaits....</div>
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<br />Davephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696585671110387523.post-50236498850657603182015-12-24T10:12:00.002-08:002017-10-11T00:44:50.561-07:00Penny farthing LEJOG, day 1.As I've at long last worked out how to insert pictures into this blog, this seems like a good time to use one..<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCt0FM1GGBjwhrLA6oSq2qKFnP7mnQQiusdlQj8H7-bHJjKA1BAanP4pNxznWfozXQ7jeI92bQ53iTieqa-VzSZzcYG7TYJADBM7TgBRI9O4jI9FpGkquNa0UYkJFZaKgJJyCyM_K3e-U/s1600/photo-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCt0FM1GGBjwhrLA6oSq2qKFnP7mnQQiusdlQj8H7-bHJjKA1BAanP4pNxznWfozXQ7jeI92bQ53iTieqa-VzSZzcYG7TYJADBM7TgBRI9O4jI9FpGkquNa0UYkJFZaKgJJyCyM_K3e-U/s320/photo-4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
After a long winter of hard training April the 18th finally arrived and it was time to put my money where my mouth had been for the last year or so. I felt as well prepared as I could be, I'd been training hard and I hadn't picked up any injuries. I was pretty confident that baring accident or mechanical breakdown I was going to complete the journey. I knew it was going to be tough at times but I was trying to focus on one day at a time.<br />
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At 4:30am my cycling companion and best friend arrived to pick me and my bike up. the bikes were loaded on to the car and we were underway, this was the easy part.. 70 mph in car trying not to think about how slowly I would be moving in a few hours time!<br />
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Every year hundreds of people ride from Lands end to John O'Groats and most of them choose to raise money for charity. Although my choice of bike may have been unusual I was no different to lots of others and I choose a charity to raise money for. There are hundreds of worthy charities but the choice of who to raise money for was an easy one for me. My wife was born deaf and when she was growing up she had a lot of help from the National deaf children's society. It seemed only right to pay them back by raising money for them. I am very proud of my wife and how she copes with everyday situations that most of us take for granted. Ann has a great job and lots of good friends. The combination of a very supportive family and the help and advice from the NDCS ensured that Ann now has a beautifully normal life.<br />
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On the way to lands end BBC radio Cornwall had got wind of my planned journey and the phoned me up on my moblie to ask about it. I ended up doing a live interview while we were on our way to the start. They wished me luck and the general consensus of their listeners was that I was going to need it!<br />
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When we finally got to lands end the weather was awful, rainning, blowing a gale and to make matters worse the wind was going to be against us all day. But there was no turning back now. A couple of people who had heard the radio interview gave me some sponsorship money and wished me well and with that i signed the start book, did the photo by the signpost and in front of a big group of tourists I climbed up onto the bike and made my way out of the car park.<br />
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The head wind was awful! I could hardly keep the bike moving but managed to get out of sight before taking a rest, 1 mile into my planned 1000 mile journey. This wasn't good, not the start I had hoped for! The ride to Penzance was very stop start as the wind just didn't let up. Eventually we found a bus shelter to take a rest and eat some food before moving on.<br />
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Being up in the air on a penny farthing is not really suited to windy conditions, on a bike of any kind headwinds are bad news. When you and your bike have the aerodynamics of a block of flats its as bad as it gets. This was so much harder than I had hoped for but we kept plugging away and soon started closing in on our first night accommodation.<br />
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As the day went on the weather improved a little, it remained windy but at least it stopped raining. We had booked the first night in advance as we were not sure how the day would pan out with having to travel 250 from home to lands end. We had to cover a reasonable distance on the this first day as both of us had only been able to book a certain amount of time off work. So after a hard 5 hours on the bikes and an early start with the traveling we were glad to get the first bit of the journey done.<br />
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Day 2 would be a harder days cycling with more miles covered but at least we could start early to take the pressure off. From now on we would cycle for as long as we could each day and then find somewhere to stay. We weren't going to book any accommodation in advance as we really didn't know how far we could get each day.<br />
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Update: Strava users can now make videos of old rides using an app called Relive. Here's day 1!<br />
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“Penny farthing LEJOG, day 1 .. Head wind!!” on Relive! https://www.relive.cc/view/287893635<br />
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<br />Davephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696585671110387523.post-87235198447290204522015-12-24T09:06:00.003-08:002015-12-24T09:06:29.227-08:00Lands end to John Ogroats by penny farthing, at long last, I've worked out how to blog from my hudl!It's now over 8 months since I cycled the length of the country on my penny farthing. It's taken me that long to work out how to blog from this device, but here we go.. The full report on my journey starting with.... The next post...Davephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696585671110387523.post-32218380982202254512015-02-25T10:16:00.002-08:002015-02-25T10:16:49.581-08:00George Pilkington Mills, my video tribute.As promised in my previous post, here is a link to the short film we made when we visited the grave of the penny farthing end to end record holder.<br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); border: 0px; color: black; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://youtu.be/M-xmREVh8OE" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">http://youtu.be/M-xmREVh8OE</a></span><br />
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A massive thank you to my friend Mickey for puting the film together in his spare time.Davephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696585671110387523.post-43372901223492293612015-02-18T11:06:00.000-08:002015-02-18T11:09:28.423-08:00Visiting my cycling hero, George Pilkington Mills.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
On Sunday 8 th February I paid a visit to the grave of my cycling hero, George Pilkington Mills. Now I doubt that many modern day cyclists have heard of George as he was cycling many years ago. In fact, in the year 1886 he set the record for being the fastest person to cycle from Lands end to John O'groats on a penny farthing. There are two amazing facts about this record, the first being that he only took 5 days 1 hour and 45 minutes to complete the 900 mile journey! The second point worth mentioning is that this record still stands, 128 years later!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTCv3dMDLGP-4ATAdophR-Otl78gSzNAiE2rAyrXJAsfkk89SaMd6YmQPlUjt3x23moqUa8tXwWZd_v3PfT79OqG2tcmIOG8VISXljrZoupDG_FgdjiVC5vhXWBDxQb12Za1Y9qpsHyZg/s1600/IMG_3749.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTCv3dMDLGP-4ATAdophR-Otl78gSzNAiE2rAyrXJAsfkk89SaMd6YmQPlUjt3x23moqUa8tXwWZd_v3PfT79OqG2tcmIOG8VISXljrZoupDG_FgdjiVC5vhXWBDxQb12Za1Y9qpsHyZg/s1600/IMG_3749.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
I'm not going to be breaking this record and to be honest I can't see it ever going. Whilst I was at the grave, with the help of my friend Mickey, I made a short film about George, his cycling records ( and there are many) and I also mentioned my fast approaching end to end ride. Once the video is edited I will post a link on here.<br />
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Visiting the grave was a great experience, I'd like to thank everyone at the church in Shirley, Croydon for making my visit so enjoyable. Special thanks to Vic who I contacted by email with my initial enquiry, wondering if the grave was in their churchyard and he then went on to help me locate the grave. It was also nice that the vicar turned out to welcome me. I'm not particularly religious but he asked if he could bless me and my bike to wish us good luck on my ride. I welcomed this idea, thinking I might need all the help I can get!<br />
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All in all it was a great day and well worth the 320 mile round trip. If you're wondering how I made the journey then here's a photo of my hand made penny farthing roof rack, who needs a big car!<br />
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<br />Davephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696585671110387523.post-56586427851926813472015-02-01T11:57:00.001-08:002015-02-01T11:57:39.479-08:00Worcester St. John's cc reliability ride.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Today I rode my penny farthing in the Worcester St. John's cc reliability ride. A reliability ride is basically an organised group ride, traditionally held in the late winter to help riders get fit for the coming season.</div>
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<ul><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFFW18KPJ7LklvqnSyIWaTwytyDNZv0F_M7yyE7uOMA4Ca7SjmdWmtaBqq0Vpp4ieXlgj6D8ipwO71atWiqOG3QSRLbUMwiJ8Im2R6D0ABMbFdLXmWfvU7DZDZh-gnsVITAycXMtYDQ7k/s1600/IMG_3684.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFFW18KPJ7LklvqnSyIWaTwytyDNZv0F_M7yyE7uOMA4Ca7SjmdWmtaBqq0Vpp4ieXlgj6D8ipwO71atWiqOG3QSRLbUMwiJ8Im2R6D0ABMbFdLXmWfvU7DZDZh-gnsVITAycXMtYDQ7k/s1600/IMG_3684.PNG" height="320" width="213" /></a>
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Today's ride had two route options and I chose the short route that avoided 20 miles of hills. However, even the short route was over 30 miles and as it was very windy it proved to be quite a work out!</div>
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The first group of riders started out at 9.30 am, I started in this group as I was aware that even the 30 mile route would probably take me over 3 hours. The faster riders and those doing the longer, harder ride , started about 10 mins after me.<br />
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This photo was taken at the start head quarters. Worcester auto club. A great little venue and I was already looking forward to returning here for my coffee and cake after the ride!<br />
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Once the ride got underway it was clear it was going to be a tough morning. The wind was extremely strong and riding towards Droitwich on the A38 was very tough going. For me, sat up in the wind on the penny farthing, it was really slow going. I couldn't wait to turn out of the wind and get some rest bite.<br />
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Fortunately for me the route was at least fairly flat, one or two climbs had my heart rate climbing but at least it was all rideable. The headwind did actually help at times, when I was riding down the quite steep road to cross the river bridge the wind held my speed back so I didn't have to get off and walk.<br />
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The head wind eased off at the turn in great witley and this was very welcome, the snow that had started to fall was a bit worrying for a while but it soon stopped.<br />
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The road back towards Worcester was on I knew very well, having raced my modern time trial bike along it many times in the beacon little mountain time trial. Fortunately this part of the course is the flat bit before the hills so with the help of the tail wind I was flying along... At about 12 mph.<br />
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As I got closer to the finish I started to get passed by riders who had done the longer route, it was great to get a few words of encouragement as they passed me. I just hoped they wouldn't eat all the cake at the HQ before I returned!<br />
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I needn't have worried, as I finished the ride and walked into the HQ I saw that there were plenty of cakes left. So I got stuck in and started replacing some hard burnt calories!<br />
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It turned out to be quite a hard workout, I'm going to have to hope and pray that the wind doesn't blow like this in April as my average heart rate for the 3 hour ride was 160 bpm. That's way to high to maintain for the 7 to 10 hours per day that I will be riding.<br />
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Overall it was a great day, thanks to the organisers and cake bakers for all their efforts and thanks to everyone who came along to make it such a popular and successful event.<br />
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This final photo is my heart rate data from the ride...<br />
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Davephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696585671110387523.post-90740658079806854882015-01-03T14:10:00.001-08:002015-01-03T14:10:36.838-08:00100 miles in 2 days<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I had a few days off over new year so I decided it would be a good idea to try 2 back to back days on the penny farthing. The first day turned out to be a ride of almost 60 miles and took a little longer than planned. This was a bit of a problem, but only as my front light stopped working! The lessons learned from today were, 1 I'm going to need a new front light and 2 I need to avoid hills where ever possible as they really zap my average speed.<br />
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The second day was a shorter day of about 40 miles and was on flatter roads. My average speed was much better and I finished the ride in daylight. The only thing to note from today's ride was how difficult it was to ride into a strong headwind . Hopefully I will get a tailwind for the end to end in April!<br />
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So all in all, the training is going well, the end to end ride will prove to be a real test but with a bit of luck and fingers crossed for good weather it should also be great fun!Davephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696585671110387523.post-33092111392641563312014-10-08T08:15:00.000-07:002014-10-08T09:01:25.661-07:00Training rides for the Lejog ride.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I've been doing quite a few miles as training for the Lejog ride. I'm averaging about 150 miles a week and the longest ride I've done was 102 miles. For Some of the rides I'm using the penny farthing but mainly I'm riding a basic fixed gear road bike.<br />
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The thinking behind this is that the road bike is easier to fix at the road side should anything go wrong and it's keeping the miles off the penny farthing which is a much more fragile machine. The fixed gear bike is good training anyway as you are forced to keep pushing on up hills and you don't really get any rest coming down them.<br />
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It's actually fairly similar to the penny farthing. I'm doing as much riding as I can sat down to get used to long periods on the saddle as it's not possible to stand up on the pedals when riding the penny farthing.<br />
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So the fittness is building nicely although I'm not doing any intense efforts, for the penny farthing Lejog it's all about long slow days so that's how I've been training. This won't have helped my performance in a recent cycling hill climb up Shelsely Walsh as that was a flat out effort of 4 minutes. With specific hill climb training i'm sure I could have gone a bit faster but you can't train properly for everything. I was still the 2nd fastest of the over 40's so I didn't do too badly.<br />
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The other thing I've been spending a bit of time on for the Lejog ride is making sure I don't run out of phone battery life. I really want to record the whole ride to strava. Strava is used by cyclists to log training rides and races. It's great as it also uses gps to track and record you onto a map so you can see exactly where you have been. Using strava on my phone Zapps it's battery a bit and as I also plan to use the phone for photos and uploading to here and twitter on the ride I needed to look into ways of charging it on the move.<br />
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What I've come up with is this. I've made a new rear wheel for the penny farthing, using a 20" rim that is a special for penny farthings and I've built it up onto a shimano dynamo hub that was ment to go in the front wheel of a brompton folding bike. I used the brompton hub as it is really narrow and it fits into the rear forks of the penny farthing without having to modify them. I've fitted a solid tyre onto the rim so it's still pretty authentic. To convert the power generated from the hub to a phone charger I bought a device from the USA. It's called a sinwave revolution . Basically it converts the dynamo output to a USB socket so I can now charge anything that normally charges from a USB cable.<br />
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I've been using this set up for a couple of months now and it easily generates enough power to keep my iPhone on full charge. Even when the screen is on constant, I'm using a sat nav app and strava running in the background the battery doesn't drop. I've tried running the battery down on the phone first and then using it and it recharges it fine even with everything running at the same time.Davephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696585671110387523.post-35608995862565134362014-09-16T12:49:00.000-07:002014-09-16T12:49:41.916-07:00Tour of Britain road trip <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgueuKUVI_X-0bmX-0gtmxgzTauZ1r4p4ztS_EGOlnmQHzyVhiK-HS4XfUoVic57dgF2ZAfmoiH-zb4FfrHAEq-mkUFASHfDMK5MlpiLWHxR_Ti_D6eRoVl7L58oQ_Nqc0V-GPjKfd1enw/s1600/IMG_2992-EFFECTS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgueuKUVI_X-0bmX-0gtmxgzTauZ1r4p4ztS_EGOlnmQHzyVhiK-HS4XfUoVic57dgF2ZAfmoiH-zb4FfrHAEq-mkUFASHfDMK5MlpiLWHxR_Ti_D6eRoVl7L58oQ_Nqc0V-GPjKfd1enw/s1600/IMG_2992-EFFECTS.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a>I spent last week following the tour of Britain bike race, a friend and I hired a van and took bikes to follow the race. I rode my penny farthing as training for the Lejog ride. The first day we rode the last 20 miles of the stage and then 20 miles back to the van. The roads were quite hilly and proved a good test of both my climbing and descending skills! Other race fans waiting to watch the tour seemed to enjoy seeing the penny farthing in action and gave me some good encouragement.</div>
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The second stage I went to watch was the 3 rd stage off the race and was a mountain top finish on a climb called the tumble. It's about 5km long at an average gradient of 10% so it was pretty tough going on the penny farthing! Coming down the hill was also fairly difficult as it's hard to control the speed of the bike on downhills. My bike only has a front brake that is just a spoon that pushes down onto the tyre. All it really does is get hot and wreck the tyre rather than slow you down!</div>
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The next day the race started in my home city of Worcester so I went down to watch the start, I even got a mention from the announcer for being the current british penny farthing champion!</div>
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Worcester was great but then the race moved on to Devon, I went to watch on dartmoor. The riding was again pretty hard but good training for the lejog ride.</div>
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The weeks riding was great practice and also enabled me to test out my newly built rear wheel. I have built it up on a small dynamo hub that is conected to a USB converter. I used this to charge my phone while riding. It worked really well and enabled me to record my rides to strava without draining my battery.</div>
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Davephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696585671110387523.post-61098979767076666002014-08-30T13:28:00.001-07:002014-08-30T13:39:00.401-07:00Reaction to the announcement of my end to end ride.Well, since I officially announced that I was going to ride lands end to John O'groats (lejog) on my penny farthing the reaction I have had has been fantastic!<br />
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I posted on twitter and Facebook as well as telling friends in person. Everyone was really interested in my plans. Generally, my family think I'm a bit mad, twitter people are convinced I'm a bit mad and friends from my cycling club must think I'm superman as they are encouraging me to try for a record time.<br />
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The penny farthing record of 5 days 8 hours and 15 minutes is not something I will be going for! I will be more than happy just to complete the ride, 14 days will do me. Even at that pace it's about 70 miles a day.<br />
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Within a few hours of telling people about the lejog my justgiving page had received plenty of donations, some from people who I have no idea who they are who must have seen a retweet about the ride on twitter. I'd like to say thanks to anyone who has donated, it's very kind of you.<br />
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If anyone would like to donate, here's the link.. <a href="http://www.justgiving.com/Dave-Preece3" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">www.justgiving.com/Dave-Preece3</a><br />
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During this week I've been cycling quite a bit, on Sunday I did 76 miles on the penny farthing with my friend Mickey , who is going to be joining me on the lejog ride. Mickey will be on a normal, modern road bike but he will be carrying all of our kit. We are not having a support vehicle.<br />
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Tuesday night after work I was out on the penny farthing again. I rode out to a local 10 mile time trial and raced it against modern tt bikes. Obviously I came last, but my time of 39 minutes for a 10 mile course that is quite hilly wasn't too bad.<br />
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Wednesday was my day off work so I went out on my modern road bike for about 50 miles. I intend to do most of my training for the lejog ride on this modern bike. I don't want to put too many miles onto the penny farthing in the build up as repairing any breakdowns is not as easy on the penny farthing as it is for a standard road bike.<br />
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The other training I am doing is walking, on steep hills I will have to push the penny farthing so I thought it might be an idea to get used to walking a lot!<br />
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Tonight I popped out for a quick ride on my fixed gear bike after work and Tomorrow, Sunday, I'll go out on my road bike again for about 4 hours. At this time of year the training is easy as the weather is still being kind!<br />
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Well I guess that's enough of an update for now, thanks for reading and come back soon!<br />
<br />Davephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696585671110387523.post-22522510253825885972014-08-28T11:53:00.000-07:002014-08-28T11:53:07.574-07:00Lands End to John O'GroatsWell I've not been on here for ages so I needed a good reason to get blogging again.. I've talked about this for long enough and now I've actually got some plans in place to do it. In April 2015 I'm going to ride my penny farthing from Lands End to John O'Groats. That's about 1000 miles and I'm going to do it in 14 days.<br />
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Between now and the ride in April I will update this blog with how my plans are developing and how my training is going. When the ride finally gets here I hope to have a bit of time each night to post daily updates. This will depend on internet connection, phone battery, and my physical ability to blog after riding a penny farthing all day!<br />
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I've decided on doing the end to end as I've pretty much achieved what I wanted to achieve regarding racing the penny farthing. At long last I managed to win a big race. Earlier in 2014 I won the pennies in the park race which , luckily for me, has gained the official title of the British Open penny farthing championship. I've not managed to win the Smithfield London Nocturne but it's a race I may have to let go as it's so short and doesn't really suit my strengths. I'll keep entering the race but I'm pretty sure it's one I will not win.<br />
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So, back to the end to end ride. I'm going to be raising money for the national deaf children's society. My wife was born deaf so that's why I have chosen this charity.<br />
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I've set up a just giving page should anyone feel generous enough to make a donation, here's the link to it. <span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">www.justgiving.com/Dave-Preece3</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-size: 25px;">Thanks for reading! Updates will follow!!</span></span>Davephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4696585671110387523.post-16250015775192978572011-08-11T12:06:00.000-07:002011-08-11T12:31:28.855-07:00Pennies in the park.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSov5fABGlyHPmSUSB49klDm3n0msrNE_FcMdb6LxqOrE35fOFRfwtUGZcDlbAq5dYK5ugn7N5UGhbElhhUdygE6JFN7T_K_LZSK4hzGMh8OkStAONKLxrwx6CpFWBYUaPTqR8iOUL1fk/s1600/IMG_8963.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSov5fABGlyHPmSUSB49klDm3n0msrNE_FcMdb6LxqOrE35fOFRfwtUGZcDlbAq5dYK5ugn7N5UGhbElhhUdygE6JFN7T_K_LZSK4hzGMh8OkStAONKLxrwx6CpFWBYUaPTqR8iOUL1fk/s320/IMG_8963.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5639683220086737426" /></a>
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<br /></div><div>I've entered a one hour race for penny farthings on 11th september 2011. It's to be held in Matlock and should be a great event.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>So far my trainning for the race has been a mix of normal cycling, riding to work on my fixed gear bike, racing time trials on all sorts of bikes. I've used my tt bike, my road bike, my tandem and I've done a couple of 10 mile events on my penny farthing. </div><div>
<br /></div><div>I also rode my penny farthing out to a local round of the Rudy project time trial series at the weekend. I really enjoyed watching the event. Some of the performances by the disabled competitors were amazing, really inspiring stuff.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>I'm not super fit at the moment but I think I should be able to put in a decent performance in the race. From memory I think I was 4th solo rider in Knutsford, I would love to go one better and get on the podium in Matlock.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>The only other time I have raced in Matlock was for the 2008 national hill climb championship (on normal bikes). I wasn't great and finished just inside the top 100 (out of 150). </div><div>
<br /></div><div>For anyone who wants to find out some more about the penny farthing race here are a couple of links. </div><div>
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<br /></div><a href="http://penniesinthepark.co.uk/">http://penniesinthepark.co.uk/</a><div>
<br /></div><div><a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pennies-in-the-Park/135193969883205">https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pennies-in-the-Park/135193969883205</a></div><div>
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<br /></div>Davephttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06518084644696737473noreply@blogger.com5