Shropshire is quite big, it turns out. If you recall, it was badly flooded in many parts last summer. And no wonder, we thought, as it rained for almost all of our 40 mile morning cycle to Shrewsbury. However, Shrewsbury seemed like a lovely town, full of winding streets and medieval buildings and we had lunch and more real ale at the Three Fishes pub. The first day with no bike breakdowns, and a reasonably early start, meant we managed to arrive at 'The Dukes', somewhere between Whitchurch and Wrexham, around 5pm. The Dukes is a 15th century farmhouse, and now [View Full Entry]

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It's pronounced Lemster, would you believe? Would you also believe that Gareth had to get a new wheel? Only his spoke broke opposite a cycle shop. Finally, the wind eased off, the rain stopped and we crossed the Severn Bridge in Wales, which looked...much the same as England. Except the road signs were supplemented with some unintelligible clusters of letters. We enjoyed a 3 mile downhill on beautiful tarmac, to the impressive Tintern Abbey. Lunch in Monmouth was spent watching highlights of the previous days' cricket. We made it to the Leominster YH with enough time to wake our new, [View Full Entry]

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Words cannot adequately convey the horrors of day 3. The first 31 miles were into a storm. 30-50m/h head winds all day. We almost gave up. A boat passed us on the A30. Not sure whether it was being towed or not. We didn't take many photos as no-one wants to see grown men cry. But we made it. Surely nothing will ever be this hard again. Michelle laid on loads of lovely food, we collapsed soon after. 87 miles. 7.5 hrs in the saddle. Buckets of rain. A whole lot of pain. Loads of roadkill too, including 2 or 3 [View Full Entry]

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Despite a dreary Cornish morning and warnings of more bad weather to come, the sun poked from behind the clouds for most of the afternoon. One awful hill approaching Exeter aside, this was a lot less troubling. We saw a 15% gradient sign of a fairly steep climb, but we'd done far steeper already. Rolfe got another puncture. Plymouth is a bit of a dump and all its traffic lights were on red. We reacquainted ourselves with the other End-to-Enders the Exeter Youth Hostel. No-one had given up yet. 64 miles. Just over 5 hours in the saddle. [View Full Entry]

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Cornwall is so hilly. Why weren't we told this at school? All we heard about was tin mines and a moribund language. One hill broke a spoke in Ben's back wheel. We can fix most things, but not that. So a cab all the way back from Godolphin Cross to Penzance for Ben, as Gareth and Rolfe continued. One new wheel, and two hours later, Ben's mission to catch them up began. It was eased by a puncture for Rolfe and a pub lunch for him and Gareth. "Cornwall should either be steam-rolled flat or turned into a ski resort, a [View Full Entry]

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Whether or not we cry, no-one will be able to tell. The tears will be washed away by the rain and blown away by the wind. Ben [View Full Entry]

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Hi everyone, It's one day to go until Ben, Rolfe and Gareth set off on our little trip from Land's End to John O'Groats on our bicycles. We'll be using this site to let you know how we get on, to let you know about our joy, our pain, our adulation and our tears. And looking at the weather for the next couple of days, it looks as though it's mainly going to be tears. We're going to try to keep in touch every day and endeavour to upload photos as well as well as plotting our route. Wish us luck! [View Full Entry]

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