UK By Bike

First off, new years is different here only in that everyone buys fireworks. They buy fireworks for almost anything, really, but on new years, anyone and everyone is firing off fireworks at midnight. Including us.

We didn't physically fire them off, but contributed to the melee with minimal financial backing. It was a bit of a melee in terms of what you might expect when you give people who have no training in pyrotechnics a bunch of explosives and the freedom to fire them off wherever they like. We were fine, mostly, but the house and new BMW were near victims when a rather large firework shot over our heads and exploded on the corner of the house just beside the window and just above the car. It was brilliant!

We stayed out late, woke up even later, and had a good time with some friends and some of their family.

So, as suggested by the title, we've concocted a plan. We've been talking about it for a while, seriously for the past couple of weeks, and have finally just decided to commit to it. We're going to take two weeks this summer (July) and cycle from the southern most tip if England at Lands End to the northern most tip of Scotland at John O'Groats, at just under or just over 1000 miles and about 17,000 meters of climbing to negotiate depending on the exact route.

It's a ride that is done fairly regularly, by about 3000 people each year, I believe. I don't even think it will be particularly challenging in the grand scheme of things, but it will be monumental nonetheless. It's something that we think we'd like to do more of in the future. Don't get me wrong, we couldn't go tomorrow and expect to do it no sweat, but with a bit of dedicated training, I think anyone can do it. The longest ride we've done thus far is just shy of 60 miles, and we expect to do an average of 80 miles a day for 13 days, so we just need to get some miles under our belts before then.

I can't think of a better way to take in the UK. We'll be peddling up hill after hill in Cornwall and Devon, through the Cheddar Gorge, over the Severn Bridge into Wales, through the lovely rolly midlands, into the Lake district and onto the mountains and lochs of Scotland, going past Loch Ness, Loch Lomond, Ben Nevis, with innumberable quaint villages and quiet country lanes. Can't wait! It's still a ways off but it's all I'm thinking about, and gives me the motivation to get on my bike (or at least go for a run) when I otherwise would give it a miss. This will without a doubt be a recurring theme on the blog, probably with training updates and other nerdy stuff of the sort. I've got to say that Sheldon and Ken have provided a bit of motivation for this whole thing, what with riding through the wacky winter of Alberta to train for the giant TransRockies Challenge this August. A ridiculous race I'd love to do before I'm too old and creaky. Care to join us for a warm up ride guys? It'd probably be a walk in the park for you by then.