Category: 2024 LEJOG: Lands End to John O’Groats

Takeaways from the LEJOG experience?

The Brits don’t eat green vegetables. Or red ones. Our trip was in some part a quest for veggies.

LEJOG was great fun, not too strenuous but with a goal that set a pace that …

Some frantic efforts trying to get from our flat in Tower Hamlets to Liverpool Street Station for the train to Stanstead. John and Christine walked her boxed bike to the station, but I caught a black cab which took about …

Exhilerating to ride through London from Euston to Tower Hamlets at ten o’clock at night. Got to our flat, called the manager to let us in and then found out the flats have really good secure bike parking (no need …

LEJOG finished its time to pack up and go home. But first we have to fill in two nights before catching the train back to London.

(Train had been organised over a half hour phone call with a very helpful …

(+ 39 km, 342 m on way back including to Duncansby Head lighthouse)

Not happy or anything but…… we finished!

More later when the celebratory beer has sunk in. And we are back in internet range.

And we are back…….…

Might as well go out on a big one. The most (or nearly most) daily ascent of the trip. But the slopes were fairly gentle except for what must have been nearly .5 km of 1:10 coming out of Tongue. …

Excuse me, I am going to The Bog, anyone coming? Really, the big event today was crossing The Moline, or in transliteration “The Bog”, a 15 km peat Bog between Loch Hope Aand Tongue. The only building on The Moline …

So short! But Scotland is so amazingly photogenic that we were stopping every half kilometre for photos. Magnificent scenery.

Also stopping every hundred metres to let camper vans and the odd truck pass or overtake. That “Western 500” road route …

What a shame to leave Andrew Carnegie’s weekender with its 4 poster bed, trouser press by the bedroom door and servant’s stairs at the opposite end of the building to the main entrance. Alas.

Down the loose gravel drive and …

Day dawned sunny enough to get my laundry onto the line to dry a bit before setting off. Check Penman-Monteith transpiration equation to see why putting laundry out is still worthwhile even at low temperature and high (not saturating) humidity. …

Interesting sleeping arrangements again but in a nice out of town BnB. A day of light winds and rain, gentle slopes, and generally warmish temperatures (12-14C) providing you were out of the wind. So said we were freezing at Cromarty …

The first day that Hillary hasn’t been up at 6am! In fact I distinctly heard soft sussurations of a gentle rumbling nature from the direction of her bed close to 6:30am.

Finally got our act together and caught the train …

John informs me the average temperature while riding today was 10C. Almost no rain or wind. So easy.

OK, the 400m in 5 k climb, with 2 km of 1:10, out of Fort Augustus wasn’t the greatest start but the …

What a doddle! Short, flattish, light winds, no rain, warmish.

Big thrill was seeing boats speed through the hydraulically operated locks and swing bridges of the Caledonian Canal. So much faster than the manually operated, older, smaller locks further south. …

Beautiful day. (Relatively) warm especially as I’ve now started riding with a T-shirt under my jersey for warmth. Only a few minor showers.

Wind below 7 knots from every direction in different minutes.

Traffic heavy mix of tourist self-drives, trucks, …