We are trying to raise money for the benefit of all of the children at Farndon School, by cycling approx 880 miles from Land's End to John O'Groats in 8 days, starting on Saturday 6th September in Land’s End and finishing on Saturday 13th September.Toby is providing the driving support throughout the trip, and we have hired motorhome from Chester Motorhomes, as we plan to stay at campsites along the way, except for the second night where we will stay at Matt’s parents. We will be leaving on Friday 5th September, driving down to Cornwall, and parking up/sleeping somewhere close to Land’s End, as we will not get there until quite late on. We will set off once we can register our start.
We are trying to make the route as direct as possible, so that it can be done reasonably quickly. We therefore decided to keep to main roads, which also have the advantage of typically being less steep than smaller roads. The route is as follows:
Route Summary:
Day 1 Land's End to Exeter
Daily Miles: 122
Cumulative Miles: 122
Day 2 Exeter to Monmouth
Daily Miles: 120
Cumulative Miles: 242
Day 3 Monmouth to Tarporley
Daily Miles: 104
Cumulative Miles: 346
Day 4 Tarporley to Kendal
Daily Miles: 91
Cumulative Miles: 437
Day 5 Kendal to Abington
Daily Miles: 114
Cumulative Miles: 551
Day 6 Abington to Bridge of Orchy
Daily Miles: 101
Cumulative Miles: 652
Day 7 Bridge of Orchy to Alness
Daily Miles: 123
Cumulative Miles: 775
Day 8 Alness to John O' Groats
Daily Miles: 99
Cumulative Miles: 874
TOTAL: 874 miles
Daily Average Distance: 109
The idea of starting at Land’s End is that this direction tends to have the prevailing winds behind us, but we’ll see!
Why are we doing this? Basically we have two reasons. Firstly it is a huge personal challenge for us to train and complete such a trip. Our training began on 4th January, and we have been gradually building up our weekly mileage, and trying to fit this around our home lives and work commitments, getting up early to go out cycling before work, and where possible cycling to work in a 50-60 mile round trip.
And secondly, we would like to raise money for Farndon School.
Farndon Primary School has been serving the community of Farndon and surrounding areas for many generations. It continues to do so successfully but in spite of its status as a highly regarded and sustainable school, it struggles in its efforts to secure funding for its vital infrastructure needs. These include:
- the wholly inadequate mobile classrooms
- the grossly inadequate toilet facilities
- the urgent need for improvements to the playground area
Clearly we are not going to raise enough to cover these, however it is our intention for this fundraiser to go towards this activity, and also to use this fundraising activity to help with Sarah Hazel’s lobbying of the County Council. We aim for Farndon Primary School to be fit for the 21st century. The school needs our support.
We are grateful for any support that you can offer, and if you are able to sponsor us, please visit www.justgiving.com/farndonlejog.
We would just like to thank everyone for their kind sponsorship and support, and we will keep you updated of our progress.
Some facts about our trip:
880 miles in 8 days
7 hours in the saddle per day, 58 hours total cycling
Around 310,000 pedals each
Equivalent to 8 consecutive marathons (according to Iron Man Challenge 112miles is equivalent to 1 marathon)
57 Litres of energy drink
3 flies swallowed each and 2 sore backsides
Toby - driving 2000 miles and 8 chickens in a basket.
2 comments:
Good luck to the three of you!
pete
Good on ya, you are true battlers! As they'd say down under..very proud of you Ben! Hope its all going well and the weather is being a bit kinder to you. Bet your thighs and bottoms are not thanking you too much....take care and enjoy the rest of the ride! Jo xx
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