Staying in a hostel for the night had the unfortunate side effect that there was not a big cooked breakfast waiting on the table for us this morning, all we had available were some power bars. Whilst they might have the required energy provision for a days cycling, they do not have the same satisfaction rating - I am yet to find a company producing the "Full Cooked Breakfast" flavored bar.The rain had also returned and whilst it was very satisfying shouting encouragement out of the car window to the other two lads from the hostel as we drove past them on the first of the two hills ( we had mentioned the hills that we'd done and they still had to do on just a couple of occasions the night before ) this just spurred them on to catch us up as soon as possible. Starting from the point where we had stopped the night before it was an almost never ending road that wound its way slowly to Wick with the miles seeming to fall very slowly although guess what, we were managing our normal average of 13 mph. As the day started to brighten up we had bacon rolls in Wick - or was it the other way round and as we had bacon rolls the day started to brighten up? Wick meant that there were only 17 miles to the finish and after riding along one very straight section of road the sign at a junction brought news that we had
already covered 4 of those miles - I had been expecting it to say that we had only covered 2. This left us racing for the finish with just one final hill to be climbed before rolling down in to John O'Groats and the finish.
All that was left to do was take a couple of pictures at the finish line, get my End 2 End sheet stamped for the last time, get changed in the pub toilets and have a couple of pints of Guinness. There is not much else to do there!
This just left a six hour drive back home to a warm 
reception from all the neighbours on our arrival. Balloons, banners & champagne.
Job done.
Stats for the day
Miles 45
Average speed again 13
Max Speed 34
4 comments:
Good blog Russell, though you'll be shocked to learn that i didnt stop at any pubs!!. Its very nice to have done it isn't it? ie, no more planning, training, worrying etc! What are you going to do next though? I'm planning on getting fat, going bald and fitting full mud-guards to my bikes!!
Woohoo! Well done Russ - your next challenge should be the Vision Quest over here!
Well done Russell. Perhaps you ought to consider pitching the idea for the new flavour breakfast bar. Suggest start with Walls or Gingsters - probably kot the thing Kellogs would do.
Seriously - really great achievement. Dave F.
Congratuations on completing the ride! Great job with the blog too. I am riding from LE>JOG with two, maybe three, maybe even four others, starting on September 22. We are also planning to do the ride in 12 days. I liked the map you posted, I would really like to know where you got it, only I want to create a route-map but cannot find a suitable site to create one.
Paul
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