Day 12

Tom had bravely battled through Day 11 suffering from a reaction to a couple of insect bites on his left leg. The leg had swollen and was quite uncomfortable to walk on, or ride a bike on. By the morning of Day 12 it was obvious that things weren't any better, in fact the condition had worsened, and Tom was not feeling at all well. It was decided to make a dash to Penrith to speak to a pharmacist for advice. A couple of packs of pills later we were on our way back to the last campsite and getting prepared for another day in the saddle i.e. packing the waterproofs. We bade our farewells to our new friend, the highland cow, and set off northwards again.

Strange but true, the forecast wasn't good, but we managed a nearly full day without rain. We made our way through beautiful Cumbrian countryside down quiet country lanes, gradually getting closer to the Scottish border. We stopped at Brampton for refreshments and got some local advice on where we could see remains of Hadrian's Wall. We diverted 10 or so miles from our original route to see 12th century Lanercost Priory, Hadrian's Wall and the remains of a Roman watchtower at the village of Banks. If we're honest the wall wasn't at its most impressive at this point but we didn't have time to explore for better examples.

Our last 10 miles to the campsite on Low Moor Head Farm were spent in light drizzle, quelle surprise, but we managed to arrive at the end of our 49 miles, without getting too wet for once. We are about 2 miles from the Scottish border, as the haggis flies. The support team, now augmented by Sarah, had established base camp, the tent was up, in the orchard with the ducks, and the evening meal was even under preparation. The lady of the farm had kindly given us a dozen eggs so our stores were topped up also. All good. We just need Tom's leg to respond to treatment now and allow him an easier day tomorrow.

Day 11

Over half way now - and we're still on schedule!

You can usually get a good idea of what somewhere is like by looking at the map of the area. Nothing prepared us for the amazing countryside of the Forest of Bowland though. The sweeping moorlands and hills provided us with the best morning's cycling of LeJog so far. Great riding and beautiful scenery.

And as a bonus we had a dry, and then sunny morning after a forecast of rain all day. Our ride today was a potentially gruelling one of 69 miles - with over 5,000 feet of ascent. We rode into North Yorkshire and into Cumbria, stopping at the very attractive Kirkby Lonsdale for lunch (including the local hot pot to keep up the local food thing). By the time we emerged from the Red Dragon the rain had started and stayed with us for the rest of the ride.... another 3 hours. By the time we got to our site, just south of Penrith, we were thoroughly soaked and at these latitudes that can soon lead to a survival situation.Then we spotted the campsite - yes. And then we spotted our van - with a highland cow right in front of it.

The owners of the Low Moor Park site were really kind to us, drying out all our kit in their tumble drier and over the Aga cooker. The team was finally augmented by the arrival of Sarah, our Nutrition and Media Director, who had come up from Southampton by coach. Why didn't we think of that?

At the end of day 11 we have completed 548 miles, over half way to John O'Groats and only 45 miles short of the Scottish border.

Some comments at the completion of the first half....

Dad: "We must try this again in the Summer"
Greg: "Its been sick man, here's to the second half" (raising bottle of Stella)
Tom: "Much tougher than I thought, not quite the sun-kissed holiday we'd been expecting but I'm looking forward to the heat wave in Scotland"
Mum: "Can't believe how quickly we've worked our way up the country - ready for the sunshine now"
Sarah "Way good, it all downhill from here"
Team Physician "These guys are amazing. The cardio-respitory figures are off the scale; I've not seen such stats since I started working with Lance"
Team Masseuse - "These guys are fit"

Day 10

Another day another downpour. We set off in light rain and it stayed that way for most of the morning, clearing up after lunch. Our blistering getaway faltered after about 500 metres when Greg discovered that he had a puncture. The emergency repair team moved smoothly into operation and had the team back on the road in less than half an hour.

Taking the adventure cycling concept to the max we cycled through several northern towns. We decided to keep close formation and to keep moving. Our route took us through a landscape of contrasts. Fields of cereal crops in rural isolation alternated with the red brick terraces, tanning shops and chinese takeaways in milltowns that were once the engine room of British industrial growth.

A feature of the morning was the number of cyclists out on the roads - more than the rest of our ride put together and great to see. We saw a variety of farm animals and wildlife on our travels through northern England - lots of sheep of course, lots of cows and the odd field of alpacas. Our route took us between Manchester and Warrington, over the Manchester ship canal, between Bolton and Wigan (nice view of the Reebok Stadium), through Chorley, around Blackburn (thus avoiding the 4,000 holes) and finally to Whalley. Our approach to Whalley was via high ground to the north of Blackburn with great views towards the Forest of Bowland and the Yorkshire Dales.

In the evening we had a visit from Mum's youngest sister Les, plus son Mark, and Arthur. They came across from Halifax with several tons of food supplies which made for a lovely evening picnic and leftovers to last until the highlands. Les also came with a very pleasant surprise in the form of a £75.86 donation to Parkinson's UK from money she'd collected at her school and in her village - a fantastic effort and a huge thanks to Les, Mark and Arthur x x x

Day 9

We've spent today getting back into the routine of life on the road after a whole day and 2 nights off. A massive thank you to Nan and Grandad for their brilliant hospitality, as always - fantastic food and a whole new set of clean cycling gear! The 5 star site comes highly recommended to anyone caravanning in the area. We managed to tear Greg away from the comfort of a bed using a full english fry up as bait, then bid a reluctant farewell to our extended support team who have treated us spectacularly well, and tentatively got back on the saddles.

There was a quick photo shoot for the local press to attend to before the riders headed out of Oswestry and into the Cheshire countryside. The stretches of canal along the way are well known to the Proberts and we used our maritime knowledge to locate a marina cafe where we re-fueled, surrounded by hundreds of barges.

In what was probably our easiest day of cycling so far, we ate up the 54 miles to reach our final destination - the spookily named 'Gravestones farm', let's hope we survive the night!

Invaluable Support

As we enjoy a rest day at our mid-race luxury team HQ in Oswestry (Nan and Grandad's house) the spotlight turns to the crucial role played by our support team (Mum).


So far un featured in LeBlog, Mum and her van have been absolutely essential to the mission. Mum's been keeping the boys loaded up with carbs and fluids, organising things, keeping LeDog under control, transporting all our kit from site to site, and generally keeping the operation ticking over smoothly.


Each day the race team set off, the support team is on hand to pack away all our leftover kit, navigate to the next site, buy more biscuits and get the beers ready for our arrival. As you can see from the photos, the job often requires some impressive multi-tasking.

Day 7

Day 7 presented us with our longest ride so far - 83 miles. The day started with a mixture of sunshine and showers, in a ratio of about 25% sunshine, 75% showers. The route took us around Hereford, via Leominster and through some classic Herefordshire and Shropshire farmland. Undulating fields of yellowing wheat were interspersed with fields of satisfied looking sheep and cows grazing on the lush grass (its all the rain). We rode past countless old English "black and white" houses and farm buildings and the sight of buzzards soaring over the fields was another theme of the day.

As the morning wore on the rain started to increase but we were eating up the miles and by the time we got to our lunch stop at Bishop's Castle we had already completed 45 miles. Rembering the advice of our Nutrition Director we had to take on fluids of course, and the oldest licensed brewery in the UK - the Three Tuns, seemed the perfect place. The Shropshire blue cheese in the ploughmans kept up the local produce theme but the spotted dick and custard for pudding made it a bit hard to get up the first hill in the afternoon session.

The rain cleared up while we ate lunch and we had a dry final stage of the ride through Montgomery, Welshpool and on to Oswestry where we were greeted by a special banner and an even more special LeJog mince pie!

Special thanks to Nan and Grandad for a lovely welcome, meal and beds for all - what luxury.

Day 6

The omens weren't good this morning. We awoke to the sight of wall to wall black clouds and driving rain. By our slightly later than normal departure time of 9.30 the rain had eased off to a downpour and we tentatively made our way towards the Severn Bridge. We got away slightly later than usual because it took us quite a while to compose ourselves after seeing how we looked with our elf-like overshoes. Dad in particular was reduced to fits of laughter as the normally sartorially elegant road racers were reduced to Smurf lookalikes.

But we were lucky. Within an hour or so the rain had disappeared and was replaced by showers, heavy at times, south south west backing south, 3 to 4, good, occasionally poor. After 20 miles we reached the Severn Bridge and turned northwards and into Wales. We were hoping to get some cheese on toast in Chepstow to continue the local food theme, but had to settle for banana cake.

The ride up the Wye Valley through Coleford, Symond's Yat and Ross-on-Wye was beautiful at times with wide sweeping bends in the river and dramatic cliffs. We stopped at Symond's Yat for a while to admire the view and were rewarded with a sighting of a peregrine falcon - did you know its the fastest animal on earth?

Arriving at our campsite just south of Hereford we had completed 57 miles in the day, and counted ourselves lucky to have somehow dodged most of the showers during the day (especially lucky because we could keep the elf boots out of sight in the pannier).