Day 12+4 - Back To Reality

Sept 29, 09:19: Back by popular demand....

It's now 4 days since we finished, and I'm sitting at my desk in the office and currently being paid to work instead of blogging, which is a worry because I know full well that a couple of people quite high up in the Vodafone chain of command will see this and probably want a 'car park chat' with me shortly thereafter - so, Tom, Terry, I apologise, it won't happen again and the voices made me do it...

I thought I'd share some random bits of info and misty-eyed reminiscences about the 12 days spent in the saddle with 9 people I didn't initially know very well and can now regard as, er, people I have met (that's a joke, love you all really. Mostly).

Maybe, for the benefit of anyone stumbling across this via Google and considering doing a LEJOG ride, some equipment and supplies info might be useful. None of us are professional cyclists, and as alluded to in earlier posts, before this whole thing started some of us weren't any kind of cyclist at all - though there's no truth to the rumour I'm just about to start that Mark actually began the trip on stabilisers.

Mark's bike is a Boardman Performance Hybrid Bike Pro, which is exclusive to Halfords. At £799 it is, I believe, the most expensive machine out of all the bikes used, so it just goes to show you don't need to have really professional gear to do this

Carl was riding another Boardman, a 'Road Bike Comp', and that's £650 worth. Becks used a Carrera Subway (£330), the only mountain bike of the bunch (which at various times we all thought was the smarter option). Eddie rode a 2008 Giant SCR4 (no longer available, but was I think about £400), I had a 2008 Giant SCR1.5 (again, not available now but retailed at £600), and then there was Andy & Veljko. They were both a bit special, for different reasons.

Andy's bike, which you will recall he has an unnatural and frankly disturbing affection for, is a Trek of indeterminate age & model. Affectionately known as 'The Dirty Princess', it's a lightweight road race machine, which will cover you in a film of oil if you get within 8 feet of it, hence the name. Veljko's bike is a handbuilt Fausto Coppi (no, I've never heard of them either), or at least the frame is, and whilst it's clearly fairly old it has a lot of more modern components hanging off it which probably makes it unique. God only knows what it's worth. The gearing suggests it's been built for speed, which is odd because the man in the saddle appears to be built for comfort - though you'd have to ask Andy about that because he was the one sharing a double bed with the big lad.

Other essentials on the trip: Padded shorts, padded bike tights (for the colder days), helmets, plenty of base layers / jerseys / wind & rainproof jackets all made of decent wicking materials (no cotton!), Sudocrem (you'll thank me for it), enough flapjacks, sausage rolls, scotch eggs and cocktail sausages to sink a country (preferably France), and an unlimited supply of Marlboro Lights, though admittedly these were only an essential for Mark. You'd also be well advised to find yourself 3 women with inexhaustible patience to look after you and rise above the urge to throttle you when you have the inevitable diva moments, such as finding the banana you've been handed is just slightly too green for your liking or curved the wrong way.

That's not a complete list by any means - we also had GPS, lots of spare tyres, innertubes, lights & batteries etc - but there's really too much stuff to list here. Which is why we also had an enormous van and two cars to carry all our junk in. In fact, if you are considering a LEJOG ride, my advice would be to forget it, it's too much of a logistical headache.

Just kidding.

Keith

PS: Misty-eyed reminiscences in the next post, I really should do some work now. Ho hum