JOGLE

wacka

Hi all,

I'm looking at doing John o groats to lands end next Easter. I'm after some advice on a training plan to prepare for it. Has anyone got any good training plans they can share. Also what bike is recommended as looking to do it in 7/8 days?

Hoopdriver

You sound very new at this. What kind of bicycle do you ride now?

wacka

Giant Defy 4 2011, I use it 3/4 times a week to commute 25 miles to and from work, and an occasional longer ride on a Sunday depending on Saturday night escapes! Will scrub round the saturday wine bottle when in training properly tho.

wacka

Also, can you recommend any websites to aid in planning, we will be doing it for a military charity? Any advise will be greatly appreciated.

teulk

7/8 days is a lot of miles a day, i did LEJOG a few years back and set 14days to do it in but did it in 12days. We averaged 75miles per day but in reality we were doing 60+, 70+, 80+, 90+ days and last day was 120miles. I guess we could have done it in 10days looking back on it. Bike wise i had an Orbea Aqua, my mates had an Orbea Orca and the other a Boardman road bike. Training - go and ride and get used to riding for a long time. Your going to be looking at 125 - 140ish miles a day if your wanting to do it in 7/8 days.
Are you doing it supported or not ? If unsupported then your going to have to factor in the extra weight of carrying your gear.

teulk

Wacka wrote:

Also, can you recommend any websites to aid in planning, we will be doing it for a military charity? Any advise will be greatly appreciated.

Cant really recommend any websites as such, i spent alot of time googling LEJOG and looking at other peoples routes. I eventually found one that kind of suited us and modified it to suit us. Once i had the daily finish / start points i simply took the AA route planner and put the start and end points in and then amended the route to suit us. We took several Road Atlas with us and used them to navigate. If your using a garmin then it would just be a matter of copying the routes to something like Bike Route Toaster, Ride with GPS or something similar.

wacka

We will be unsupported, but there will be a few of us so we'll all have saddle bags etc and we'll also pencil in cafe stops for recharge and bike shops on route for any serious issues!

crossborderreiver

http://beta.ctc.org.uk/article/cycling- ... hn-ogroats
http://www.cycle-endtoend.org.uk/

thegibdog

The end to end forum on the CTC website is useful: http://forum.ctc.org.uk/viewforum.php?f=22

I did it in 7 days in May, there's details of it on the blog in my signature. Re the bike the main thing is something that you are comfortable on over long distances, if your Defy is then you shouldn't have a problem using that assuming you can carry everything you need on it.