Another East of Pennines Route
The Rider
I am a 47 year old aeronautical engineer working for Rolls-Royce in Derby, and live in Borrowash which is situated about 4 miles east of Derby. I am married with 3 teenage children and enjoy playing music, growing fruit and veg in my allotment, sailing, walking, cycling and travel. I attend my local Church in Ockbrook and play bass and violin in the music group.
Preparation
The idea of doing LEJOG started during a cycling holiday in the Netherlands with my family in 2005. I had always wanted to do this trip and the Dutch trip spurred me into action, with the result that I made arrangements to undertake the ride in the early summer of 2006. I chose a departure date of the 6 May. The reason for this was a) it was during term time so accommodation should be no problem b) it would be too early for the really bad midges in Scotland and c) I would be home in time to practice for my grade 3 piano exam which is in July. The down side was that it might still be a bit cold in Scotland, especially this year which has seen a very cold spring.
Sponsorship
I decided to raise money for the Arthritis Research Campaign. I have a Justgiving.com web site from which donations may be made.
Training
I cycle 5 miles to work and back each day but realised that this would probably be insufficient to prepare me for the 70 plus miles I’d to cover during the trip. I therefore planned to build up my cycling fitness by taking longer routes home and by having long day rides at the weekends. Unfortunately I only managed about four 25 mile rides home from work and five 40 mile rides at the weekend. I had so much work to do in the allotment along with family and church commitments that I could not find the time for much training. However many of the diaries of other LEJOGists contained in the Ultimate LEJOG links web pages indicated that a lot of training was not essential. You’d get fit during the trip.
I did however manage to cycle from Borrowash to Kettlewell over two days covering 120 miles. This was a good shake down ride and highlighted a few changes to my packing list. I was tired at the end of the 2 days but felt reasonably OK.
Planned Route
The planned route was to follow the CTC youth hostel route for the first three days up to Street Youth Hostel and the take my own route via Winchcombe (in-laws), Borrowash (home) then up the Pennines to Kielder. I’d cross over the Scottish boarder to Hawick then Edinburgh, Pitlochry, Inverness, Carsbisdale, Tongue and finally JOG.