My First Nine Months Of Biking''
My first bike was a Raleigh Arena; it was a shiny blue colour and was blessed with five gears. I must have ridden it for all of 20 minutes before the novelty wore off and the poor machine was left to gently return to its natural state (iron oxide'). But then life seems so much simpler when you're a kid, you just do what you want. Peer/parental pressure was never a big issue for me and it seemed (much to my parents chagrin having spent £95 on a new bike) that biking just didn't float my boat. While other kids were wheelie-ing I was busy digging, building, and shooting.

To be quite honest the paragraph above would probably have been sufficient to describe my life's interaction with push bikes if a good friend of mine (Ben) hadn't suddenly (and rather mysteriously) decided to devote ALL of his waking free time and existence to the strange sport of mountain biking. 

By this time I was in my early thirties and although I had managed to survive happily bikeless for the previous 25 years a constant nagging presence, and insistence, that I was missing a fundamental part of life echoed through Bens' regular phone calls and holidays. I resisted for as long as I could (a further two years!) but was eventually overwhelmed by a combined onslaught of a cycling mad girlfriend (Julie) and Bens' continued insistence that all the worlds' religions had made a huge mistake and missed the real meaning of life'. Apparently (and rather implausibly I thought) he claimed to have found the light, and had named this expensive wonder 'Mountain Biking'.

So it was that my second bike arrived from a small cottage in North Wales. A £400 red Specialized Rockhopper Pro. My first impressions were mixed, it was shiny (a good point), it had 27 gears (could be a good point, wasn't sure really), and it seemed rather heavy (possibly a bad point'). My full technical appraisal wasn't lost on Ben who immediately informed me I should have spent at least another £2000 on the machine or I was wasting my time. In the meantime he had a route I HAD to try and provided me with a grid reference and an arrival time for the following weekend. 

I gingerly spent a week trying to remember how to cycle and cursing the moronic gear system which meant that one thumb pushing did the opposite of the other doing the same thing. I marvelled at my complete lack of ability to make the bike either stop or go with any useful intent, and at my similar incompetence when it came to controlling its direction unless I was riding along a flat, straight, road. 

Two days later Ben deposited a map in my Email inbox. It detailed a route of 50km over 1500m of ascent starting in a place called Nidderdale. The website details seemed to think the 'route' was quite good and they (MTBBritain) gave it a five out of five rating. In hindsight I can now see that this was an excellent example of 'ignorance is bliss', and that Ben had either underestimated his own skill levels or vastly over estimated mine! 

Nevertheless, I turned up as instructed with my shiny new bike only to be met with a puzzled look. Where was my helmet? And water? And food? And lights? Hmmm'. All potentially good questions, especially as it was around 3pm when we set off (even I was highly impressed by our anticipated route time in order to arrive back before dark, after all it was late October).   Well what can I say? By the time we got back to the Pizza shop in Harrogate I was in a bit of a mess. I think I was suffering from something approaching Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, I felt decidedly sick and dizzy, my legs were shaking and suitably grazed from numerous tumbles, and my left shoulder was hanging low after an over the bar incident when on Bens instructions I had attempted to dissipate downhill vibrations on rough surfaces by riding as fast as I could 'over' the offending boulders. I was clearly dehydrated (my pupils were the size of dinner plates), certainly past the point of sensible nutritional sustenance (Although it was good of Ben to give me the two chewy bars he had spare), and rather concerned about my 'new', shiny bike which had clearly devalued by at least £200 in the last 7 hours and currently had no working gears or brakes.

As Ben strolled out of the Pizza shop he declared what a superb day/night it had been, but, he said, 'it might be a good idea to get yourself a helmet for next week', and as an afterthought he thoughtfully added, 'are you alright? You look a bit pale?', what could I say'  Although I felt that I should have enjoyed the biking experience, somehow it just didn't gel. The overall adventure was exactly what I was looking for, but me and the 'biking thing' just wasn't working. I felt as if I was fighting the bike all the time and even though my technical knowledge was (and still is pretty much) non-existent I knew that my bike and I weren't working together. I did a few rides after Nidderdale but was making more excuses than rides and was, in truth, looking to sell the bike and retire from my biking career gracefully.

The next part of the story was really rather odd. Ben sensing he was about to lose a riding partner offered to sell me a Cannondale F2000 for a very good price. He assured me that this would cure all my riding problems, and amazingly I trusted him enough to believe him. I suppose I owe all my subsequent riding and biking experiences to Ben's generosity and my own gullibility. Whoever was 'to blame', I am certainly not complaining! 

The difference between the two bikes was startling. The riding position, weight, power transfer, handling, suspension, and feel, were everything I thought they ought to be on a 'proper' mountain bike. At the time I had no idea why, but I fell in love with my new bike almost immediately and started more and more technically low-level adventurous rides, mostly by myself, and for longer and longer distances exploring vast tracts of North Wales. The idea of riding 100 miles in a day crept in from somewhere and I committed to it on the MTBBritain forum hoping it would drive a training program that would enable me to get to grips with the more technical aspects of off road riding (including gear changing, at which I was still hopelessly incompetent) and improve my riding fitness to a sensible level. 

The next series of events were so unlikely that it would take a year to explain how they came around, but, to cut a long story short I ended up doing a Downhill Skills Course with Nigel Page, got a long leave of absence from work, agreed to go long distance road touring with my girlfriend, and failed to get a set of maps sent from the USA for the Continental Divide Mountain Bike Trail' Nothing startling there you may think, but somehow all these happenings conspired to produce a rather odd reaction.

I had been riding a bike for less that 6 months, had no off-road skills, no mechanical knowledge, no real endurance fitness, no training, no helmet (still), and no idea of what I was doing, when from somewhere I made the statement that I was going to try and ride 1200 miles from Lands End to John O'Groats, off road, in 22 days'Marvellous Idea!!!!!! Luckily Julie is probably marginally madder than a box of frogs and seemed to think the idea was excellent and more than worthy of a great deal of suffering. She declared that our summer holiday was set; we set a date, and (I) promptly forgot all about it. Monday was our Lands End leaving day and the Thursday before prompted a brief comment from Julie, 'Aren't we supposed to be leaving from Lands End on Monday?'. I was immediately forced into committal action, 'Er, yesssss'. Silence. The problem was that I still hadn't unpacked from a three week motorcycle race in Lapland a week previously and had spent most of the last week in bed asleep. Cycling from one end of the country to the other was not exactly uppermost in my mind, but I didn't want to appear too incompetent. I knew I had to think fast because Julie was clearly not going to be put off by my indecisive pauses for long, and if I wasn't careful I would probably be spending the next three weeks doing myself irreparable damage. Another question fired my way, 'So, have you booked the accommodation and stuff? Where are we going to stay? Do you know the route'?'. What could I say, it seemed only a small white lie would suffice to extract me from this one, 'Er, yes?'. Luckily Julie knows me rather too well and immediately began probing my fine set of 'Lomax Plans', only to discover what she had suspected all along. There weren't any. She seemed a little upset by this but I reasoned that we still had three days before we had to leave to go South'

My mechanical knowledge of bikes was so limited that I didn't know enough to put together a sensible spares kit, so that was that sorted. I wandered down from the bedroom to the garage and poked at the bike, it LOOKED ok' I thought about my normal motorbike preparations before a rally. Most of them revolved around engine servicing and electrical preparations'. but the Cannondale didn't have any. I turned it upside down and span the wheels. Ah Haaaa! A dodgy wheel bearing! I put the bike into my car and drove it to my LBS. For the princely sum of £4.10 two new bearings were fitted and I felt vindicated. The bike preparation phase was over. Time for a quick look at the route. T Minus two days' Multimap is a marvellous thing. 75 pages of cut down maps later and a rather dubious drive into work to print two sets of double sided colour copies saw us with our route finalised. We had loosely based it upon a route used by James Spencer and David Broddle, detailed on their excellent website.

The main differences were to include stops at friends and family's houses in an attempt keep the B&B costs as low as possible (staying in UK hotels for a month is NOT a cheap pastime). The average daily distance was around 80km but we couldn't help notice the odd 120km day creeping in here and there together with some jolly unpleasant looking 2000m + climbing days. We reasoned it was probably best to ignore the details and worry about the physical element of the route once we were moving, although even I put my foot down and rerouted us as Julie gleefully announced a potential 130km day with 4500m of climbing'' Luckily if there is one thing we were prepared for it was packing light. Years of 'extreme' travel, alpine climbing, and unsupported motorcycle racing, has taught us to live with the bare minimum. Julie won the packing competition with a 15lb sack, and after a hasty rehash I met the challenge with a 16.5lb load.

This included all our spares (such as they were), clothes, water (2kg), emergency food, daily rations (for day 1), and wash kit. For those true minimalists I'm sure this could be lightened, but not by much unless you dump your spare set of lightweight dry clothes. Sunday morning dawned bright and sunny in Manchester but as we loaded the bikes on to the rack I have to say, I was looking forward to the drive south more than the cycle North. As the alarm rang at 7.00am the following morning I turned it off immediately. I had been awake for some time listening to Jasper and Julie gently breathing in the cool of the dawn. The tent was glowing its usual morning yellow and I could see the bikes on the rack through the mosquito net and the open tent door. A hurried breakfast of cornflakes saw us ready for action and by 7:45am we had said our goodbyes to Jasper (who was due to shuttle the car home) and set off downhill to the theme park that is 'Lands End World!'.

We posed in an empty viewing spot facing south for the de-rigueur photos in the perfect blue dawn of an idyllic English summers day, selected map 1, and turned north, we expected to be heading that way for some time. Although I'd like to say the start of the ride was a moment of two toned and professional athletes setting forth against a carefully measured and planned objective, I really can't. The reality was perhaps better illustrated by two incidents that happened before we even left the car park. Julie fell over clipped into her pedals whilst coming to a stop and whilst I was laughing quite loudly at her incompetence she pointed out I had my new shiny cycle helmet on backwards (did I mention the car park was empty'..good job really), I don't think anyone would have believed the message we had just written in the LE-JOG book at the hotel reception. It merely read, 'Heading north for 1200 miles off road : Dave and Julie'.

And so it began: If the first mornings progress was anything to go by 22 years would probably have been a better estimate of our finish time than 22 days. Ten minutes into the 'ride' we were wondering what the hell we were doing. Knee deep in bog with grass clumps heading towards waist level the bikes were hoisted high onto our heads as we stumbled slowly north looking for a small dotted red line on our 1:50000 map. These first few days were to see us constantly struggling to find ever more unlikely bridal paths through ever more improbable landscapes. Gorse bushes, gardens,farmyards, fields, witches altars (yes we really did cycle through a witches dell whilst lost on a moor looking for 'the' ubiquitous 'bridleway'), cowsheds, rivers, etc, etc. Little did Johnny Widget realise the trouble he would cause two MTBikers in 2005 as he wandered over to his Gran's house late in 1645. In 1695 that path became a track, and in 1965 that track became a bridleway. But that didn't matter because after Johnny Widget died in 1646 no one ever used it, and now that track exists only in the mind of a computer as a dotted red line across gorse pitted moor. It may exist as a visible and useable trail but it's certainly bloody hard to find, and I defy anyone to try and ride it!

No few wrong turns, a close encounter with cows (that saw Julies rucksack straps being chewed), and some utterly vicious gorse bushes saw us eating a pub lunch 30km later. A little shocked we sat in silence and contemplated the remaining 2000km and the effect they would probably have on us. A further 50km in the afternoon and we arrived at our nightly destination of Truro. By our 8pm arrival we had been on the trail for 12 hours, we were too tired to even head out for food and microwaved some ready meals in our room before crashing out early in a haze of exhaustion.

The next morning we took stock. We stopped too often, we weren't very fit, we found navigating such complex routes on 1:50,000 maps really hard and slow, our kit needed organising better, our bikes needed some TLC that we hadn't managed yet (we were too tired), we got up too late, we had concerns about our daily calorie intake, and JESUS our arses hurt! We had quite a lot if issues to deal with'. Our battle with the calorie problems began immediately at the local Sainsbury's about 9:30am. We needed complex carbohydrates and a shed load of them. Small sugary snacks just gave us a bad sugar spike and an even worse crash. Extensive hunting through the various food sections brought us to a halt in the bakery department. Here began a love/hate relationship with one of the most evilly dense and calorific foodstuffs known to man. The Irish Soda Farl.

Tasting a bit like unbaked concrete powder dough they pack a highly improbable 66g of complex carbohydrate into a single serving half the size of a slice of bread (that's 22% of your average daily intake for 2500 calorie day!). With four in a pack, if you can stand the offensive texture and taste, they are a lightweight daily power pack for a pretty good price. Whilst Julie was paying at the checkouts I was sorting out the bikes, repacking my sack, and wondering how long I could avoid sitting on my saddle. Not much longer was the answer.

A 10am leave was two hours later than it needed to be, and we had a lot of micro navigation and really sore backsides to keep us company for today's 95km. Almost immediately we discovered another interesting fact about 1:50,000 maps. If they are hard to use for navigating detailed country track and trails, trying to use them to cross a town or city in nigh on impossible. I took us out of Truro Northwards but quickly turned South without double-checking the map. After 30 mins, 4km, and a steep hill, we arrived back at the B & B' To say I wasn't popular was perhaps a minor understatement. I was immediately relieved of map reading duty and put at the back. I didn't argue!

The roller coasting downs of the Cornish countryside kept us sweating all day as temperatures climbed into the 90's and baked us up hill after hill. You soon figure out that the faster you come down the hills more time you spend going up them, and thanks to our early detour and late start the day turned into a minor epic. Although never lost we struggled onward through sloppy mud dips, farm tracks, and long forgotten bridleways. A lunch of Soda Farls was the first of many and by the time our water ran out 8 hours later we had covered 100km and over 6000ft of climbing. But the day wasn't over yet. Our B&B for the day followed a pattern that was to become all too familiar; it was at the top of the biggest hill in the area. We slowly ground up it with numb legs and I cursed Julie's choices (well she booked them all!).

The next day dawned hot and clear again as we took stock at the beginning of our third day. We still weren't riding quickly enough, we were still taking too many breaks, we still weren't eating enough, our navigation was still too slow, and HOLY JESUS if our arses hurt on day 2 there were no words to describe the pain of riding from the B&B on day 3!!

The new breakfast carbo-loading plan came into force for the first time in Launceston. We'd banned the cooked breakfast and piled down cereal, museli, toast, and juice at a ferocious rate. Although I felt sick for the first 30mins of the ride I knew I'd be needing the calories later, and hell, anything was better than eating farls (interestingly after a few weeks my body seemed to develop the talent for consuming VAST quantities of food and then immediately afterwards exercising really hard with no side effects, handy really, it usually happened four times a day!).

A quick 35km sprint alongside the A30 saw us with 40% of our daily distance done before 11am. The navigation was easy, but the riding hot and hard. Nevertheless, it was our first successful mornings riding and although we knew there were no technical sections to slow us down, we were secretly pleased that something was falling into place. As a congratulatory 'pat on the back' we popped into Okehampton steam railway station and crammed down a massive cream tea, which nearly gave us both coronary's (no matter how much you like clotted cream the human body is only designed to consume so much!) and even though our backsides were begging for no more saddle contact we ignored them and carried on due North only to be met with the 8th Wonder Of The World. 

The Tarka trail is an old disused railway that finally stops climbing over the downs and follows a valley base from 200m altitude at Okehampton down to sea level at Barnstaple over 70km later. It was the easy day we had been dreaming of. We freewheeled, stopped, slept, and listened to cheesy 80's rock music as we coasted 50km of perfect railway gradient down to the sea at Bideford. Life suddenly seemed great. The sun shone and I couldn't help but feel secretly proud of our destination as we shot past numerous other bikers all pottering along aimlessly. Ice cream after ice cream disappeared, and it all began to feel a bit like a famous five book really. What was all the fuss about, how hard could this trip really be'

As we reached the sea the smell of the salt water reminded me of home and I had a sudden and unexplained urge to pick up the pace. As I cranked out the next 25km dragging Julie protesting behind me I felt as light as a feather and immensely strong. After only an hour of spectacular riding at beach level along a marked cycle trail Barnstaple flew into view and a strange but familiar feeling started to descend on me. I found myself back in a pizza shop in Harrogate, weak and disorientated. My feeling of strength seemingly evaporated in seconds and my head felt strangely light and dizzy. I had foolishly pushed too far with too little food and was about to suffer the consequences that every cyclist (except me!) knows only too well. I was about to find out exactly how hard could this trip really be' By the time I crawled into the Pizza Hut the day's 100km were over. My legs were back to their normal numbness and I was shaking quite badly.

The first coke didn't touch the sides, and the sugar rush was spectacular! But another important lesson had been learned, and better it happened here than in Mid-Wales or Scotland where we knew we could get into real trouble if we didn't look after out nutritional needs, as well as our bikes, and our riding technique. Cornwall was proving to be tiring, but 'doable'. Exactly what we needed to teach the us the fundamentals we knew we would need over the next few weeks as the trails got ever more technical and the distance and climbs increased. My first puncture happened on the way from the Pizza place to the B&B hill, it was to be my only 'normal' puncture of the trip but it was spectacularly badly timed. The end of another 100km day, an energy crash, and real problems with the 30-degree heat were enough to leave me exhausted.

Our topics of conversation had been predictably single minded all day and they continued in the same vein most of the evening. We were both desperate for our day off when we arrived in Bristol. But, there was the small matter getting there first. 2 days and over 200km and 10000ft of off road biking were still firmly lodged in our way.