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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.

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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. Next Page>

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