Myself and Roger are about to set off on our attempt to set a new record for the UK ‘end to end’:
Lands End to John o’Groats: 850 miles in seven days
Starting Saturday 12 Sept 2009 we will be planning to ride an average of 200km (120 miles) each day for a week. We will be supported by Paul Royle in a vehicle and be staying in motels along the way (and my parents’ house in Inverness). The current record is 12 days, 1hr 59m set by Rob Ambrose in 2001.
Our daily plan looks like this:
Day 1 - 12 Sept 2009. Land’s End to Oakhampton. 97 miles.
Day 2 - 13 Sept 2009. Oakhampton to Bristol. 111 miles.
Day 3 - 14 Sept 2009. Bristol to Warrington. 145 miles.
Day 4 - 15 Sept 2009. Warrington to Carlisle. 120 miles.
Day 5 - 16 Sept 2009. Carlisle to Kinross. 127 miles.
Day 6 - 17 Sept 2009. Kinross to Inverness. 128 miles.
Day 7 - 18 Sept 2009. Inverness to John o’Groats. 120 miles.
We’ll be riding 36" unicycles with Schlumpf geared hubs. Mine is a KH36 frame, Roger’s is Nimbus.
The weather has come out nice, and should be sunny and fair all week. Other than that, it’ll surely be the hardest thing we’ve attempted, and won’t leave any room for wishing we’d been more ambitious.
If the sound of this makes you want to donate, I am collecting money for a small, independent charity called Wake Up! Ministries in Uganda. It was started by a friend called Martin Nangoli, whom I lived with during my gap year in 2004. It is a Christian-based organisation with a passion for improving people’s lives in the rural Ugandan village of Kikobero in which Martin grew up. They provide school sponsorship, adult education, sport and health programs and emergency aid for food to help survive the recent failed crops.
Info on the ride and a PayPal button to take donations are at our website: tr.im/endtoend
Nice one. You’ll have to start a new thread once you’re done, to go with the ‘who has ridden 100 miles in a day’, to say ‘who has ridden 100 miles every day for a week’.
I imagine if you make the 8 days, that this record may stand for quite a time. I wonder if anyone will ever ride it in the style of the bike record (riding through the nights as well)?
Sam, have you done a century on your geared 36 yet? I find endurance riding to be quite different on the geared set up…but I guess you always have the option of riding in low gear too.
Maybe I am just a wuss, but even 60 miles with the geared 36er kills my muscles. I guess part of that is the heavy 36er tube I use and my heavy moments, but I think it is mostly my lack of riding as of late.
I seem to remember Sam was seriously considering doing Ride the Lobster solo at one point, I thought it was a bad idea because there was a serious chance he’d beat quite a few teams and that would be embarassing for them!
Cool. Good luck for that - hope it doesn’t get too windy. That’ll be faster than I did it on a bike… but I was carrying my own kit and went a longer route (that’s my excuse anyway and I’m sticking to it :o).
Especially if you make use of the majority of those 24 hours a day, i.e. minimize the total downtime. Sleep is over-rated! Seriously though, good luck and have fun!
Seriously though, good luck and have fun!