Brad bikes from John O Groats to Lands End (JOGLE)

Sunday 18th July 2010

I left Shrewsbury just after 8:30am after dosing up with paracetamol this morning, I stopped for breakfast a short distance after, as the chef at the pub where I stayed wasn’t working (I had an evening meal instead).

Today was about managing the pain on my Achilles, initially it had all started on my right leg, but now had spread to my left, I’ not sure which was worse, they were both very tight and I had them strapped-up, but the real pain was on my left leg. The problem when cycling is that you constantly think about it, so any other pain or distraction is a good thing to take your mind off it for a few moments.

After about an hour of cycling I was past by a tandem with a couple cycling to Lands End, as they past I noticed the guy at the back had a sign, “Blind Rider” placed on his back, I tried to keep up for a short spell but they were traveling too fast and I had to go at my own pace, otherwise I would never finish, I could see them in the distance for a while and then lost them completely. About another hour down the road I noticed that they had pulled up and stopped to help. Their rear cog had completely locked up and wouldn’t spin freely. I tried to do what I could but only managed to identify the root cause, rather than fixing it for them. They were raising money for the ‘National Blind Children’s Society’ and completing it in 11 days. They said thanks and I was on my way again.

Feeling good after stopping and helping and thinking that there’s a lot worse off people out there, all doing what they can to raise money anyway they can, I pushed on for another couple of hours and made it to Leominster by 2pm. I still had another 45 miles to go, but didn’t mind this as I knew I had a short day tomorrow.

I continued all day to take pain relief, to help ease the pressure on my achilles, and just keep turning the peddles to the finish, by 5:30pm I had arrived near my destination, so I stopped in the first pub I found for a couple of pints of Guiness (for medicinal purposes) and a proper Sunday dinner of Lamb chops and all the trimmings, very nice to.

I made it the 85 miles to Saul and arrived at the farm. Lara had arranged this B&B and to my surprise, was the best B&B I have ever been to. I had my own annex off the main farm building. You go up the external stair case and on entering is a very big king size bed, and behind the cupboard is a self contained kitchen full of food, decent coffee machine, Sky TV etc etc… on making my way downstairs you have the biggest bathroom I have see in a very long time, with a massive 3 person jacuzzi in the corner. WOW!

So as you can imagine, I got that beast of a bath running and had a great jacuzzi for an hour then tucked into some of the fine cheese, fruit and cereal which was for my continental breakfast in the morning. This is what I call a B&B!