Just rolling

I’m writing this in a posh hotel in Inverness, one day after completing the End to End (I guess it’s Day 22), but I didn’t think the blog would be complete without some account of the events of Day 20.

Day 19 was fairly uneventful – we left our disappointing castle hostel and rode a routine 42 miles to Helmsdale, where we were greeted by our most basic hostel yet. By this stage it was starting to dawn on us that we were going to make it to John O’Groats. With just one proper day of riding left, only accidents, mechanical failures, freak weather or other unforeseen events would be able to stop us. But we didn’t really believe that all of these things could happen in turn.

Well, Day 20 dawned a warm cloudy day with favourable winds and just 53 flat miles to ride. Then things started happening.

Surprise 1: The Hills. We were not expecting to have to climb 800 feet solidly straight out of breakfast, nor did we expect 20 miles of continuous coastal hills before lunch. But that was ok – these days we laugh in the face of 13% gradients. I kept telling myself that it wouldn’t be right if the last day were an easy day…

Surprise 2: The Freak Weather. After lunch, we turned north on a dead straight minor road across a huge flat plain. Suddenly, the wind turned into a howling crosswind coming from our left-front, so we closed into a two-abreast formation and struggled on at 6 mph. That was ok – we had plenty of time. But then it started pouring with rain, and the rain was whipping our faces and eyes from the side. It got to the point where we could no longer keep our eyes open, or our bikes upright, but there was nowhere to shelter on this field. So we got off our bikes and crouched beside them, with nothing but panniers to shield us from the driving rain.

Surprise 3: The Crash. As the rain slowed, we got back on our bikes into the wind at 6mph. I noticed a car creeping behind us, which we hadn’t heard due to the wind. I called a halt and stopped by the side of the road. Unfortunately, stopping from 6mph doesn’t take very long, so Sophie ran into my panniers, and James ran into Sophie’s. As usual, Ed was safely out of harm’s way – not sure how he always manages that. James’ wheel drove straight into Sophie’s bike, bending itself into a pringle shape and breaking a clip off Sophie’s pannier.

Surprise 4: The Puncture. This was never going to stop us, but it just felt like the cycling gods were having one last giggle at our expense, testing us to see how much patience we had. With just 10 miles to ride to John O’Groats, Sophie got her first puncture – after 980 miles, it felt like an insult. We patched it up and got back on, and soon we were cresting a small rise in the road to catch our first glimpse of the north coast of Scotland.

Feeling incredibly relieved, we finally rolled up to the John O’Groats youth hostel, just three miles short of John O’Groats itself. We were too tired to celebrate – that could wait till tomorrow, when we would officially complete our journey.