The Journey Begins

Decision Time

For anyone who knows us, we are definitely not the best decision makers around (this is an under statement!). We are notorious for overthinking, however, when it comes to creating life lasting moments, we never shy away for one second. Although we pursued an end-to-end cycle before we met it is one of the main protagonists that brought us together in life.

Cycle Souls is made up of Craig and Donna. Since we met around 2 and a half years ago we have moved from the city of Edinburgh to the coastal town of Dunbar where we are still pursuing cycling as hobby. The summer before we met, for different reasons, cycling was more than a hobby as we both decided to take on Britain's most famous cycling route, Land's End to John O'Groats (LEJOG) although one of us cycling it in the opposite direction!

A Brief History of LEJOG/JOGLE

There are iconic cycling challenges all around the world, Cairo to Cape Town and Race Across America to name a few however the LEJOG holds a special place in the hearts of the UK cycling community. The route has been completed on penny farthings to tandems and taken on by young and old. No matter who you speak to about their experience of the cycle, everyone of those people have never regretted taking on the challenge.

While the world record, at the time of writing, stands at 41 hours and 4 minutes we both had slightly different timescales in mind! Our attempts weren't about breaking records or proving to people that we could achieve goals that we set ourselves, it was about proving that we could do it to ourselves. Although we shared this motivation our reasons for wanting to take on the challenge were different.

Why take on such a challenge?

Why would anyone want to cycle almost 1,000 miles over 9/10 days in the British summer time?

Donna

British summer time? Ha! More on that later! I took part in the cycle as part of an organised event through my previous employer. I had known about the event for a few years before I took part and I always wanted to challenge myself but never really had the guts to actually sign up. In 2016, my gran, who was my biggest supporter and cheerleader in life passed away. The month before she passed, I took part in my first 10k run to raise funds for Macmillan. At every opportunity she would tell nurses and visitors how proud she was and how clever I was for doing the run! I remember finishing the race and rushing back from Edinburgh to Dundee to tell her that I managed to run it all. After she passed, I had my first realisation of 'what am I doing in life?, why am I spending all of my time working? When I come to the end of my life, what stories will I have to tell and what will I look back on and be proud of?'. It was these thoughts, and the never fading faith in me from my gran that I decided to sign up to 'Ride Across Britain'. Now, I'll be honest here, at the time, I felt this empowerment, but realistically, I was hoping I wouldn't get selected and at least I could say I tried! Well, as I'm sure you've guessed, I was selected! I got the news around December 2016 and bought my first road bike in January 2017 (9 months before the ride started in September 2017).

Craig

It's often said that writing things down makes it more likely that you will actually follow through. I can remember setting myself this goal by doing exactly that and with my 30th birthday fast approaching, this seemed like the perfect time to be able to tick this off. I had always enjoyed keeping fit however I ramped this up in order to take on this challenge in the best possible physical condition. I bought myself a static trainer for my road bike and started preparing around late February with my start date set for the 12th of August.

Supported vs Self-supported

Donna

At the time I worked for the company who sponsored Thresholds 'Ride Across Britain' event. This was an organised and supported cycle from Lands End to John O'Groats, 969 miles, over 9 days. My employer had a number of places available to staff who can enter through a ballot and it was one of these places I was awarded. Around 700 cyclists take part each year, the event is incredibly well supported, with mechanics, physio, catering, medics, route plans and signs throughout. The whole team are truly incredible. You camp throughout the event, there is an option to stay in some hotels if you prefer, the team set up your tent at each base camp which is amazing and very welcome at the end of a 100 mile ride. I'll leave all the details of how training to the first day went for now. I will say if you're new to cycling long distances, or new to travelling by bike, or road cycling at all like I was, but want to take on the challenge, I would definitely recommend this option. The team spirit, the bubble you live in for those 9 days and the emotional support really are something. The only downside I would say is ensuring you meet check points by certain times, understandable for safety reasons, but I would also love to (maybe, don't quote me) ride the route again sometime, taking more time to really take in all the sights and stop off a bit more. With that being said, the reason I needed to do this cycle and the impact I hoped it would have for my life were 100% fulfilled by Ride Across Britain.

Craig

I made the (crazy!) decision to cycle the 1,000 mile route self-supported. I purchased some Alpkit cycling bags, made a list of essentials that I would need through the help of some generous people that I reached out to through the UKCycleChat Twitter page and booked some Airbnb's and I was ready to go. When I say it like that it sounds simple however there was a lot of things to take into consideration. What if I get injured? How would I deal with a severe mechanical issue? What if my Garmin and phone stop working, how would I still navigate through that day? All of these plus hundreds more scenarios were running through my head. If there is one piece of advice that I would pass onto anyone looking to do something similar it would prepare, and when you think you have prepared enough, prepare even more!

A taste of what's to come

Despite this journey being documented many times before we wanted a place where we could tell our own story. Over the coming weeks/months we will be going through each day of our journey where you will find out about the difference of doing it as part of a group vs self-supported, general tips for taking on such a challenge and many funny anecdotes that happened along the way.