Just Keep Pedalling: Personal Reflections on Riding LEJOG

It all started as one of those throwaway ideas someone (typically Ross) throws into the WhatsApp group - something that sounds like fun until you realise it involves cycling the entire length of Britain. At first, I ignored it. Too much. Too intense. Too early in the year. But then one sunny mountain bike ride later, something shifted. I was in a good headspace, the sun was shining, and I thought: how hard can it be?

And so, in April, me, Ross and Gary rode our bicycles from Land’s End to John o’ Groats. Eleven days. Just over a thousand miles. Around 54,000 feet of climbing. A mix of sunshine, rain, fog, and wind. It was a beautiful, brutal, brilliant thing.

Before the Ride: Fear and Weetabix

I had a few big worries going in. One was the post-ride headaches that had plagued every single training session. I tried more water, more electrolytes - nothing helped. Until I cracked the code: carbs. Turns out scarfing a couple of Weetabix before bed made all the difference. That late-night cereal bowl became a small ritual throughout the trip - comforting, quiet, and one of the few moments of stillness in days full of motion, mud, traffic, and noise.

My other fears - mechanical failures and legs that might mutiny - never really materialised. My Specialized Diverge Elite held up brilliantly, and my legs, surprisingly, were the least of my problems. It was my shoulders that gave out first. I’d tweaked my bike setup too close to departure, making for a too-aggressive ride angle, and the strain hit hard.

By the afternoon of day three - one of our longest days, with maybe 40–50 miles still to go - I was on the edge. The cumulative strain on my shoulders was unbearable and, I realised, unsustainable for what would be a further 8 days. I even started mentally reframing, how I’d pull out of the 'end to end' commitment and just dip in and out of the remaining rides depending on how my shoulder felt each day, rebranding my role as a “LEJOG-inspired” tour. A sort of tribute act to the real thing.

We called in the support crew - my daughter Ruby and her friend Darcie, both paramedics - to meet us en route. I gave Ruby a blunt brief: “Can you give me something that gets me back on the bike in the next 20 minutes, otherwise I’m done?”. And she did. That evening ride turned out to be one of my favourites: gliding along quiet roads at dusk, doped up (legally!), pain-free, and newly hopeful. That was the point I knew I'd make it to the end.

Settling Into the Grind

Something shifts when you spend 11–13 hours a day in the saddle, day after day. What feels inconceivable at the start – like your Garmin telling you it's 35 miles until the next turning - becomes routine. Long straight stretches through the Highlands that once felt daunting were just “a couple of hours to chew through”. You find rhythms. You stop resisting the repetition. You keep pedalling.

There were absurd moments too - like the dog that followed us for half an hour along a canal path, nipping at our tyres like an overzealous team mascot. Or the daily stress of wondering whether we’d have any clean or dry kit - despite Ruby and Darcie’s heroic efforts wrangling campsite laundries that required mythical tokens or elusive coinage (who still carries coins??).

And then there was the landscape. The Scottish Highlands always leave me awestruck. But it was the Yorkshire Dales that took me by surprise - lush, rolling, and quietly magnificent. Beauty found us every day, if we had the energy to look up.

Company and Quiet

Riding with Ross and Gary added camaraderie, banter, synchronised pee stops, and mutual accountability (read: they wouldn’t have let me quit). And doing it with Ruby as part of the support crew meant the world to me. We probably got on each other’s nerves at points - who wouldn’t, in a camper van for two weeks? - but that shared experience is something I’ll always hold close.

I’d also just come through a turbulent time at work – reorg uncertainty and narrowly avoiding redundancy - creating an awkward blur of endings and new beginnings. By the time we set off, I was in a good place though, professionally and mentally. This wasn’t a distraction from crisis. It felt like a celebration of making it through (see my other blog series for deeper reflections on ontological shock and survival).

Still Processing

It’s been a couple of weeks now and I’m still not sure I’ve fully absorbed what we did. I’m not basking in pride. Not yet. Maybe it takes time for that to arrive. Right now, I’m still thinking about the friendships forged, the miles chewed through, and whether Ruby and Darcie have forgiven me for all the last-minute stresses and constant clearing up after us all.

There’s no profound lesson to share - just the quiet observation: keep pedalling. On a bike, if you stop, you fall. From all the work turmoil I’d gone through in the lead up to the trip, I realised life is not that different.

So here I am - still feeling a little tired and achy right now, with a mildly tingly right arm as a souvenir (Google median nerve compression or ulnar neuropathy), and maybe a little changed. A little more aware that I’m getting older with each of these absurd adventures. Also, slightly prouder. And grateful - for good friends, steady legs, late-night cereal, an extraordinarily patient and capable daughter, and the sheer ridiculous privilege of cycling the length of a country*. 

* Ok, for the geospatial pedants reading this, not technically a country. Great Britain is, more accurately, an island comprising three nations (England, Scotland, and Wales), which are themselves part of the sovereign state known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. So, we cycled the length of the island of Great Britain - but not the entire UK country, as Northern Ireland is on a separate island. Still, “the sheer ridiculous privilege of cycling the length of a multi-nation island forming the majority landmass of a unitary sovereign state” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, so forgive me for a bit of poetic licence.