"EPIBLOGUE"

Psalm 121: "I will lift my eyes unto the hills: from whence cometh my help" 

It did take a few days for it to arrive!! 

The dust has now settled and we have arrived back home after a fantastic 11 days of riding through mostly beautiful British Countryside.
We covered about 950 miles, did 13,891 metres of climbing - that is approximately one and a half Mount Everests that we have cycled up (and down). No, we did not see any Yetis but the closest we came to something that might have been a Yeti was in Dingwall, Highlands (don't go looking yourself - just trust us!!).
We have been extremely fortunate with the weather - and at the same time also a bit challenged. We had little rain (3-4 days of drizzle) but then we had headwind on 8/11 days. 
October was not a bad month to do it (Paul's choice - thank you, P!!). The great advantage was no Midgies and NO CARAVANS in Scotland. The Scottish roads would have been a nightmare during the high season.
We had no punctures (Tyre Choice important!) and no serious mishaps.
We met loads of lovely helpful people, enjoyed great hospitality, ate some good meals  and drank some good beer (my favourite was Skinner's Lushington, Paul's was St. Austell's Proper Job although we both became very fond of Dark Island from the Orkneys). And although I rarely drink whisky they were absolutely fantastic when imbibed at JOG.
What were the highlights? For me Wye Valley, the climb up to Shap (more enjoyable had it not been for the wind), the ride on the paths through Glasgow and on to Loch Lomond, the ride from Rannoch Moor down into Glen Coe, the ride along Loch Ness and the ride from Lairg and up to Betty Hill.
For me seeing the North Sea at Betty Hill was rather emotional - actually it had more of an impact than getting to the signpost in JOG. 
In Scotland we saw birds of prey (or were they nightingales?I am afraid I still cannot remember their song, Peter!!) - one in particular sat on a road sign until I was 3-4 metres away and then elegantly took off. The same morning a stag with its girlfriends crossed the road in front of us.
We moved from Summer in Cornwall to Autumn in Scotland.
We had some great banter in the evenings - "the crack was good" as Van the Man would say!
And the lows? The hills in Cornwall were really really tough and progress was demoralisingly slow. And the headwind!!! The worst time was a completely flat bit of road from the Severn Bridge towards Chepstow. I was pedalling for England (and Denmark, France  etc) and I could keep a speed of 5 mph - I even swerved to get shelter for split seconds behind road signs to improve my progress! Likewise the ride into the wind at Carlisle was absolutely awful. But then we found a lovely B and B with a lovely woman who even agreed to feed us breakfast an hour earlier than normal on the Sunday and all misery was forgotten. 

So are we glad we did it - you bet we are!! Would we do it again - Paul would not (still a mountain biker!), me probably not - I have done it, now let's do something else. But then again......perhaps....given the right......
Through it all it has been absolutely fantastic to have the support from friends and followers via Facebook, blog-responds(sorry about the misprints - never alcohol induced as the blog was done before, and in spite of what you think we always knew that our beasts were waiting for us at the crack of dawn), texts etc. When you feel as if your bib-shorts have been padded with peppercorns and carpet-tags, your back is achy and the wind is pushing you back south you need all the support you can get.


And to those of you who have donated to my charity, Kids Company - thank you ever so much.
I have raised around £ 2000 thanks to everybody's generosity.
If I can provide any advice re. doing LEJOG I am happy to do so - if you have any thoughts about doing it - just do it!!!!!
Photo gallery can be seen on https://picasaweb.google.com/100886847186183415061/LEJOGOctober202013?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCIP1y-fCs4eYmwE&feat=directlink