WORDS & PICTURES KEVIN SMITH
The cycling gods conspired to ensure that Nottingham-based Kevin and Tracey Smith’s tandem LeJoG attempt would coincide with the worst weather of summer 2020. But despite chilling rain, pandemic, punctures, rogue tractors, midges and a dodgy lochside B&B, they made it. This is Kevin’s tale…
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Arrivée153Autumn2021
I’D BEEN MENTIONING my wish to take the tandem from Land’s End to John O’Groats to my wife, Tracey for a while, but she seemed strangely indifferent to the idea. So it was something of a surprise to learn that, behind my back, she’d registered us for a 2020 LeJoG calendar event. Apparently, according to the organiser, the last time someone did that, it rather back-fired! Clearly Tracey knew me better. I thought it was a fantastic gift. So, early in 2020, we began our planning and preparation, booked time off work and started upping the training miles. The challenge was to ride the length of Britain – a 1,402km route – in under 116 hours and 40 minutes. We began studying
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maps and booking accommodation. Everything was sorted – and then Covid-19 kicked in, and eventually the whole event was cancelled. Then came the unlocking over July and August – so we resurrected our plans. We decided to ride it ourselves, over seven 200km rides. It would be a little longer than the timed event, but that was how we agreed we’d ride it. The logistics of getting a tandem one way to and from the finish were a headache, but I found I could arrange a van through my work. The van would be dropped off at our home for the ridiculous cost of £23 plus fuel! The remoteness of John
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Kevin and Tracey broke their LeJoG attempt into seven main sections. These are their statistics: 1 Land’s End to Barnstaple 128-miles, 2,619m ascent 2 Barnstaple to Hereford 142-miles, 2,623m ascent 3 Hereford to Warrington 125-miles, 1736m ascent 4 Warrington to Carlisle 135-miles, 1,687m ascent 5 Carlisle to Inverbeg 127-miles, 1,486m ascent 6 Inverbeg to Inverness 137-miles, 2,972m ascent 7 Inverness to JOG 126-miles, 1,942m ascent 8 JOG to Wick 17-miles, 202m ascent
Just give me a sign… we arrived at Lands End to learn that, apparently, the famous sign is removed and replace daily to prevent theft – and it wasn’t there!
Bottled… luckily we had some bottled water left from the journey down, and would manage with this on day one
