Lucy’s Cycle Challenge – She Did It!

On Monday 18th June 2012, I (MM’s Lucy) embarked on a 1040 mile bike ride from Lands End in Cornwall to John O’Groats in Scotland.  Along with my brother Andrew and two friends, Simon and Miles, we aimed to cycle roughly 100 miles a day for 10 days and end up at the glorified car park that is John O’Groats on Wednesday 27th June.

What happened?

We did it!  Everything went mostly to plan and we ended up completing the ride in the 10 days we had anticipated.  Despite a sunny start to the trip, however, the weather was not really in our favour and we did hit the torrential rain and flooding in the North-West!  The longed-for tailwind did not seem to materialise either, and the last 37 miles along the north coast of Scotland were into a pretty mean headwind (I can safely say that they were the longest 37 miles of my life!)

Weather aside, there were no serious dramas – midge attacks, a few punctures and several sets of brake blocks were the only real problems, until the last day when the gear cable on my bike snapped leaving me with just 2 gears.  Luckily, we had brought a spare bike which I was able to switch to at lunchtime, as this was not something we would have been able to fix in the Highlands of Scotland and I may have struggled to do another 75 miles of wind, rain and hills with just 2 gears!

My  chosen charity

In doing the challenge, I set out to raise £1,000 for Cancer Research UK and set up a Just Giving page before I left.  I am delighted to say that at the time of writing, we have now raised over £1,700 for this great charity.  Thanks to all the Muddy Matches members who donated – we really appreciated it and it definitely inspired me to keep grinding up the brutal Cornish hills, or to keep my head down and push on through the torrential rain.

If anybody feels they would like to donate, please click here.