Epilogue

Its now over 3 weeks since we finished and it seems ages ago. I have been out on my bike several times since but it may not come as a surprise to you to hear that Jane hasn't!

A happy postscript to our adventure is that we have found the owner of the camera that we found in Devon. We eventually resorted to taking it to the police and they tracked him down from the number plate on one of the pictures.

The amusing thing is that it belonged to his wife and he didnt even realise that he had lost it! He kindly made a donation to Macmillan on our justgiving page.

We have now raised over £3700 and have set our sights on £4000 as the donations are still coming in.

Peter

Is that it?

After 3 weeks of structure to our days and evenings there is a strange feeling now we have actually finished and achieved our goal.

No worry about drying the washbasin laundry, no searching around for enough sockets in the room to charge GPS, phone, camera etc. We don't even need to worry about getting enough calories on board for tomorrow (OK yes - we did reward ourselves with a massive cream tea!) We have even ordered continental breakfasts for tomorrow instead of the 'full English'

Today was an amazing day. Just the sort of finish I had dreamt about. Crystal blue skies, shimmering seas and a stonking following wind for the last 20 miles to Lands End.

On arrival at the finish we were met by friends Zanny & John Cooper with a bottle of champagne. They also kindly paid for the compulsory signpost picture. Thanks.

The 10 mile return ride to Penzance was into a stiff headwind.

Jane has made very nice compliments to me in her blog. I have enjoyed her blogs as much as everyone and I have been wondering every day what she would say about me. She never mentioned the time I put my GPS on the handlebars upside down and we nearly rode back to JOG.

It's amazing to think what we have done. Jane had hardly cycled more than 10 miles this time last year. When she announced her intention of coming along on my challenge last summer I must admit to a little scepticism. However as we did our training together it became clear that failure was not an option for her. Well done Jane.

We have been really lucky with the weather. We only had 2 wet half days and most days we had a following wind. However without those benefits we would still have finished it but it was just a lot more pleasant

Thanks to everyone who has supported us during the last 3 weeks. Hopefully see you all soon.

Peter

It is now!

(Yes you could see where I was going with that one)
Jane blogging.
Well we did it, and without oxygen or sherpas.
You might get the impression from all this light hearted banter that it was a stroll in the park. It wasn't. It was the hardest thing I've ever done but I'm glad I did. I wouldn't have missed it for the world but to paraphrase Sir Steve Redgrave, if anyone ever sees me going anywhere near a bike ever again you have my permission to shoot me.
I know I never miss an opportunity to take the mick out of Peter but without all his meticulous planning we would never have made it, so well done to him.
P. S.
Anyone want to buy a bike, well used?
Only joking.

We're there!

Drinking champers by the signpost

Some people are on the beach,they think it's all over.

Jane here.
We are safely in St Ives poised for the final assault on our target.
You know I told you about the camera we found,well there was nearly a heroic failure of epic proportions. This afternoon Peter left his own camera in a bar. All we would have had to show for our jogle efforts would have been 6 pictures of a random stranger's start of the ride at the wrong end. Luckily an alert local spotted it and returned it Phew

Hitting the wall at 1000 miles

It's just as well today was a short day as my legs had run out of pedal today and I "bonked" before we had left Perranporth (Jane has previously explained that term). The hills of yesterday continue unabated and it wasn't until I stocked up at lunchtime that I got my strength back (see picture). I don't know why this happened as we had a good meal last night.

We took some time to explore the impressive cliffs and beaches between Portreath and Gwythian.

As we were riding through Hayle we passed the magic 1000 mile mark and I rode too close to a wall and nearly amputated my nearside pannier!

A lady on a Dawes Galaxy showed us a backroads way through Lelant and we are staying in the Badger inn which is a nice real ale pub.

Off to the beach for a little R&R before the final leg tomorrow. We expect to be at Lands End around lunchtime.

Peter

Another coast - another sunset

Today was tough. The first half from Launceston to Padstow was an easy climb up the Tamar valley followed by a descent along the coast to Rock.

The Black Tor ferry over to Padstow kindly let us travel free because we were fundraising. Low spring tide meant an awkward push of the bikes up the steps from the beach

Padstow was a must for us because of so many memories of holidays going back 60 years!

We had lunch at "The Wheelwrights" where unbeknown to us one of the customers had a whip-round and presented us with over £20 for Macmillan.

We also met the Manchester area Macmillan manager who happened to be there on holiday.

After lunch we had another 20 miles to do through a series of small seaside bays each with it's own steep hill in and another out

By the time we reached Perranporth we were both shattered. There was the most fantastic sunset however.

We are now only 40 miles from Lands End but our plan is to take 2 days to do it. This is to allow us to get to LE at midday on Tuesday and also give us a bit of well earned relaxation.

Peter