WE DID IT!!!

Firstly, apologies.  It seems that the updates that I wrote on the 2nd and 3rd days of our trip (yes we did make it beyond the pain of the 1st day!) didn't get through to anybody.

Day 1 (Cheltenham to Taunton) - I think that the last update you received was probably at the end of day 1 when we had arrived at our hotel in Taunton at about 8pm almost completely broken men! So exhausted we could hardly even complete the check-in forms and definitely thinking that there was very little chance of recovering to set off for another 90 mile ride in less than 12 hours time. We'd ended up doing 100 miles that day after getting the planning a little wrong and getting lost in Bristol for about an hour. That night we had a decent meal in the hotel, a pint and a half of shandy each (I know, steady on!) and were in bed at about 10pm.

Day 2 (Taunton to Liskeard) - We decided that rather than rush to head off at 7-8am which was the original plan we would have a bit of a lie in and head to the tescos round the corner from our hotel to pick up some much needed medical supplies. So we set off at about 9:30am after strapping up knees, rubbing tiger balm into various muscles and applying Sudocrem you know where! It was a nice suprise to realise about 20 miles in once we'd warmed up that we actually felt better than we thought we would. We had our first stop in Crediton where Karen's (my wife) parents kindly met us armed with pastries, bananas, drinks and chocolate. We were in pretty high spirits and knew that by the next time we had a break we'd be well over half way to Lands End. Our final stop of the day was in Launceston. This break provided us with the highlight of the day when Ed accidently rubbed tiger balm into some sun burn - hilarious! About 5 miles before we reached Liskeard a couple of spokes snapped off the back wheel of Jody's bike which buckled it beyond repair. This meant that after 85 miles our ride for the day was over and we had to hitch a lift with a kind electrician called Nick who took us the last 5 miles to our hotel in Liskeard. Spirits were high as we now just had 75 miles to go to get to Lands End and our friendly drive Nick had also confirmed that there was a bike shop just round the corner from our hotel where we could repair Jody's bike. Ought to also mention that we tried to give Nick a tenner for his troubles but he insisted we put it towards the fundraising instead - thanks Nick! We treated ourselves to 2 pints (that's right, 2 pints!) of beer at a pub before getting our heads down.

Day 3 (Liskeard to Lands End) - Big fry up at the hotel run by the craziest couple we'd ever met and then off to the bike shop at 9am. Fortunately they were open, had the tools jody needed and the right sized spokes to repair his wheel. We were off by 9:30am and feeling excited about finishing already. Most of the last day was spent on the A30 which was pretty depressing in terms of the fast traffic and the long long long sweeping uphills...however....there were also long long long sweeping downhills and at times we were going 25mph with very little effort for 15-20mins at a time. We decided we were just going to stop once and did 45 miles to Redruth. Could almost hear the banjos as we pulled up at the co-op in Redruth. We didn't stop for long! The final 30 miles seemed to fly by, spurred on by the knowledge we had a few cans of beer on board ready to ride up to the finish line in style! Some inconsiderate person decided to put some really big hills over a 5 mile stretch close to Lands End which was pretty annoying but we finally arrived at about 5pm. We'd made it!

Thank you again for sponsoring us and for your messages of support along the way. Once we've pestered a few more people for money (mainly the ones who never thought Ed would make it!) we hope to exceed the £2,000 target which will be enough to buy a specific piece of breathing equipment for the special care unit.

Cheers,

Jim, Ed and Jody