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As a variation on the John O'Groats to Lands End I am doing both ends to Newcastle! About 1000 miles!

The first leg from Scotland starts on Sunday the 9th of August from John o'Groats to Newcastle over 4 days cycling.

The second leg starts on Monday the 17th of August and finishes in Newcastle on the 21st.  I plan to arrive at the Millennium bridge on the Quayside at 7:30pm.  Please turn up to welcome me back.

Nick (dad) will be joining for parts of the route and acting as roadie.  Anyone else who fancies a challenge and has a bike is welcome to join in!

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So please dig deep and donate now.

Harry

P.S. I'll  update this page as I go to let you know how I'm getting on so put it in your internet bookmarks.

Day 0 - currently sorting out kit to take to the far north, setting off for John O'Groats at 1100 sharp.  Arrive at the start at 7:30pm, have a wander down to the start line and head to bed via a half of Stella.

Day 1 - Grab some breakfast and head off at about 9am southwards. After about 8 hours (with Dad doing 30 miles) of pedaling along the coast interrupted by large hills and kitkat breaks I finally arrive at the overnight stop, just short of Inverness having done 114.2 miles. The rain starts to fall as we pack up the car, phew.

Day 2 - Up early (before 11.30) to grab some breakfast and onto the road again. The rain lasted all night leaving puddles all over the road helping to cover us in mud.  Dad joins me for 40 miles in between his visits to the local distilleries en route.  From Inverness I climb up to 700 metres then again to 500 as I pass the ski slopes and the pass through the Grampians.  We arrive in Pithlocry at about 6pm after 96 miles and the first puncture to my front wheel (typically acquired in the last 15 meters of the rough semi-offroad part).

Day 3 - After a good nights sleep in Pithlocry we set off for Edinburgh at 9:30.  At 11:15 it starts to rain. when I finally get to the lunch stop at 2:30 (having got lost in Perth for 30-45 minutes) I'm soaked through and covered in all the mud that was once on the roads.  From lunch at Kinross to Edinburgh the clouds start to clear and I have a chance to dry out a bit.  Going across the forth road bridge was great but very windy, from there it was a quick run down into Edinburgh. 

Day 4 - Shooting past the traffic gets me out of Edinburgh by about 9:20.  This is then followed by 10 miles of uphill taking almost an hour.  From there the run down into Galashiels and Jedbourgh is far quicker. The long climb up to the border after lunch seems to take forever and just for good measure it starts raining.  For the final run down from there into Newcastle allows me to average around 20mph allowing me to arrive at the bridge at about 5:15.  Now I have a 3 day rest before starting the second leg.
Day 5 - After 3 days off I start again at Lands End. A 9am start from there and 140 miles to do before nightfall takes me up the west coast past St Agnes and Newquay before turning east to finish in Devon near Crediton for the night.  I get in to my godfathers place at 8pm after 11 hours on the road with not a single flat mile in the whole of either Devon or Cornwall.

Day 6 - Another early start gets the biggest hills out of the way early on until I start to run into the Mendips south of Bristol.  The worst road so far has to go to the A38 going to Bristol airport, two steep hills with cars going past at about 70mph so they can avoid changing down before they hit the top. Dad meets me at Bristol airport and we head down into Bristol before stopping at my cousins for a break before taking on the Scarp (Cotswold Escarpment) into Dursley for the night.

Day 7 - Having had my Bike serviced overnight by Mike I head off up the rest of the Scarp to Tetbury.  From here I'm able to join the Fosse Way (thanks to those Latin engineers) which runs straight all the way to Leicester.  Dad joins me for about 40miles but has a puncture on his bike having forgotten to take a spare inner tube, fortunately he's able to fix it with his repair kit and finally rejoins me on the far side of Leicester.  From here it's a measly 25 miles to Nottingham to spend the night with David (Alexi's dad). Another 135mile day.

Day 8 - Only having to do a smaller distance to York meant that I was able to start later.  I left Nottingham at around 10:30 and headed north along the path of the Trent.  The wind followed me for most of the day from a south west direction allowing me to average over 20mph for most of the morning.  In the afternoon it moved round to come in from the west meaning I had a significant distance to do into it. This slowed me to around 9mph for a few miles and was really hard work but I finally crossed over into Yorkshire mid-afternoon and arrived at the in-laws in York just before 5pm. Final leg tomorrow.

Day 9 - I set out from York at 10:30 and within ten minutes ran into a group of cyclists heading the same direction as me. They cycled with me for the next 45 minutes allowing me to sit in their slipstream till I was 20 miles out.  After a short break I headed on to Thirsk, where I grabbed some lunch.  From there onwards the weather turned wet and until I reached Durham I received regular soakings.  I got into Durham at about 4:30 and took some time off to have some chocolaty goodness and full fat Coke.  I met up with My Dad and cousin OJ just outside Durham and we headed off towards the finish stopping only to get some snaps up by the Angel.  We got in at almost exactly 7:30 to the Millennium bridge.  

Finally I've completed my epic 960 mile journey from both ends to Newcastle in only 9 days.  Thank you for all your support and to all those who have sponsored me along the way.

Harry