John O’ Groats to Lands End

Somewhere for you to post your piccies of you and your bikes
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daffyduck1962
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John O’ Groats to Lands End

Post by daffyduck1962 »

I have been toying with the idea of doing a charity ride for some time now, and would like to raise money for Help for Heroes.
The plan is as follows:
May or September 2015 (exact dates to be confirmed) this is to avoid the holiday season, but hopefully have reasonable weather.
Leave John o Groats on a Monday morning. (I’ll be using the weekend to make my way up there)
Take 4 days to get to Lands End, but-
No dual carriageways or motorways. We will mean averaging over 300 miles/day.
Will go over to Thurso (NW corner of the Highlands) then travel down the west coast of the country.
Plan to use Premier Inns, as they are reasonably priced, widely available, and standard of accommodation is the same throughout. (I’m too old to camp now).
I think it will work best if this is not a large group ride as this can cause more problems than it solves. We all ride at a different pace to each other, and this can lead to problems of its own.
Groups are not discouraged however, as long as they are not so large that a ‘Marker’ system is needed to keep it together. I would suggest you either need a Satnav, or are very good at map reading.
However, it would be ideal to be able to meet up at the same hotel at the end of each day to catch up and exchange stories over dinner etc.
Routes can be provided for TomTom or Zumo if required.
One final twist, as this is for the armed forces, all bikes should ideally be either in Red, White or Blue. Or failing that should be decorated to advertise why this is happening.
I have never done this before so any help with setting this up would be appreciated, even if you don’t want to attend..
I have already contacted the charity and have been told I need to register in order to raise money for them. But before I do, I thought I would try and gauge how much interest there would be for this.
On the accommodation front, I was hoping if there was enough confirmed interest, we might get a discount from the company based on number of rooms required, and the reason for doing this.
Therefore an idea of people who would want to contribute is needed sooner, rather than later. I have just been on Booking.com and dates are already filling up for the John O Groats end in May.
I am going to post this on various forums that I am with, as well as Facebook.
I will look to start organising this properly by the end of October, so if you want to come on a ride for a good cause, please let me know by the end of October at the latest.
I should point out, that the amount of miles to be covered each day, is probably best suited to those with experience of these kinds of distances already.
My thanks for taking the time to read this, and any support will be gratefully received.
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Spyke
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Re: John O’ Groats to Lands End

Post by Spyke »

Awesome mission, for a good cause, hopefully I'll be in a position to sponsor you at that time. If you're dead set on getting all the bikes in red/white/blue, then think about that vinyl wrap stuff, it's available in all sorts of colours and could be a cheap temp job.
Road racing's where it's at - going round in circles all day is for hamsters.
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