Peter and Alison's Cycling Marathon 2008 and Peter's Around Britain 2009
Take two people, nearer 60 than 50 and a mad idea that grew from a chat in the pub one night-as many of the best but daftest do. If you've got a bit of stamina read on you never know you might actually enjoy it.
You can keep reading even longer now and hear all about my solo cycle around the coast of mainland Britain in 2009. Over 4500miles in 78 cycling days.
Contact at [email protected]
The Beginning
My name is Peter Maddern and I am Married to Alison. We live in Penzance, 10 miles from Lands End and at the beginning of this story had a beautiful old dog called Fern.
In July 2004 I finished my last day as a village primary school headteacher and in the same month moved to a small terraced house to fund my very early retirement. The local paper asked me why and I said to go fishing and perhaps cycle Land's End to John O Groats. By the end of 2006 I'd done the fishing and so thought I'd better do the cycling.
And so in January 2007 I started to cycle 10 miles, 20 miles, 30 miles. I was surprising myself and enjoying feeling fit. Bought a proper pair of cycle shoes-what a difference that made to my poor old feet-and took part in a couple of local audax rides.
I read a lot of end to end blogs and decided to start at John O Groats and cycle home and of course everyone I told came out with the it's all downhill that way joke. As an extra incentive we were going to do it to raise money for my old school and a local charity called Choughs that ran a cafe staffed by special needs adults.
Below-Relaxing while cycling around the Isle of Arran in 2007
2007 JOGLE (John O Groats to Lands End for the uninitiated)
Now, the 2007 trip is not the main point of this story so just a brief account. We arrived at the start on June 5th with Alison as my support driver and queued up at the signpost with an assortment of cyclists, car drivers and motorcyclists. Having paid our £17 for the official photo we set off along the north coast towards Bettyhill before turning south on the second day down the Strathnaver Valley.
We followed a western route via Fort William, Oban,Kilmartin and the Isle of Arran with Alison stopping at strategic points to take photos and provide tea before rushing ahead to find B&Bs. All the time Fern looking out of the back window wondering why I wasn't allowed in the car, especially when it was pouring down.
We crossed over to Ayrshire, through Carlisle, over Shap and across the Forest of Bowland. It was on top of Bowland that we met a group doing an organised trip with Bike Adventures and learnt that one of their group had had a heart attack and tragically died a few days earlier. Every time I went up a hill from then on Alison was worried for my safety.
We went through the floods in the Midlands and Devon and after 17 days and 1150 miles arrived at Lands End, raised over £2000 and that was that-back to fishing-or so we thought.
A friend of mine bought the local fishing tackle shop and asked me to run it for him two days a week and Alison continued to work part-time in the local library, give a few piano lessons and learn to play the clarinet.
During the Autumn we did a bit of fishing, watched the Cornish Pirates playing rugby and then started thinking about what we might do the following summer. I carried on cycling to keep the fitness levels up did a couple of 100km audaxs and took part in the six hills ride-a local annual event started by the late Ken Barclay- a 70+ local cyclist. This takes place in December each year to raise money for MacMillan Nurses and involves riding up all the biggest hills in West Cornwall, with mince pies and coffee halfway at Sennen Cove.
And so 2007 came to a relaxing end- it's lovely not going to work every day!
Below-from 2007 album:
With Fern at JOG in 2007
Meeting Bike Adventures group on the Forest of Bowland
Arriving at Lochranza on Arran
Alison with Fern at Fort Augustus
Sheltering from floods in Devon
Police Escort into Lands End