On Saturday 18th August, trustees Roscoe and Narsh will embark on a bike ride of epic proportions!

They will cycle from Land’s End to John o’Groats – a distance of approximately 1000 miles and they will do this without a support vehicle (i.e. they will carry their own equipment, clothes etc while cycling).

They would greatly appreciate your support and therefore encourage you to sponsor them in their efforts which you can do as follows:

You can donate now by clicking this link: cafonline.org

or you can pledge support for this trek by completing the form below.

Arrived in Penzance at 17:15 and cycled to our B&B which was 6miles from Land's End. We made the executive decision to cycle to Land's End and back to at least take a little from our distance on day 2. We managed to persuade a pub who'd stopped serving food to do us 2 plates of ham, egg & chips. Cycled back to the B&B in pitch black darkness and Roscoe discovered a low doorway at the B&B the hard way!

Set off at 8:45 and with favourable winds pushing us up some severe hills and rain falling heavily, we made it to Bodmin early enough to decide to plough on to Launceston in time to catch the final scores coming in. 80miles done. Hopefully tomorrow will be a dryer day...

We set off after a hearty breakfast at the rather late time of 9:45. And we started slowly with a number of aches in various parts of the body! After 18miles along a "back road" we reached Okehampton and shortly after this we were overtaken by a chap who was doing the same stupid thing. But... he has a support vehicle - a big campervan which met him every hour or two with food/drink/place to rest comfortably. It also carries any belongings so he has a 'naked' bike which is a racer (unlike our hybrids) and he's been training. All of this made us feel he was cheating and we concluded that he wasn't really doing something particularly difficult! A nice fella though all the same!

We made it to Crediton (36miles) at the bottom of a steep hill where we lunched for a few hours (Roscoe may well have set a PB for number of roast potates eaten in one meal... 14).

Set off for Taunton which, slightly unsurprisingly meant a big uphill start. This was combined with northerly winds which made life even more difficult (it was windy enough that we couldn't freewheel down gentle downhills).

We finally made it to Taunton shortly before 7pm taking our distance from Land's End clear of 150 miles which we're quite happy with. Unfortunately we are feeling the effects and we may cycle a reduced length tomorrow.

We set off at around 9:30 but headed to Halfords where we hoped for Roscoe's bike to be fixed due to the slightly unnerving sounds it kept making. We were finally able to set off at around 11:00 on our journey to Chepstow. It rained. A lot.

We ploughed on until lunch and during lunch the weather cleared up to reveal a relatively pleasant day and we made good progress to Bristol and across the Severn Bridge into Chepstow. Feeling good we continued to a village called Llandogo where we eventually found the only B&B that had room for us.

We set off at just before 9 knowing we had a lot of miles to cover today. The hilliest sections were (allegedly) over and so our only real opposition was the wind. Puffing away furiously we headed to Leominster via Hereford and discovered that our intended route was closed due to roadworks.

A swift phone call was returned by by Richard while we were ascending a steep 1mile hill. He informed us that he thought he had found a potentially good diversion and this turned out to be a very good one taking us through Ludlow before picking up the A49 again. We continued on to a little village called Craven Arms wishing we'd stopped for lunch at Ludlow and only finding a fish & chip shop which opened just as we were arriving. After a greasy lunch we completed the final 2hrs of our journey to Shrewsbury with another 80mile day under our belts.

We knew we had a relatively short day today but within a couple of hours problems had started to settle. Narsh's backside had finally started to feel the strain of 4 days of long cycling whilst the drier conditions may have been a factor in Roscoe's hayfever becoming quite severe.

We agreed that we wanted to make it a fair way before having lunch and this was finally eaten at a great little pub on the Riverside 10miles south of Warrington. From there it was the best part of 3 hours to Chris' house where we were provided with homemade crumble (& magnificent custard) and then headed to the pub to watch England lose to Germany.

Chris' family created a cracking breakfast for us and we set off, well fed, at around 9:30. For the first time since we started we had a flat journey with no headwinds for the best part of 40 miles and we had lunch shortly after Lancaster feeling pretty good. We aimed for Kendal and reached our destination at 5:30. After a brief panic over securing a b&b we sorted ourselves out. We're now approximately halfway but with the Highlands still to come...

Today was a pretty tough day. We started with 11miles of uphill in the roasting sun on our way to Shap. After that it was fairly smooth to Carlisle except when Narsh's chain came off and twisted.

There may be a little damage as it keeps making odd noises. This is not good! We had lunch in Carlisle and then had 4miles along a busy dual carriageway which had narrowed lands due to roadworks. A few vehicles seemed to object to our presence but we survived unscathed making it to Gretna - finally into Scotland! We finished off with what we'd hoped would be a relatively easy 17miles to Lockerbie but the winds picked up and made it a struggle to even go downhill. Anyway, more than 70miles done today and our total is now over 500 miles.

Set off at a decent pace and had little trouble making the 50 miles to Lanark for lunch. Wasn't long to Airdrie where we intended to stay. Here's where the problems started - bank holiday weekend did not help and it wasn't long before several places had advised us we wouldn't find somewhere. So we headed to Cumbernauld. Everything was full.

We headed on towards Stirling after requesting Cycle-control's Richard to try and call some b&b's for us while we cycled (so we could get on with riding and get somewhere before dark). Richard had little luck but as he managed to find some university amodation we found a not very pleasant place in a little place called Denny at not the greatest price and took it.

We're hoping we don't run into similar problems tomorrow night. The good news is our amodation woes have added 10miles onto today's distance so we're continuing well ahead of schedule.

After our extended journey yesterday we were hoping for a relatively easy 50 or so miles to Aberfeldy. The 50 or so was accurate, the easy - not so accurate. We probably had our worst day of hills since day 2 and the winds again were headwinds, not tailwinds.

After yesterday's amodation troubles, we got on to the b&bs while we had lunch and bagged a good deal which included dinner (and some bagpipe playing included).

We now have a tough few days ahead but we're hoping the miles we've put in the bank will help us manage the adverse winds and hills.

Today started off with a very tough 20 miles. The first 9 miles were uphill and there was only small respite before having to climb further. We finally made it to the A9 but it was slow progress until we turned a corner when the wind seemed to die down and we were able to accelerate to a considerable speed which was good as the heavens opened 10 miles before our destination.

We arrived before long and the sun came out and warmed us up. Tomorrow we should make it to Inverness - we're getting there!

Narsh encountered the first (and hopefully only) puncture of the trip after just 6 miles.

Unfortunately by this stage Roscoe had pulled away somewhat so by the time the inner tube had been changed etc he was a good 5 miles ahead. Apart from this the 65 mile journey was relatively smooth with cold, driving rain being the only noticeably annoying feature.

Shortly after we passed the first mileage sign for John o'Groats we saw some wildlife... There was a seal and Roscoe thought he spotted the Coventry team training at a new training facility but then realised they were real donkeys in a field. We're now around 100 miles from our destination but with hilly sections still to come...

Today was scheduled to be a nice, easy 36 mile day to Brora in advance of what we knew would be the toughest part of the trip. However, despite starting off quite late by our standards, we were in Brora by 1pm so we decided to have lunch and take on the two steepest hills of the journey. Before we knew it our legs were aching after a 13% ascent but we'd made it up the hills clocking up 61 miles. It was only 5pm and with the hills out of the way and the rest allegedly flat, we decided to go on to the only major(ish) town before John o'Groats - Wick. We expected the 20 miles to take around an hour and a half.

After approximately a minute Roscoe bagged himself a buy one get one free bargain on bike problems with a puncture (not really a problem that can't be easily solved) and a knackered link in his chain.

It was raining. A lot. Fortunately we were outside a house that was under a lot of renovation which advertised B&B. I enquired to discover that it came in the form of their caravan. But they were very kind and offered to let us try and fix the bike under shelter which we quickly accepted. We thought we'd fixed it and set off at around 5:40. As expected the puncture was fixed but the chain was clearly not.

After a call to Cycle-control's Chris, we managed to get hold of a bike shop in Wick. We persuaded the guy to come out in his car with neccessary tools which he did and fixed the bike without accepting the extra money we offered him. The family who'd offered us shelter provided us with a pot of tea and some shortbread and Roscoe fixed their daughter's computer, eventually. They gave us the number of the only place we might get dinner which was successful and the number of a b&b 3 iles up the road which we beat some other cyclists to and arrived there at 9pm. So much for our "nice, easy 36 mile day"! Good news is that we only have around 40 miles to John o'Groats left and it's supposed to be pretty flat from here so only the winds to struggle against...

We headed off to John o'Groats and after a brief stop in Wick we finished off our 35.5 mile journey (and around 850 over all) at around 12:30. We stayed there for quite a while and finally headed off on the 15 mile journey to Dunnet Head - the furthest north point on mainland Britain. This journey inflicted on us the worst headwinds we faced for the whole trip and this continued from there to Thurso - a further 13 miles away.

We have now put our feet up and don't intend to cycle for a long time to come...

Thanks to everyone who has helped, sponsored, pledged or encouraged us in one way or another.

In particular we'd like to thank:

Martin for lending Narsh his bike to get started on some training,

Lewis for apanying Narsh on his first training ride and making sure he got started!

Richard for the helpful internet searches while we've been away including a crucial diversion,

Vik for updating the blog when he probably had better things to do,

Ewan for uploading it on a regular basis,

Daniel, Sheeba and Chris for providing free, brilliant, amodation and Chris also for going into Manchester and picking up our train tickets to get home at the end,

The three fellas in the van in Cornwall who gave Narsh a £10 donation in cash and chatted to him up the hill,

Josh at Halfords in Taunton for fixing up Roscoe's bike for free despite it taking the best part of half an hour,

All the others who have helped with weather reports, texts/emails/calls of encouragement or support...

&;; TGT