Rather pleased with a few of these achievements gained during LEJOGON:
Tag: lejogon
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Visualisation of LEJOGON Route
This is quite a cool way of seeing our route, created by veloviewer.com which does great things with your Strava data.
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LEJOGON Photos and Videos
I think photos and videos are pretty much complete now – on the Google Photos Album here:
Real mix of crazy ones, landscapes and lovely MAMIL shots!!!
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LEJOGON Stats and Braindump
The below are the totals for the whole challenge.
For individual days and to see the actual route we took see the Strava rides on the right hand side Strava box). We did deviate a bit as we did the Cheddar Gorge route on Day 2 as it was on safer quieter roads, and on some days I navigated on the fly choosing parts of the planned route or using other roads depending on how busy / safe the road was, elevation and directness of other options etc). Also we pushed on to Dingwall instead of stopping at Inverness (partly due to Nick’s amazing effort keeping us at 40kph for 30 mins on the front during Loch Lochy straight which saw Nick take 2nd position and I take 3rd on the Strava rankings for this piece of road!!! And also the highly favourable winds helped too! And good weather allowing for full speed descending (up to 75kph) on nice dry tarmac
Day 7 ended up being the biggest day by far in terms of total combined distance and climbing. . Only exceeded in distance by day 2 and climbing by day 1.
Total Distance = 1,491km or 926 miles – 11 miles more than the route planning suggested! This doesn’t include getting to LE either.
Elevation
18651m or 61190 ft (FYI Mt Everest is 8800m so we did the equivalent of twice up Mt Everest).
Elapsed time (includes stops) TBC
Moving Time TBC
Additional Calories Burnt = 36496
You can see over the days the average speed increasing as we get ourselves more organised and disciplined. Juggling cracking on with taking in the sights was difficult at times but we started to get around this if there was a man out front – if they didn’t get nailed back then they would stop and take pictures whilst waiting for the chain-gang or paced back rider to return.
I have to say I had immense fun once we got organised. Leading out, getting Nick, Anthony and Andy up to speed and taking turns and chasing down other team members whoever was ahead at up to 45kph on the flat was a real buzz. I fear my drivetrain might be shafted though! Later in the week cruising. At around 30kph (20mph) felt almost effortless (probably the tail wind) allowing me to conserve energy for the greater good of the team (although I did have moments on downhill and rolling up and down sections where I went off for some fun as the downhills were epic and dry). Parts of the ride to Oban and down Kirkstone pass (chasing Anthony and Andy as Nick and I set off a bit later) were highlights.
The lowlight on this aspect came just after Gretna Green. I needed to stop but didn’t want to slow everyone down so I had to chase for quite some time in to adverse winds. I think it didn’t help that I tried to catch a tractor to draft which was slightly too quick for me to catch burning up my ability to kick). Also the roads were so straight (and slightly uphill / false flat) that it was demoralising that I couldn’t see the others. I got back in the end but it was hard. When I did we.came across some.guys who had ridden from Portugal with massive amounts of bags. But possibly it was a good bit of training for the later days.
Also my left knee was pretty horrendous for a couple of days pedalling from cold in the saddle was really painful, going up Kirkstone pass was nasty and I had to just spin – only just catching Nick before we got to the top once I had warmed up a bit.
More anecdotes and pictures to follow.
Thanks
Oliver
As Anthony has a hard stop of 5.30 tomorrow as he us meeting his wife on one of the islands we decided to push on a bit further and then get up early tomorrow for the best chance of finishing all together. Plan B is that I will support getting Anthony to Jog, plan A is that we work as a team to get there together. We’ll see what happens tomorrow…
Surreal that we have nearly finished.
Dished out some “awards” last night:
Awards
Most improved rider Andy Dalby
Best Bike and Bag for the trip – AW
Best Human Satellite Unlink – NR
Best Strop – me
TEAM award for best angry charge on to an Arran Ferry we thought was leaving without us.
Thanks again for all your support its been amazing.
A reminder of the charity fundraising link:
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Update from Nick
Nick asked me to post this on his behalf:
I’d like to Thank
Obviously my wife….
James from The Malden Centre for making Andy and I bionic enough to do this.
Ed and the gang at Bright Cycles, New Malden, for making our bikes bionic enough to do this.
Roland and family at the Real Meat co butchers, next door for taking our bikes early hours and giving them to Ed. Plus supplying us with the finest protein you can buy.
The piper in the video is called Alan and the guy taking the picture is Ian.
The girl in the grocery store North of Hereford…need to Streetview it to work out the name of the shop. She gave us free Mars bars!
Quote of the week so far:
‘Remember, the pain will fade but the memories will last forever.’ – Mary, propriety at the John O’Groats Guest House, Broo.
‘No, don’t stop!’ – Andy, in his sleep, Windermere Youth Hostel.
More later perhaps.
So we are in Scotland. Yesterday was tough but with amazing views again and on the whole we stuck together and got through it as a team. We are looking forward to the ferry trips today. Getting bored of energy bars so starting to mix it up with some kendal mint cake and Tablet (I’m sure this will make my boss Jill smile :).
Thank you for your support – we are now over the £4000 mark which is amazing. Also special thanks to those we have dropped in on in particular my sister Jo who lives near the Lake district – she was holding on to some vital supplies and took a load of dirty kit from me to significantly lighten the weight of my bag for the hilly section…
Will
Will try and keep the updates coming but need to prioritise rest and eating so we get through.
On a final note you MUST watch the crazy video Nick and Andy made yesterday. It’s on my twitter feed.
Thanks again
Ollie and the Rest of the lejogon ers!