To the End of the Land...

Sat 21st.

The day started with a bang. Literally. We waved goodbye to Pete and Jenny, zipped round the corner, and 5 metres later, there was a huge BANG and Rich's back wheel was flat again. It turned out that his rear tyre had ripped yesterday (or during the course of this huge trip), forcing the inner tube to bulge, making it pop. This created a huge problem as new inner tubes wouldn't help the situation. Fortunately Pete (who had heard the pop), is a keen cyclist, and by a miracle had a spare tyre, thr right size, which we were able to fit onto the bike. PHEW. If that had happened anywhere else I really dont know what we'd have done.

So...onwards and upwards for the LASTDAY!!! We both set off feeling quite strange actually, that this was to be the final leg on the road, after an incredible, adventurous, and quite crazy 12 days. 3 miles along, and we reached the big 900 mile mark. Felt awesome. We had hoped for some clearer weather for the final day, but noooo... Was similar to the previous day in that we saw pretty much nothing, besides the roads under our feet and each others' arses, but at least the rain wasn't to drastic, just Cornish Drizzle. To be honest, we both realised how lucky we'd been having sun the entire trip up until this point, so it really didnt matter, and we pedalled on.

Head winds, again, were pretty intense and hard. Worst and most ridiculous bit was the fact that Amanda (after a big refuelling lunch and pints of shandy in a pub in Helston for lunch), said her legs felt like lead and that she was carrying a carthorse, until realised her front tyre was totally flat, and might have been for a good while. Oops. By this point, we'd used up all our spare inner tubes on Rich's activities, and so stood on side of road, attempting to use a 5 year old tesco value puncture repair kit to patch up the hole we finally found after listening for the air leak in the rain.

Turned out the kit was so old, the glue didnt stick v well, so had to turn to the first aid kit for a bit of plaster help. Worked a treat! And actually great as meant we hadnt been carrying around that kit for the whole trip unnecessarily. As we were going about the patch-up job, a little old man with green gardening trousers and big ears (Bevan) came out of his Cornish house with an old Yellow Pages, and gave us the number for a bike shop in Penzance. We also had help from a long curly-haired mammoth looking hippy on a bike, who had all the kit the Tour de France could need, and swung by and sorted out a few other things that had gone wrong with the brake cable. To be fair, Rich could have fixed it all himself, but he was one of those do-gooders so we let him take charge, and it was a welcome bit of friendly neighbourly help :) And loved the Cornish accents. Bevan also gave us £5 towards our breast cancer fund. Though we were coping with a few tribulations, it was actually a v pleasant 20 mins. Set off again hoping the plaster would out for another 8 miloes to Penzance.

Got to Penzance, stocked up on another couple of inner tubes just in case, and headed on on our final 10 mile push! We were jumping around like loonies outside Halfords, suddenly fully aware we were actually going to make it, and that we only had one leg left.

Had heard that this last stretch was hard - hills and narrow lanes - but it tured out to be fine. Think that was due to our manic hill training over the past few days. We pedalled along, counting down each mile, stopping with abotu 3 miles to go to take a picture outside 'The First/Last Inn in England'. Road was empty and bleak and misty and gradients seemed out of focus, and we started to feel really quite emotional as we rode through the last 3 miles, without even being able to see the sea but just feeling so happy and overwhelmed.

Was a weird feeling crossing the finish line. If you've seen the Truman Show, and remember that bit when he heads out to sea in a boat, thinking he has miles and miles of solitary journeying ahead of him, and then all of a sudden he hits a wall in front of him, and the whole thing abruptly comes to an end... That's sort of how it felt. We have been so used to just pedalling and pedalling, and then out of the blue, we just hit the end, and stopped. So strange. Took a few mins for it all to sink in really.

Took the classic shots, walked around the strange tourist entity that is 'Lands End', looked for the Atlantic we could just about make out amidst the fog, and then almost went to go and put our helmets and gloves back on before realising, no - we're done! - and went to the Lands End hotel bar for a pint of guinness, and signed the big JOGLE/LEJOG bible :)

Memories forever - WHAT A TRIP.


A Few Thank Yous....

Scotty - For his GPS which helped us through the towns
Sean and Fran - for their water bottles and amazing buffs!
Keeno - For his pedals for Rich, and advice on lucozade-water-mixing
Stewy - Who has already done this! And gave us amazing inspiration and a great benchmark and belief we could do it.
Rich's family- for meeting us in Blackburn and treating us to a slap-up curry and gourmet pudding
Amanda's family- for amazing words to support and encouragement throughout
The B+Bs along the way - who were so incredibly generous in giving us discounts and looking after us so well, from offering us supper with friends, to drying out our sodden shoes.

Finally a mAAAAsive thank you to all the people who have donated so generously to our sponsorship fund for Breast Cancer Care: www.justgiving.com/RBAS