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Land's End to John O'Groats Challenge 9 Days
The journey from Land's End to John O'Groats takes you from the extreme
south western tip of England, through much of the finest countryside in the
British Isles, to the very top of the Scottish mainland. The attractions of
such a route are obvious and ever since the invention of the bicycle people
have been inspired to ride the 'End to End'.
The first official time recorded over the distance is 65 days, 16 hours and 7
minutes, ridden on a penny farthing in 1880, and since then the route has
been covered on everything from a bed to a motorised bar stool!! Today the
record is held by Gethin Butler who in September 2001 covered the distance
in an incredible 1 day, 20 hours,4 minutes and 20 seconds. The ladies record
of 2 days, 4 hours, 45 minutes and 11 seconds is held by Lynne Taylor.
There is no 'official' End to End route and thus no official distance. There are
numerous published guides to the route, they all vary slightly in the roads
they take, but most make the distance around 1,000 miles. By using main A
roads some of the record breakers have managed to reduce the distance to
barely 850 miles. Our route, which has been honed over many years, comes
in at around 910 miles; you will be astonished that such a densely populated
county can be journeyed on such quiet and beautiful roads!
This trip is designed for people who are prepared! You will be riding between
90 and 115 miles a day, and there are no rest days. Our route is fairly direct,
but we have designed it so that you pass through some of the most
attractive areas of the UK, as well as avoiding busy roads as much as
possible. You should be aware that parts of the UK are very hilly, and we pass
through some of these. We have avoided hills if we can, however we generally
take the route over hills rather than add additional miles by passing them.
We ride through some large urban areas - in particular around Bristol,
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