Welcome to the blog of our bike ride from Land’s End to
John O’Groats, by which we hope to keep readers updated on our progress north
from our planned start in Land’s End on June 15th to a hoped for
successful conclusion in John O’Groats on July 3rd.
The
Riders
For readers who don’t know much about us, I (Ian) am an actuary
and Martin is an architect and we have been friends since meeting when we were at
King’s School Macclesfield in the 1960s. I lived for over 20 years in Kendal,
Cumbria and now live in Hartford, Cheshire. Martin went the other way, moving
from Oxford to Kendal in the late 1980s and is still there today, where Martin’s
home has been the base for much of the (relatively limited in my case) training
for the ride.
The
Reason
In 1992, whilst living in Kendal, I was diagnosed with
bowel cancer and then with secondary liver cancer in early 1994. March 31st
this year was the twentieth anniversary of my second operation with to date no
recurrence of symptoms. To try to put the reaching of this milestone to good
use, we are attempting this bike ride to help to raise awareness of bowel
cancer and its symptoms, as well as to raise money for the charity Beating
Bowel Cancer. The link to our JustGiving page, where you can make a donation to
the charity is below.
Also, you can find out more about bowel cancer and the work of the charity by following the link to Beating Bowel Cancer's website below.
The
Route
The page with the tab "Our Route" gives detail of the route and the schedule we are intending to follow. There are two main detours
from the “standard” route, plus a brief hiatus.
The first detour involves going via Macclesfield to call in to see my Mum (also Martin hasn’t been back to Macclesfield since we left King’s School in 1969). The second detour will be to head north through Scotland on the east side rather than the more usual west side. In particular, we are going via The Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh on June 27th to call in to see the surgeon, Professor Garden, who carried out my liver surgery in 1994. Mr Morgan, the surgeon who carried out my bowel surgery in Lancaster, will be on holiday at the time our bike ride would have taken us through Lancaster, but we were able to call in to see him on June 4th on one of our training days.
The first detour involves going via Macclesfield to call in to see my Mum (also Martin hasn’t been back to Macclesfield since we left King’s School in 1969). The second detour will be to head north through Scotland on the east side rather than the more usual west side. In particular, we are going via The Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh on June 27th to call in to see the surgeon, Professor Garden, who carried out my liver surgery in 1994. Mr Morgan, the surgeon who carried out my bowel surgery in Lancaster, will be on holiday at the time our bike ride would have taken us through Lancaster, but we were able to call in to see him on June 4th on one of our training days.
The brief hiatus referred to will happen when we catch
the train south from Edinburgh on June 27th, so that I can attend my
nephew Brendan’s wedding to Kate the following day (back in Macclesfield again),
but after a return train journey to Edinburgh, we will recommence the ride on
the afternoon of Sunday June 29th, hopefully onwards to a successful
conclusion four days later.
