Day 1 – Land’s End to Lanivet

From reading other end to enders experiences, I was expecting the car park at Land’s End to be teemimg with cyclists, all vying for position on the start line and for photo opportunities. We pulled in shortly after 8:00am to find the place deserted save for a lone employee picking up litter. I read recently that the only two bad things about cycling from Land’s End to John O’Groats, were Land’s End and John O’Groats. Land’s End, as in the bit of land at the end of the country, was nice enough without being spectacular but could have been improved dramatically by the absence of the ‘visitor centre’. Thank goodness for the ‘Shaun The Sheep Experience’ which tied together an otherwise unrelated hotchpotch of ‘attractions’.

The weather held for most of the day with a fearsome tail wind to speed me along. A little over an hour after waving goodbye to Sue, I was met by her brother and family on the Marazion Coastal path with the children proving to be willing riding partners for a short stretch. The scenery was stunning, the hills testing and the route, apart from a few glitches and swiftly rectified wrong turnings, was amazing. In fact it was a sign of how well the day went that I spent some time considering how I might make changes if I did the whole thing again one day.

A pastie in a park in Truro with Sue gave me fuel to finish the days riding a couple of hours later, cheered and hooted along the home straight by our next door neighbours from home who were holidaying in Padstow and were able to time their rendezvous to perfection with the aid of the Tracking app.

A longer day tomorrow, both in mileage and time with a delay in the proceedings brought on by running my 100th parkrun at Lanhydrock. With a similarly hilly route before the relative ‘rest day’ through Somerset, my duathlon will be a stiff test. The B&B in Tiverton may have to leave a key out.