After the boys claimed they were staying sober at the wedding I was unsuprised to arrive in the van and find Dave riding a lion topless and Ed chairing the drinking games picking on the unsuspecting women. Needless to say it made the evening longer and the sleep much shorter.

I managed to drag the boys out o bed at 04:30 and into the van. The boys were very poor company having slept for the majority of the 7 hour drive to Inverness and smelling of jäger! We eventually arrived in Inverness and ditched the van before finding the station. The train was a 4 hour journey and really dragged. We tried to keep it entertaining by finding the local stranger who was more than happy to show off his odd magic skills shirtless. He also donated some vienese whirls which were quickly binned on our exit from the train.

We've now arrived in John O'Groats and are keen to get the first day started. People in the youth hostel seem to think either we look fit and like seasoned pros or just shattered as the question we keep hearing is; "have you just finished?"

Tomorrow will be an experience and hopefully won't be dampened by the forecast of torrential rain!

Travel Day 1

Ed and I met at Hemel train station at 7 to say our goodbyes then started our journey. Stage 1 took us to Milton Keynes where we met Dave and our home for the next 2 days; a White van! We made great progress and we reached Liverpool at 11. Dave and Ed are off to a wedding and wi be joined by me this evening after I search out some chamois cream for our sore backsides. The boys claim they'll be good this evening and stay off the pop as we plan on hitting the road at 5am so I imagine I'll be at the wheel.

One day to go!

We have just one more day to go before we set off on our adventure. We have all been carefully preparing ourselves by packing very little into some ridiculously small bags and caring quite lovingly for our bikes which will need to be in tip top shape to take us the 1000+ miles across the country. I guess there is the small details of some last minute training rides from us all and ensuring that our bodies are up to the physical challenge we are undertaking. I'm not sure that the well trained eyes of bike shop assistants have the same opinion, but as we all know the 'doubters' only add fuel to our fire and inspire us even more.

We will be keeping you updated via the blog and our twitter feed @4heroesjogle so please keep an eye out for those. We will try and get as many details from our Garmin edge 800 posted so that you can see just how slow we are riding, as well as a few photos of what should be some very wet looking Jogler's.

1 more sleep!!!

Riding in the rain

Ed and I were lucky enough to get out for a sharpish 55 miles yesterday. We averaged out at just over 15mph and hit a top speed of 38.2mph. We rode for just under 4 hours and it wasn't until 40 odd that we found our grey cloud dodging skills to evade us and we hit some horizontal rain. It made vision quite difficult but we rode through it and hit the blue skies once again!

Going to go 70+ next week!

Some photos as promised

Here are some photos of our last training ride.

In other news Ed has offically announved his retirement and hung up his gloves after an illustrious and sensational career. So onwards and upwards for Jogle 2011 training.

First 50+ training ride

We managed to get out for our first 50+ training ride today despite Dave's best efforts to slow our start with two very flat tyres. We cruised round in just over 3.5 hours plus breaks, which did last a little longer than expected due to Dave's appetite for apple pie! The pace averaged out at 14.7mph which felt comfortable and did include 2 or 3 climbs. A top speed of 38.5 was reached and our quickest mile was covered in 2 minutes 16 seconds! The weather managed to hold up and when the sun was out it felt warm. Let's just hope that come August 7th it stays the same. We also managed to get some more photos which we should get up soon.

Easter break sees more training

As the 3 of us have all broken up for our Easter school holidays you can guarentee that training will continue to be stepped up in preparation for Summer. Here are just a few photos of Dave and Ed's latest training ride. I will be on the bike soon, butr first need to get through next Sunday's challenge of 26.2 miles around the country's capital.