There has been lots of talk on the Forum recently about Bucket Lists.
C2C rides, 12 hour TTs etc. etc. are mentioned, but almost always the LEJOG makes the list (either for the first time, or the JOGLE way, or unsupported, or whatever).
However, ask Stuart, our septuagenarian club time trial specialist, and his wife Jill, who is of course much younger, but still possibly qualifies for a bus pass, if they would include LEJOG in their bucket list their respose will be:-
“ LEJOG? Nah. Done that. Twice. Once by bike, once on foot.”
Yep, you read that correctly, they’ve walked it.
So what do they do to fill their bucket as it were? Every year for the last few years, they’ve sat down with a map of Europe and an EasyJet destination list and decided where to go for a holiday. And off they go, last year Vienna, before that Montpelier and Nice.
First a trip down to Finch’s in Reigate to beg a couple of cardboard bike boxes to transport their bikes in. They fly to their chosen destination, re-assemble the bikes, throw the boxes away and then ride back home. No lounging around on the beach for these two.
Their route planning? Stuart is entrusted to this. (Jill, possibly unwisely, has absolute faith in his ability to sort out a nice route. She, even less wisely, has the same faith in G2 ride leaders to do the same thing!). So off to W H Smith’s, buy a road atlas, mark the route out with a pen, mark a few crosses for overnight stops, cut out strips from the appropriate pages and put them on a roller type map holder on the handlebars. Job done. This year Stuart has gone techno and bought a satnav as well, but still uses the rolling map! His goal: to reach Dieppe for the ferry home in less than a couple of weeks.
Their bikes? Custom built touring or audax specials? Nope. £360 Marin Hybrids (actually Jill’s seems to be a nameless wonder) with 11000+ miles on the clock. Bargain. Are those shopping baskets on their racks? Yep. Just right for holding your carry-on back packs. Luggage sorted.
Their training for the event? They did a 53 mile G2 the day before doing the long Redhill Rollercoaster (in 5h12m – Silver standard for Jill), to get some consecutive day riding practice. (make a mental note of that all you folk who opted out of your Saturday G ride to save yourselves for the Rollercoaster).
So this year the destination was Marseille. Back to Reigate, distance: 849 miles (for comparison LEJOG is between 870 and 970 miles depending on route). Climbing: 65,178 feet. Speed: 73.8 miles/day.
There did seem to be a lot of cols on their (rather crooked) route, which may account for the amount of climbing they did. When challenged about this the reply was along the lines of "the scenery is better that way". OK.
After this trip, I asked the two of them to write up a log (Stuart) and diary (Jill) of their trip. A typed-up version of them can be found here>
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=A714A28D0B665214!2179&authkey=!AA…
So what’s next on their bucket list? Who knows, wherever EasyJet may take them I suppose.
Bucket list? Actually, when I asked her at a recent G2 tea stop, Jill confessed to not knowing what a “bucket list” was. Bless.
Anyway, chapeau to both of them.
And to them:-
Keeeeep pedalling and we’re looking forward to hearing about your next not-a-bucket-list adventure.
**“It’s not what you ride…but that you ride”.