Hi all
I finished (most of) a solo LEJOG from mid May to early June. Thanks to everyone in this forum and the broader LEJOG community for all the resources, in particular to Richard from cycle.travel and to Ajax Bay for his LEJOG 2015 gpx route. This write up is to share some more info/things I wish I'd known.
I was pretty time-poor in the lead up and so was keen to do minimal specific route planning/advance booking.
I did it mostly solo on a loaded Triban RC520 with off-brand panniers and a second-hand rear rack. A friend lent me his Apidura frame and top tube bags, which were excellent. I also had a small handlebar bag. My only modifications to the bike were installing some SKS Bluemels mudguards, swapping to a 3D printed Aliexpress saddle (which was fine during training but after multiple long days got pretty uncomfortable) and upgrading the stock pedals. The default 11-32 rear cassette was way too low for Cornish hills on a loaded bike - in Cornwall and Devon I must have pushed up 20 or 30 hills. It might have been OK unloaded: my last day in Scotland I had friends with a van who carried my bags and I had no problem with the hills (though hills near JOG maxed out around 9% grade rather than the 12%+ in Cornwall).
Bike weight with rear rack and frame bags was 14kg; 25kg with panniers, which held clothes, electronics and tent/mat/sleeping bag. Didn't bring a kitchen system and ate entirely from supermarkets/pubs/Greggs etc.
I trained a little but not as much as I should have, so the first few days in Cornwall were rough - though I'm in my 20s and consider myself slightly above average fitness. Usual excuses of work/training time limitations. The last day from Lairg to JOG was longer than expected (combined two days into one due to rain forecast) and I also ended up giving myself mild achilles tendonitis in one leg from the large increase in volume/intensity. It's mostly better now.
I took 15 days/14 nights, though was only on the bike for ten of those days: I reached Wolverhampton and the forecast was torrential rains for the next four days, so I took a train to Edinburgh to stay with some friends, skipping the midlands. For once, the Met Office turned out to be right and it did indeed rain a lot. I travelled internationally to the UK for this, so I was both keen to not torture myself too much (riding soaking wet not much fun) and had a fairly strict time limitation with flights already booked.
Total mileage was about 1000km, so averaged about 100km/day when I was actually riding, but it was a lumpy average. Three days spent cycling from Bristol to Wolverhampton with a friend averaged only around 70km per day; my longest days were Hayle to Okehampton and Lairg to JOG, both at around 150km.
I had originally planned to closely follow Ajax's route up the west coast of Scotland but decided to pass through the Cairngorms instead on account of scheduling to meet up with friends. I also didn't have enough time to risk missing a ferry or two on those western islands.
Thankfully I didn't have any mechanical issues other than a noisy chain which I lubed every other day. Only had a broken spoke after checking the bike in for the journey home. The RC520 was generally excellent, with the 105 shifters working well.
Factoring in staying with a few relatives and friends, I camped about five or six nights of the 14. Finding wild camps away from people in England was a little tricky, but Scotland with the wild camping rules was much easier.
I don't own a proper bike computer and didn't want to shell out for one, so I just used cycle.travel on my phone for turn-by-turn navigation supplemented by Strava at the same time for tracking/stats. This meant I needed lots of power, so I carried one 20k mAh powerbank and two 10k mAh powerbanks. This would get me through three full days of riding/navigation so I had a bit of flexibility with recharging. I struggled a bit to load premade gpx routes and follow them, so I ended up plugging in the day's end point to the cycle.travel app and following the routes. I would also sometimes compare with the Google maps cycling route; the cycle.travel route was usually better.
The cycle.travel app (Android) was generally excellent, especially the routing, which would send me on great cycle paths. The one or two times I thought I could be clever and take a shortcut ('beat' the app's navigation) I turned out to be wrong and had to backtrack. The only minor issues with the app were a few small bugs - it would sometimes crash when zooming in too much to dense city streets (maybe too much data?) and the stats bar at the bottom of the screen didn't display properly (some data cut off). It also assumed I would travel much more quickly than I actually was (I think it assumed 20-22km/h when I was actually travelling around 15-16km/h) - so I would usually multiply its riding time estimate by 1.5-2x in my head after accounting for breaks.
Some of the old rail trails I was sent down were - while very pretty - unfortunately also very muddy on account of the rain and required several hours (!) of pushing.
Some overall thoughts/impressions:
- Cornwall and Scotland were definitely the best bits in terms of scenery and riding, though Cornwall was the hardest part of the trip. The best day was Lairg to JOG or riding up over the Cairngorms. Edinburgh was also unexpectedly beautiful and well-endowed with cycling infrastructure. Cornwall had many beautiful little hamlets in creek valleys, with chirping birds and running stream. Really very charming.
- This was my first proper bike tour, and I learnt some good lessons. As you can tell, I wasn't very dogmatic about 'properly' finishing LEJOG, and I'm fine with that. I missed the Eden and Lune valleys, and the Forest of Bowland - I would have liked to see them - but that's OK.
- I didn't expect bike touring to involve so much time... riding. Sounds silly, I know, but after a few eight-plus hour days on the bike I felt like I had missed all this culture, hadn't been able to go to any museums, and had bypassed many densely historic parts of the UK.
- Next time I think I'll pick a shorter, more tailored route, and travel slower. I think for me the sweet spot would be 40-70km per day. There was also a lot of road riding through places that were fine but nothing special. The road quality was generally adequate. I'm interested in more European touring on cycle paths.
- I only met a handful of other LEJOG riders, and even then only in the last few days when cycle traffic concentrated onto a few days in Scotland.
- What people say about rural Scotland on a Sunday is true. I pulled into Lairg on Sunday evening and was very lucky to have a cold dinner tucked away in my panniers - even restaurants weren't operating. I managed to get a packet of crisps and a pint, at least.
- While Scotland is beautiful from the saddle of a bike, I think the distances involved and changeable weather make it arguably even better from a car. Or maybe I just enjoyed being warm and dry in a car after the cycling!
- I found camping was risky in that you would not always get a good sleep, which heavily impacted your next day or two of riding.
- My nose was almost constantly running while on the bike so by day three I'd wiped my nose raw. I've since worked out I probably have what Google calls 'exercise-induced rhinitis' - although it was spring and I usually have mild hayfever, symptoms would disappear whenever I spent a day off the bike (but still outdoor in rural areas).
- Overall a great experience. I'm glad I did it, and I learned some useful things about myself and my preferences. Thanks again to folks here and in other cycling forums for all the resources out there.
I finished (most of) a solo LEJOG from mid May to early June. Thanks to everyone in this forum and the broader LEJOG community for all the resources, in particular to Richard from cycle.travel and to Ajax Bay for his LEJOG 2015 gpx route. This write up is to share some more info/things I wish I'd known.
I was pretty time-poor in the lead up and so was keen to do minimal specific route planning/advance booking.
I did it mostly solo on a loaded Triban RC520 with off-brand panniers and a second-hand rear rack. A friend lent me his Apidura frame and top tube bags, which were excellent. I also had a small handlebar bag. My only modifications to the bike were installing some SKS Bluemels mudguards, swapping to a 3D printed Aliexpress saddle (which was fine during training but after multiple long days got pretty uncomfortable) and upgrading the stock pedals. The default 11-32 rear cassette was way too low for Cornish hills on a loaded bike - in Cornwall and Devon I must have pushed up 20 or 30 hills. It might have been OK unloaded: my last day in Scotland I had friends with a van who carried my bags and I had no problem with the hills (though hills near JOG maxed out around 9% grade rather than the 12%+ in Cornwall).
Bike weight with rear rack and frame bags was 14kg; 25kg with panniers, which held clothes, electronics and tent/mat/sleeping bag. Didn't bring a kitchen system and ate entirely from supermarkets/pubs/Greggs etc.
I trained a little but not as much as I should have, so the first few days in Cornwall were rough - though I'm in my 20s and consider myself slightly above average fitness. Usual excuses of work/training time limitations. The last day from Lairg to JOG was longer than expected (combined two days into one due to rain forecast) and I also ended up giving myself mild achilles tendonitis in one leg from the large increase in volume/intensity. It's mostly better now.
I took 15 days/14 nights, though was only on the bike for ten of those days: I reached Wolverhampton and the forecast was torrential rains for the next four days, so I took a train to Edinburgh to stay with some friends, skipping the midlands. For once, the Met Office turned out to be right and it did indeed rain a lot. I travelled internationally to the UK for this, so I was both keen to not torture myself too much (riding soaking wet not much fun) and had a fairly strict time limitation with flights already booked.
Total mileage was about 1000km, so averaged about 100km/day when I was actually riding, but it was a lumpy average. Three days spent cycling from Bristol to Wolverhampton with a friend averaged only around 70km per day; my longest days were Hayle to Okehampton and Lairg to JOG, both at around 150km.
I had originally planned to closely follow Ajax's route up the west coast of Scotland but decided to pass through the Cairngorms instead on account of scheduling to meet up with friends. I also didn't have enough time to risk missing a ferry or two on those western islands.
Thankfully I didn't have any mechanical issues other than a noisy chain which I lubed every other day. Only had a broken spoke after checking the bike in for the journey home. The RC520 was generally excellent, with the 105 shifters working well.
Factoring in staying with a few relatives and friends, I camped about five or six nights of the 14. Finding wild camps away from people in England was a little tricky, but Scotland with the wild camping rules was much easier.
I don't own a proper bike computer and didn't want to shell out for one, so I just used cycle.travel on my phone for turn-by-turn navigation supplemented by Strava at the same time for tracking/stats. This meant I needed lots of power, so I carried one 20k mAh powerbank and two 10k mAh powerbanks. This would get me through three full days of riding/navigation so I had a bit of flexibility with recharging. I struggled a bit to load premade gpx routes and follow them, so I ended up plugging in the day's end point to the cycle.travel app and following the routes. I would also sometimes compare with the Google maps cycling route; the cycle.travel route was usually better.
The cycle.travel app (Android) was generally excellent, especially the routing, which would send me on great cycle paths. The one or two times I thought I could be clever and take a shortcut ('beat' the app's navigation) I turned out to be wrong and had to backtrack. The only minor issues with the app were a few small bugs - it would sometimes crash when zooming in too much to dense city streets (maybe too much data?) and the stats bar at the bottom of the screen didn't display properly (some data cut off). It also assumed I would travel much more quickly than I actually was (I think it assumed 20-22km/h when I was actually travelling around 15-16km/h) - so I would usually multiply its riding time estimate by 1.5-2x in my head after accounting for breaks.
Some of the old rail trails I was sent down were - while very pretty - unfortunately also very muddy on account of the rain and required several hours (!) of pushing.
Some overall thoughts/impressions:
- Cornwall and Scotland were definitely the best bits in terms of scenery and riding, though Cornwall was the hardest part of the trip. The best day was Lairg to JOG or riding up over the Cairngorms. Edinburgh was also unexpectedly beautiful and well-endowed with cycling infrastructure. Cornwall had many beautiful little hamlets in creek valleys, with chirping birds and running stream. Really very charming.
- This was my first proper bike tour, and I learnt some good lessons. As you can tell, I wasn't very dogmatic about 'properly' finishing LEJOG, and I'm fine with that. I missed the Eden and Lune valleys, and the Forest of Bowland - I would have liked to see them - but that's OK.
- I didn't expect bike touring to involve so much time... riding. Sounds silly, I know, but after a few eight-plus hour days on the bike I felt like I had missed all this culture, hadn't been able to go to any museums, and had bypassed many densely historic parts of the UK.
- Next time I think I'll pick a shorter, more tailored route, and travel slower. I think for me the sweet spot would be 40-70km per day. There was also a lot of road riding through places that were fine but nothing special. The road quality was generally adequate. I'm interested in more European touring on cycle paths.
- I only met a handful of other LEJOG riders, and even then only in the last few days when cycle traffic concentrated onto a few days in Scotland.
- What people say about rural Scotland on a Sunday is true. I pulled into Lairg on Sunday evening and was very lucky to have a cold dinner tucked away in my panniers - even restaurants weren't operating. I managed to get a packet of crisps and a pint, at least.
- While Scotland is beautiful from the saddle of a bike, I think the distances involved and changeable weather make it arguably even better from a car. Or maybe I just enjoyed being warm and dry in a car after the cycling!
- I found camping was risky in that you would not always get a good sleep, which heavily impacted your next day or two of riding.
- My nose was almost constantly running while on the bike so by day three I'd wiped my nose raw. I've since worked out I probably have what Google calls 'exercise-induced rhinitis' - although it was spring and I usually have mild hayfever, symptoms would disappear whenever I spent a day off the bike (but still outdoor in rural areas).
- Overall a great experience. I'm glad I did it, and I learned some useful things about myself and my preferences. Thanks again to folks here and in other cycling forums for all the resources out there.
