Ian McLean has arrived at John O'Groats . . . en route he has been sending updates to the Rider Blogs area of this website to road test the facility that Jon & Rob the webmaster also trialled in June 2010.

The good news is that it works . . . the only issue has been some of the text formatting that Ian's support man's PC or phone sent.  Line breaks and paragraphs broke the text in the wrong places for some reason ... I'll investigate.  [Rob used a Palm Treo Pro running Windows Mobile and Jon used an iPhone for their From the handlebars submissions - looks like it's a transmitting device issue]

A little more work and it's expected to make the Rider Blog feature available for riders from early 2011.

Jenni, one of the Stratford-upon-Avon Laydeez, called from Land's End at about 1415 today to say that she and Rachel had arrived . . . there was much background noise and what sounded like a champagne cork popping.

From the brief conversation it seemed that after a wet start it all got better and that they managed to follow Rob & Jon's LEJOG route in reverse (although Rachel did get confused with Nick's Lift*)

Perhaps some pictures may arrive with the webmaster when they get back from the hairdresser their celebration lunch.

* Jenni being from New Zealand has a bit of an accent ... it took the cycling club ages to work out that "Nick's Lift" was actually "next left"

See the Laydeez item earlier .... heard from Jenni today on the phone - all going to plan but wet, wet, wet has precluded the planned camping and forced them to B&Bs.  Currently at Tebay in Cumbria, pretty much on their planned schedule.

My suggestion that they were just off to the beauty salon for a pedicure and leg-wax was met with what I can only describe as coarse language

There have been suggestions that the site provides listings and/or recommendations for accommodation, cycle shops and perhaps other services   . . from experience this is difficult for several reasons : places come and go, one person's view of quality and value will vary widely from another's - and most importantly, the resource to be of any value has to be current and accurate, if it isn't then the site loses credibility.

However, I've bitten the bullet and The Directory has been created, ready for submissions from riders (see the submission forms) - it's now live but depends on riders and establishment proprietors to supply the recommenations for entries and the detailed content.

Rob the webmaster was riding LEJOG with Jon .... we're back (that was on 21 June 2010, this article has just been moved from the Home page) but you can still read about our progress with the "From the handlebars" feature with  the link on the menu.

Riding along lost in my own thoughts a few ideas for enhancements to the site came to mind ... keep an eye on development.  Here's the first new thing : To create a Directory of accommodation and cycle shops needs YOUR input - see the Submission Forms under The Directory

The picture is a Macmillan Cancer Support poster at Loch Lomond - we had enjoyed a VERY GOOD DAY - wearing our MacRide jerseys

Two friends (Jenni, left, and Rachel) of the webmaster have set off from Stratford-upon-Avon today - by train to Thurso, by ferry to The Orkneys and then back to John O'Groats to start their JOGLE - listed in the calendar as J & R's Mad Adventure. 

They are planning to take about three weeks with camping or bed & breakfast accommodation ... taking a route via the Mull of Kintyre and Arran.  Much of their route south of the border follows the webmaster's LEJOG in June 2010 (hopefully they'll work out that they are going the other way on the map!)

Planning and preparation has been going on for months ... but still involved a special overnight express delivery of a barbag from Chain Reaction Cycles that arrived this morning (which the webmaster fitted to Jenni's bike before taking the girls and their bikes to the station) .....

There MAY be updates from time to time ... if you are on the road, watch out for them!

The calendar is showing 14 rides in progress as at today - it was 15 yesterday.   If your ride isn't listed yet just complete the online form.

At the end of the summer I intend to analyse the rides and publish some stats on direction, number of days etc.

At last, all the railway tickets are booked. 

The train timings meant that we have an overnight stop en route to the start in Bristol - the journey is now:  Stratford-upon-Avon to Birmingham and then to Bristol, overnight in Bristol and train to Penzance to ride to Land's End - the return is a minibus/trailer from John O'Groats to Inverness to catch a train to Edinburgh (although we are planning to get off at Inverkeithing to ride over the Forth Road Bridge)   Overnight in Edinburgh and a train to Birmingham then Stratford-upon-Avon.

The upside is that other than the Edinburgh-Birmingham sector all the fares are at massively discounted costs.   AND for those that have read the ticket saga in Journal 176, we have the actual, physical cycle tickets!