This photo was taken at Hever Castle Triathlon, the first time Carine and I did something competitive on a bike. Reece won the race, we made the numbers up.

I was dissapointed when I wasn't able to be part of part of my old running club, Sittingbourne Striders, sucessful attempt at running from John-O-Groats to Lands End as a relay, more than 20 years ago. It somehow felt like un-finished business.

Once Carine started to become a better cyclist, the oportunity to ride the route together on our bikes presented itself but two people of different performance are a recepie for disaster. One rider is bored as it's too slow and tee easy, the other it's a complete nightmare trying to keep up. The answer? Simple, a Tandem!

One morning last winter I asked Carine if she would be up for riding from John-O-Groats to Lands End (JoG-Le) on a tandem, she jokingly said yes, but only if we took Jake, our Jack Russell. Me being quite a competitive sort of bloke saw that as no problem at all.

Keith, the greatest bike shop owner in the world, fortunately also the guy that owns the bike shop in Faversham, our home town, soon fixed us up with a great tandem and then sorted us out with just the right bags and panniers and kit to make it all possible. He's a star!

So, we are planning to start the ride on Tuesday 19th August, me on the front, Carine in the middle and Jake, in a shopping basket, on the back and take 2 weeks riding the Deliote route on mostly B and C class roads, stopping at B+B's along the way and calling into as many friends 'en route' as possible.

Just in case we have an accident or one of us becomes ill and we are unable to finish the ride, we are not linking our completion of the ride to a charity collection. However, we lost Monty, a very dear friend to cancer last year and want to collect from those who can contribute, in support of Macmillan Cancer Support, who helped him when he needed it.

As we get closer to the ride I'll update with info and stop-overs and how the training is going.

Thanks,

Martin and Carine (she's in bed asleep, Ahhhhhhh)