5hombres1000miles

WE’VE FINISHED!

For some reason our posts haven’t been uploading recently so see below a few photos from the last segment of our journey - from Oxford to Land’s End through Bristol, Honiton, Okehampton and St Newlyn East. Below is the summary of our final day!!

PS it’s not too late to donate, please spare anything you can for these wonderful charities:

https://www.justgiving.com/page/5hombres1000milesmnda

https://www.justgiving.com/page/5hombres1000mileshandd

DAY 15 - ST NEWLYN EAST - LANDS END

After 15 days our mission was complete. We woke up extra early in extra sh*tty weather, struggling to believe it'd all be over in 70km. The bikes were clearly as tired as we were, with the tandem clicking ominously all day, whilst Hugo ate a hedge for breakfast after his brakes failed on a wee 20 percenter. Despite deciding on a south coast approach, Storm Antoni still had a good go at blowing us into the sea as we rode into Marazion and then to Penzance. After struggling to predict our arrival time for our relatives all day, we crossed the line at 1525, followed by a few cream teas, pasties, rattlers and the pub. A huge thanks again to everyone who came along to see us over the line, and everyone who helped us along the way and everyone so far who has donated. If you havent already, please consider chipping a few pennies for this cause! Big thank you to Ian at Celtic Photography for capturing our arrival and saving us from cycling back to Helston!

NUNEATON- OXFORD, OXFORD - BRISTOL

Apologies for the recent absence, we’re all completely cooked from cycling.
We made it out the midlands to oxford, where we were very grateful to see some familiar faces at the pub to celebrate foggys 21st. Big thanks to everyone for coming to see us and for letting us stay

We made a trip to warlands where the bike wizards that his bike was cooked. We journeyed onwards out west, before the daily puncture held us back into the night (again). We were kindly joined by chris ferguson who saw us through the start of the day. We ve made it to bristol to for the stsy for the night !!
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As we enter our final week of cycling with only 350 miles to go (!) we wanted to explain our motivation for taking on this challenge for MNDA with Foggy sharing a little bit about his Nan, who passed away with the disease when he was younger:

Because I was so young when she passed, most of my memories of Nan are from when she was ill, but despite that she was always up for a bit of fun and never failed to cheer me up. It’s funny what you remember, but for me I always hear her voice when we used to say “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” as fast as we could and still picture her in her electric wheelchair racing my cousins and I. She was always happy and bubbly and loved to sing and dance with us and when we were all together she would make us sandwiches to have as a picnic on the living room floor. She was a fantastic grandma and I will always carry her memory with me.

My Nan was diagnosed with MND in 2009 when, at that time, she had lost the use of her left foot. MND is a cruel condition where the motor neurones in your brain that communicate with the muscles in your body stop working, leading to muscle wastage. As the disease progresses your body slowly stops functioning. Nan, like many, lost her mobility, at first requiring an electric wheelchair before eventually needing hoists to get around the house. Towards the end, her speech deteriorated and my grandad gave up work to care for her. In August 2010 she had stopped being able to swallow and went to hospital to have a tube fitted for her to eat through. Sadly she never made it out of the hospital.

The symptoms of MND are horrific and inhumane and for some they can go even further, including affecting brain function and stopping people breathing independently. It is an incurable, terminal disease that affects up to 5,000 adults in the UK. MNDA is an incredible charity that funds research, the MND helpline and strives to improve care and treatments to relieve these symptoms. Any donations to this cause would go a long way to supporting those currently affected and would mean a great deal to me and my family. If you want to find out more about the work they do, please visit https://www.mndassociation.org/.

DAY 8 - SHEFFIELD TO NUNEATON

A relatively short day saw us journeying across the ✨midlands✨in search of the promised land of nuneaton. Without foggy recovering from his tumble morale was low and the BMW close passes came thick and fast. We’re not in cycling country anymore it would seem.

We earned ourselves a 9.30pm finish, followed by a tasty indian. Big thanks to for putting us up in sheffield, and the pi***ng rain for keeping us motivated to keep cycling

DAY 8 - YORK TO SHEFFIELD

Today didn’t exactly go to plan and we forgot to take any photos but luckily I have produced these highly accurate recreations on snapchat.

• Waking up bleary eyed in York we were faced with replacing or fixing both the tandem bottom bracket and Dan’s elbow.

• First - a quick stop at the aptly-named Cycle Heaven where a very nice man replaced the bottom bracket while Hugo had a coffee next door (see Fig. 1). However he also informed us the front wheel was dangerously worn and asked us how much further we had to go… 500 miles?

• Meanwhile, Dan was getting his elbow X-rayed at A&E. luckily it wasn’t broken, just some pulled ligaments or something. Basically he’s fine (see Fig. 2 and 8).

• The nice man at Cycle Heaven didn’t have the right, # # strong wheel the tandem needed so the rest of us had to head to another bike shop, this one called CycleStreet (see Fig. 3). Hugo ate some yogurt and fruit.

• Eventually, around four or five in the afternoon, we managed to leave lovely York and set off, passing through Pontefract, a place which foggy couldn’t believe was, in fact, real. See figure 4.

• Things were going well until, a few miles later, foggy and Hugo had a slight tumble (see Fig. 5). This left both hombres with sore ouchies and gave us an opportunity to remind them how stupid they were.

• eventually, we made it to Sheffield, where we ate 1000 tons of pizza and fell asleep on the sofas.

More content to follow tomorrow, lots of love

The hombres

DAY 7 - NEWCASTLE TO YORK (HALFWAY)

After the flies came the broken bottom bracket. We’ve made it halfway through the cycle, and its been hard won. After exceptionally slow progress in the morning we slightly shat ourselves and realised we needed to get a shift on. The north of england roads have been very kind to us, and thanks must go out to cold water man who filled us up under a baking sun. Also a big thank you to the big man whose kind encouragement kept us going in some lower moments

We hit our halfway mark at 6pm, where foggy looked like hed be up for collapsing. Not to bother, as we poured some smoothie down him and sat him back on his bike. We grafted hard through the yorkshire countryside and looked like we were on for a leisurely 9pm finish, until the bottom bracket on the tandem exploded, leaving jan with no choice but to peddle for 2 to limp into york. All hombres still in play halfway through the route!

Day 5 - WE’VE REACHED ENGLAND 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

It was a long wet day today but we at least had the coast to spur us on. It was a slow start this morning with the tandem receiving some TLC in Edinburgh whilst the other hombres pushed on. After being reunited in Haddington, with the tandem somehow doing an extra 20k, the newly tensioned chain actually stayed on for more than an hour.

The route got Englisher and Englisher as we progressed, eating up the rolling hills infinitely slower than we ate up some tasty Berwick fish and chips.

We settle in for a night of rain in a delightfully English campsite just outside of Berwick-Upon-Tweed. Goodnight from the hombres

DAY 3 - INVERNESS - DUNKELD

Today is our longest planned day on the route, covering 170km and the route’s highest ground on the Drumochter pass. Despite our best man v food efforts, we were all cooked less than halfway in, and morale wavered as we chased the A9 through central Scotland. Highlights included the one hour descent segment, witnessing foggy eat ham off the ground in aviemore and dans shocking packing

After another 12 hour day we re looking forward to spinning the wheels again tomorrow

DAY 1 JOHN O GROATS TO ALTNAHARRA

We re writing from a pub 80km into day 1. After setting off two hours late we re looking at arriving around 2300. Mood is high with a strong tailwind and excellent scenery

🚀 IT BEGINS 🚀

The day has finally come. The Lycra is stacked and the quads are jacked as we head for the start line at John O’Groats. 15 days of rain, toil, sweat, midges and close pass overtakes await. Introducing the team

Hugo Studd esq: We met Hugo 12 hours ago. He looks pretty chonk, ate lots of pasta and has the watts to show for it. Hugo is Dan’s flatmate in Aberdeen, studying Physiology and is an avid climber in his spare time.

Jan Barraclough: everyone’s favourite curly-haired rowing fanatic is back providing much-needed horsepower to the tandem. Now that he’s finished his law degree, Jan will be settling the many lawsuits we expect to have filed against us.

Finlay ‘Sigma’ Ford: Over the past two years at uni, Finlay has continued his war with engineering, while pursuing his true calling - tandem piloting. The heartthrob of TCBC, Finlay is taking up the role of team mechanic.

Thomas ‘Foggy’ Fogg: this hombre has developed into a fully fledged Cyclist™️ since our last trip and now uses clip-on pedals!! Foggy is such a party animal he has chosen to celebrate his 21st birthday on the York-Sheffield leg of the route.

Daniel Black Boada: we’re looking forward to riding with the high-velocity Venezuelan again. We’re very grateful to Dan’s girlfriend, Dora, for letting him out to play for these two weeks and hope he doesn’t break his bike this time.

Link in the bio to donate!

⚠️ 3 DAYS TO GO ⚠️

It’s been a long few weeks for the Hombres! In between putting our legs to the test, we have been facing a few logistical challenges, which we will fill you in on soon, but in the meantime we have made it to the 3 day mark and want to share a little bit more about one of our charities!

For those of you who have been kind enough to donate to this cause already, your money will be going to the Oxfordshire based charity Helen and Douglas House, a wonderful organisation that provides hospice care for terminally ill children. It gives these children and their families a peaceful and comforting environment where they can flourish and live life to the full in their final days, weeks, months or years. The charity is renowned in the local Oxfordshire area for coming to the aid of families at points of extreme vulnerability and darkness, offering them the invaluable opportunity to make memories together, laughing with and loving each other to the end. On top of this, the charity provides a community and support network for families living through this trauma.

As a group, we were particularly struck by the work this organisation does to provide families with precious moments like these, despite the immensely difficult circumstances under which they operate. After attending a fundraiser for this cause in Oxford last year, we felt extremely inspired by the dedication, positivity and compassion shown by all those involved with the charity. It is for this reason that we are very excited to be taking on this challenge in aid of Helen and Douglas House.

We hope that our efforts across the UK and the support we receive from everyone at home can help this charity continue its incredible work. For us personally, supporting a local charity is a chance to give back to an amazing community that has impacted us so much in our short time in Oxford so far.

If you would like to find out more, please visit https://www.helenanddouglas.org.uk/. Thank you for all your support and any donations to this most worthy organisation would go a long way!

With thanks to the lovely staff at Helen & Douglas House Moreton in Marsh for the photo!

It’s not just Jan and Foggy who’ve managed to get some training in - I too have been shedding my legs after work (although yes, I know they’ve been cycling twice as far as me, thank you)

My training has been in (mostly) sunny Cornwall - I’ve had to make do with my “loner” bicycle as the tandem jan and I are riding is, conveniently, in Aberdeen.

With only a week to go til the big day, we can’t wait to get rolling. Word on the street is that Dan and Hugo are so fit they don’t need to train… we’ll see how that turns out for them.

Stay tuned for more posts this week!