The E2E ride (End to End from Lands End to John o’Groats) has been meticulously planned over the last two years. With there being eight of us doing the whole ride, 1 extra going from Lands End to Cheddar and then an extra 5 from the Isle of Arran to Inverness, there are going to be quite a few folks that will need to be kept well fed. I (Sarah) have been in charge of planning the catering to ensure that this happens and I really don”t want 7 hungry and therefore grumpy blokes complaining if things don’t work out!! To try and keep the costs down, the plan has always been to self cater where we are able to, although if we have a longer and hilly ride then we are unlikely to want to cook and so will eat out that evening. Staying at Youth Hostels gives us the option to cook for ourselves. However we are also stopping at other places (Travelodge’s, Premier Inn’s and a farm) where obviously this won”t be an option. Where an inclusive breakfast was an option, then we have always taken that option when booking the accommodation.

From a planning point of view this meant that if we are eating out, then we need to find somewhere suitable. If we are self catering then we need to locate a shop that will be open to buy the food from, ideally near where we are staying – so that it doesn”t go off but also so that we don”t have to carry it further than necessary! Extra weight makes the cycling harder, especially up hill. We also needed to consider where we were going to have lunch. From experience of earlier but shorter trips, country pubs are not always open for lunch during the week. Imagine how awful it would be to arrive at a pub for lunch, feeling tired and hungry just to discover that it was shut!! Google maps have been very useful for the planning, especially using the street view option, to see what there is in each of the villages where lunch or a shop may have been an option, as was yell.com. However I did find that you can only use Google maps as a guide, as the pictures can be a few years old – a few times I chose somewhere to stop for lunch, only to find later that they had now closed completely  or in one instance had been demolished! Hopefully everywhere that has been finally selected will both be still there and open on the appropriate day – I really don”t want to have to deal with a mutiny!! The document of details is now complete.

As Andy (P) was in charge of sorting out the routes, we have had to work together to ensure that the route for each day takes us past both the lunch stop and also the selected shops on the way to our destination for the day. Hopefully all that planning should mean that things go smoothly whilst we are away, although as with all best laid plans, there are bound to be some things which don”t quite work out but hopefully that won”t happen often. If it does, then it won”t be for lack of effort with the planning!