999 miles

[mattfen]

Stolen from another thread but it's a conundrum that I have considered many times

What route are you taking?
1,000miles?????
I've done End2End quite a few times, and my mileage comes out at about 890miles.

10days would be only 89miles a day.
I have done it in 11days and averaged about 80miles a day.

I often wonder why people do LEJOG and rack up mileage so close to the magical 1000 but because of their route they fall short by such a small distance ? One blog I read was 976 miles - really ? so close but yet so far ?

It's a similar dilemma to include Lizard and Dunnett and it's all personal choice I know but it always struck me as being odd that you would plan a route that did 900+ miles and not adjust it to hit the 1000 mile. Obviously this doesn't apply to those planning sub 900 mile routes as it would effectively add another day.

[AM7]

I suppose it depends on why you are riding LEJOG.

If it is because you want to ride 1000 miles, then clearly it would be foolish to 'only' ride 976 miles.

But otherwise, what makes 1k miles a magic number? IMHO you ride from LE to JOG (or vice versa) by the route most appropriate to you, and the total number of miles is whatever it is when you've finished

My LEJOG worked out at about 910 miles, incidentally...

[Mick F]

When I did my LEJOG and Back, I reached the 1,000miles on the way back on the north shore of Cromarty Firth a few miles east of Invergordon.

Total distance both ways was 1,788.97miles.

[Si]

I got lost once on mine - added an extra four miles. At the end the mileage read as 1003, thus if I'd not got lost it would have been 999. Although I was doing it for the experience of the tour rather than to break any records I have to admit that I was glad that it did tick over 1000 without having to fudge it.

[Neil C]

For me the object was to get from LE to JOG. As I was taking a scenic ( i.e. hilly ) route and avoiding main roads I knew before I started that I would be doing over 1000 miles.

If I had been heading for 999 miles then I'm sure the draw of Dunnet Head or Ducansby Head would have been greater.

[Bicycler]

Reminds me of the kid climbing on top of the cairn on Kisdon (http://streetmap.co.uk/grid/389850_499850_120) so that they could say they'd climbed up to 500m

[DaveP]

I often wonder why people do LEJOG and rack up mileage so close to the magical 1000 but because of their route they fall short by such a small distance ? One blog I read was 976 miles - really ? so close but yet so far ?

I think the clue is in the alternative title for this practice. End to End. Define your start point and your finish point and plan a route to connect them. Your quite free to choose between: efficient - minimum distance, efficient - see as much of the island as you can, - quick as poss. - cheap as poss....
Faced with choices like that the lure of riding 1,000 miles fades somewhat. Go for the minimum distance and hit 1,000 next time you ride to work. What's not to like?

[Ben@Forest]

Assuming you're not looking for the 900 mile distance mark then I agree about hitting 1,000 miles. I did 1,029 miles on JOGLE, which included Dunnet Head and Lizard and some fairly mazy routes through that middle bit of England avoiding the A49. at the start I had no idea what my total mileage was going to be, but considering I arrived at LE at about 2.30pm on the final day I probably would've zig-zagged some more to hit four figures if I'd been a bit short.

[TrevA]

We did over 1000 miles. The trick is to go west from JOG if doing JOGLE or approach from the west if doing LEJOG. We went via Thurso, Melvich and Bettyhill along the north coast before finally turning south. Then it's a much more pleasant ride down through Altnaharra, and Lairg to Bonar Bridge. This was the best part of the trip - from Bettyhill to Lairg we came across no more than a dozen cars - it's a single track road with passing places but the scenery is absolutely stunning and it's reasonably flat too. It might take you an extra day but it's not a race, and you could still do the lot in 14 days.

[oldtimer99]

Ye gods ............ planning that exact? What, every last mile of road before you start? Bet some of you guys must have spent more time riding with eyes glued to the map/satnav than looking at the scenery!!
We wandered about, visited the islands, got lost a bit........... and JOGLE'd in 1002 miles!

[TrevA]

There aren't that many roads to choose from in northern Scotland. It's either use the A9 and follow the coast or go along the north coast and down via Altnaharra, unless you want to go even further west. We mainly followed the CTC B&B route, but also wandered about a bit and also got slightly lost occasionally. All adds to the fun of it.

[Steveindenmark]

Because after 14 days or more on the road, the distance is immaterial. It is the destination that is important.

I rode 1000 miles or I completed LEJOG. I know which bumper sticker I would have.

[Tigerbiten]

I've done Home -> LE -> JoG -> Home twice.
Both times I've wandered around a lot when going down-up-down as I see no real point of just hammering up main roads unless your aiming for a minimum time.
So both times total distance for the round trip was over 4,000 miles .........

[Cunobelin]

Not the LEJOG, but follows the point

I try and do the Isle of Wight Randonnee each year, and this is a metric 100km

One year my total mileage for he day was 865 miles, so I took an extended route on the way home to make it up to the 100 miles

My wife thought I was a loonie!

But I must admit that if I was close, feeling good and had the time I would always detour to make up a "magic number"

[DaveP]

My wife thought I was a loonie!

Whereas you are in reality a Cycling God, slightly slapdash with zeros?

I can understand taking an interest in daily totals - if nothing else, its an indication of fitness. I was certainly well chuffed when I eventually managed to pass the 100m" barrier". However once you start looking at multi day rides the mileage just doesn't seem, to me, to be so significant.
We had a limited time for our JoGLE, looked for minimum distances, pushed ourselves to achieve what were, for us, high daily totals, and were delighted to succeed in something we had set up as a challenge to ourselves. We could have squeezed in an extra day and gone for four figures, but I'm not sure what doing so would have meant.
If I ever do it again I'll certainly go well over 1,000 miles, but that will be the result of roaming around looking at things. Touring, almost...