Getting to London Bridge start line, Saturday 2nd May 2015. 

In order to make our early start, I’d driven over to my friend’s (with the bike in the boot) to stay the night before our departure, which meant I had to be ready the day before…

Passports, check

Tickets, check,

Bike, check

We were up with the larks, I’m sure I woke up about 10 times worrying we’d slept in.   Breakfast consumed and clothes on, it was pretty cold on Saturday morning when we finally left the flat and took the obligatory selfie:

We set off from the flat and cycled from Shawlands into Glasgow as fast as we could – we actually had plenty of time but excitement was getting the better of us!   The pink softshell top I was wearing was far too heavy and I was too hot by the time we got to Glasgow Queen street station.  We had a short wait before we our train departed to Edinburgh Waverley.   We were both pretty hyper and secretly I was nervous too!  Once in Waverley we bought 4 sandwiches and some drinks then found our train.  We had a slight panic when we discovered the bike compartment was locked.  That was followed by a bit of hunting down the guard to unlock the door so we could hang up our bikes and strap them in with their tickets attached.

The we headed down to the train into the seating compartments and sat at a vacant table.   After much fumbling around and nervous checking of paperwork we realised we were in the wrong carriage and headed up to our pre-booked seats.  I could see the frustration and disappointment on my friend’s face when we saw a couple sitting at our table while the rest of the carriage was reasonably empty.   They were probably aged mid 50s or so and it was a bit of an inconvenience moving them both out the way to enable us to get all our gear, helmets etc up into the luggage space.

As we left Edinburgh station the first half hour was all very quiet but then the couple asked us what we were doing and to our delight they too, were keen cyclists and had done lots of cycling on their holidays across the UK and in France too!   What we thought was going to be a challenging 5 hour journey turned into lots of discussions about each of our cycling with lots of laughter and the time flew in!   Gus and Edith also took the sponsorship page details and very generously gave us a donation too!  =) Thanks guys!!  www.virginmoneygiving.com/LornaCrawford

During the journey from Edinburgh to London I managed to eat one sandwich (2 halves) and saved the other in my bag (thank goodness! you’ll see why later).  I didn’t drink that much on the journey, but enough to have to run like a duck (wearing my SPD-SL Shimano cycle shoes) across Kings Cross Station only to find out that it was 30p for a pee and that I’d left my cash with my friend!  Thank goodness my guardian angels were with me and 2 very kind people lent me 20p and 10p respectively!  PHEW!

Raymond took his turn and then we were just about ready to go…  but wait… where were we and how would we get to London Bridge?  Hmm we hadn’t route planned that part so I whipped out my iPhone and got the sat nav on…  We set off and quickly had to about turn and go down another street.    Cycling in London was worse than anything I’d ever experienced!  There were buses, pedestrians crossing, other cyclists, big lumpy bits of tar squishing out of holes in the road and traffic lights every 100 yards!    For the first time in my life on a bike I felt really overwhelmed and anxious!

Turning on to London Bridge, my friend decided to go through an amber light which meant I was left behind, so I quickly dismounted and ran across with my bike at the pedestrian crossing!  Ah the panic!  At the other side I found him cycling along the pavement into crowds of people!   Oh man… why had I signed up for this?!