I felt my 1980's Halfords road bike was ready to be put out to grass, having done many thousands of miles, so I went up Regent Street, Cambridge to Howes (est. 1840) and smelt that lovely rubber smell you only get in bike shops. They recommended a Dawes Galaxy Tour, and as I'm a member of the Cambridge Cycling Campaign, I got a 10% discount. They kitted me out too with a set of Altura 'Skye' panniers and bar bag, so I was ready to roll.
The next big choice was where to stay at nights. Bed and Breakfasts, or Youth Hostels, or camping. I was hoping to be able to do 80 miles a day, but I didn't know if I was going to be able to manage that. If I went for B&B or YH's I would need to book in advance, which I didn't feel confident in doing. So I opted for the freedom of camping, and got a £65 2-man tent half price in Blacks' winter sale. That weighed 2.9kg. I could have saved a kilo by spending another £150 - it didn't seem worth it.
I already owned a small Primus stove and a hurricane lamp, which both run on paraffin, so they were cleaned up and put in working order. I got a small new pair of stainless steel pans, and raided our kitchen for plastic plate, bowl and mug, knife, fork, spoon, teaspoon and wooden spoon to complete my cooking equipment. Tesco furnished plastic containers for porridge oats, rice, coffee, sugar and salt. I also used a shower gel bottle for some washing up liquid, an empty screen wash liquid bottle for a litre of paraffin, and a 250ml bottle of methylated spirit to prime the Primus.
A summer weight sleeping bag, foam mat, small foam pillow, collapsible 2 litre plastic water bottle and little wooden mallet completed the camping kit.
Clothing: for the day, I had two pairs of shorts, two t-shirts, two pairs of socks, trainers, fleece, showerproof jacket and hat. And for the evenings, a lightweight pair of long trousers, underwear, polo shirt and a pair of flip flops. For sleeping, I took a pair of long johns (which I was very glad of) and vest.
I got a reinforced plastic document pouch, in which I kept my maps, diary, pages extracted from Cade's Camp Site Guide, sundry bits of paperwork, and a copy of 'The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night-Time' by Mark Haddon.
Other stuff: minimal washing gear, towel (£1.87 Tesco Value), tea cloth, adjustable spanner, pliers, screwdrivers (used only at the airport to disassemble the bike for the flight home), camera, phone and charger, steel cable bike lock, Swiss Army Knife.
Most of the contents of the panniers were stowed inside four Waitrose 'Bag for Life' plastic bags, for added protection against getting wet.
The tent wasn't big enough to get the bike in at night, and I was worried about leaving it lying outside and having it stolen. I got this idea from a page on the web, and I forget now who to credit, but it's basically 5m of fishing line with a wrist band on one end. I would lace the line through the bike and go to sleep wearing the wrist band. Nobody tried walking off with the bike in the night, but by the time I'd reached the Lake District, the fishing line had got really oily, so I threw it away and didn't bother after that.
I also carried but never used: bike lights, a daysack, spare inner tube, puncture repair kit and mini-pump, compass, swimming trunks.
Having assembled this lot about a month in advance, I thought I'd better have a trial run.
I chose a campsite at Little Thetford, south of Ely, about 15 miles from home and set off one Saturday afternoon.
It all worked quite well, and I managed an average speed of 12 mph all loaded up. I discovered two things: loading heavy things like the Primus stove in the front panniers makes steering difficult - better to put lightweight things like sleeping bag on the front wheel, and keep heavier items to the back.
The second thing was how long it took me to get up in the morning, cook porridge, wash up and pack up before getting back on the road. That all took about two and a half hours; I hoped I'd get slicker at that.
I investigated getting from Cambridge to Penzance by public transport, and it's possible to do it in one day by train, or by coach with a change at Heathrow. Though in the end, I never got as far as checking whether you need to package the bike for them to accept it as luggage, because since the millennium we'd wanted to see the Eden Project near St Austell, so we decided to go down to Cornwall by car. We drove down on the Friday, visited the Eden Project on Saturday, both nights staying in B&B's, and I started the ride on the Sunday morning.
Getting home was much more complicated. We considered doing it similarly with Katie coming up in the car to meet me, but it's a long way, and there were reasons why it suited her better to be around home at the time.
So I predicted my arrival date at John O'Groats for Friday 16 July, and booked a place for me and the bike on a Scotrail train from Thurso to Inverness on the Saturday, and a flight from Inverness to Luton with easyJet on the Sunday. Scotrail accept sometimes two, sometimes four bikes on a train, but no more, so it's essential to make a reservation if you want to be sure of getting on the train you want.
easyJet's terms at the time were that in addition to the 20kg bagggage allowance they would carry a bicycle (and certain other items of sporting equipment) free provided it was in a bag or a box. I didn't feel like buying a bike bag for £80 - £100. In the end, the nice people at Ben Hayward Cycles gave me an empty cardboard box which they'd just had a bike delivered in. The ground staff at Inverness airport agreed to accept receipt of the box by post and keep it to await my arrival. To get a bike into a box (or bag), you need to take off the wheels, pannier racks and mudguards, lower the saddle, remove the pedals and rotate the handle bars through 90 degrees. I discovered at Inverness that having cycled 1000 miles, the pedals were too tight to unscrew with a small adjustable spanner, which is why my box had a bit of a bulge! (See Day 16 photos)
In the end, I arrived at John O'Groats a day later than I had planned, so these reservations had to be rebooked, with the consequent charges from easyJet :-(
The full panniers, bar bag and tent weighed around 30kg. For the plane home I carried the bar bag as hand luggage, and all surplus paraffin, rice, sugar, porridge, methylated spirit were ditched. The checked-in baggage weighed in at 21kg; they overlooked the excess kilo!