An XRV.org organised ride, from John O'Groats to Lands End, on Saturday 21st June 2008.

The challenge - to complete the ride in under 24 hours.

Starting at 4am, a group of some 50 riders set off from the carpark at John O'Groats, headed south, to raise money for MacMillan Cancer Support.

On the way we encountered unrelenting rain, fog, broken chains, blown electrics, punctures, police speedchecks, a very unhappy motorist who had a wing mirror scratched, (allegedly!) and a myriad of minor disasters, but we all made it.

We set out to raise £5000 for MacMillan.

We actually raised more than £15,000. That equates to more than £17,000 when the gift-aid is included.

An achievement that everyone involved in the event should be rightly very proud of.

The Longest Day 2008 - the inaugural Team XRV endurance charity ride event.

Thursday night and I'm not sleeping too well. Actually, I'm not sleeping at all! And the reason? The Longest Day ride is almost here, and I'm worried and excited in equal measure. Worried because so many things could go wrong. It's always in the back of your mind when you ride a motorcycle that your life could be turned around in the blink of an eye, and when you're looking at your wife and kids all tucked up and warm in bed, that residual fear becomes more focused, 'specially in the wee hours of the morning. I'm also worried because I was responsible for organising the accommodation for the riders at both ends of the trip. I start imagining there's two LandsEnd Hotels, and I've booked everyone in the wrong one!! Imagining 50 biekrs will get to the Seaview Hotel in JOG and they'll say, ''never heard of ya'' when they go to book in! But the worries give way all too easily to excitement. Excitement at riding to Scotland, excitement at meeting up with riders I've not seen for a long time, turning around and riding the length of Scotland and England, to Lands End, and then turning around and riding home again! Then I start to worry again. I've done no planning and no preparation for this trip, apart from booking and paying for a room at each end.
Well, that's not technically correct. I did a lot of ''thinking'' about planning. But in the end, Friday morning, I did what I usually do - throw a pair of socks and pants in the topbox, a toothbrush and wallet in my pocket, I bungied a 5 litre petrol can on the pillion seat - I wasn't too sure what the petrol situation was going to be in the wilds of Scotland, a quiet prayer, and I was off.
There were numerous plans made to meet up at various points around the country, and head up to Scotland in a posse, but I hesitated to commit to any such arrangement, because I wasn't sure where I was going to be by when, and I didn't want to a) have riders hanging about waiting for me, and b) feel pressured to be at a certain place by a certain time. I like making it up as I go along, and ultimately, all I wanted to achieve for today was to get to John O'Groats with enough time to have a pint, a wash, and a few hours sleep.

It would have been ideal to have had more time to take a leisurely route up, going via Hardknott Pass and some of those lovely smaller roads in the Lake District and Scotland en route, but as I had left later than expected, it was motorways all the way to Scotland. Nothing exciting of note, apart from hitting some freakish high winds in Cheshire and getting blown across two lanes of the M6. Thankfully the car drivers in lane three were awake and could see me getting battered by the gusts, and had dropped back and given me a bit of space. It's pretty bloody scary finding yourself going sideways at 90mph disempowered apart from holding on tight with your knees and keeping your arms relaxed and letting the bike do it's thing!!
Scotland - and once on the A9 the traffic starts to fade, the roads open up and scenery changes dramatically. It's at this point I decided to do a little experiment. I've never quite known how many miles I get out of a tank on the transalp. I fill her up, then fill the petrol can, and decide run the tank dry to see what I get. She splutters to a halt with 165 miles on the odo. Cool I think. I know now. I was also riding quite hard, so I mentally make a note I should let her go much further than this in normal use without filling up. I could probably get around 180 to the tank taking it a bit easier. I find a layby, empty the petrol can into her, and saddle up, ever heading north.
And then it hits me! I've got 5 litres of petrol, exactly, and I have no idea where I am, or where the next petrol station is, exactly. Yeah, I thought that one through pretty good!!!!
I ride slow, very slow, to eek out the maximum mileage I can, and start praying the myths of scarcity of petrol stations in northern scotland are just that - myths! With literally fumes left, I spy a sign for a small one horse village - carry on in the hope there's a petrol station coming up, or divert and risk there being none, and I'm then stuck in the one horse town, off the beaten track, with a dead bike!
I dallied a while, in the hope a car or lorry would pass and I could ask them for advice, but nothing came. I decide to chance it, divert, and switching left and right down a single track road, thinking this is NOT good, the first thing I see as the road opens is a small, no, tiny, private petrol station. I breathe a sign of relief and fill up. There is a God!! The station was about 5p per litre more expensive than the most expensive petrol I'd filled up with to date, but I couldn't care less. I was so relieved the station was there, and open, and had petrol, I could have kissed the guy. But as the guy on the forecourt was more than 2 metres tall, weighed at least the same as my bike, and looked like he ate car tyres for breakfast, I didn't actually tell him this. I just paid, smiled, and felt about 2 stone lighter!

So far, I've ridden solo. Scotland is such a beautiful country, if you stopped to take a picture everytime you saw a stunning piece of scenery, you'd never actually get to where you were going. I resisted for as long as I could, but crossing here I decided to stop and get a picture of the alp in it's natural terrain. Low and behold, no sooner had I stopped when I spy a group of bikes approaching. I thought I must be the last that was going to arrive as most of the others had left much earlier, and many had stayed in a bunkhouse so they wouldn't have such a long haul on the Friday.
It was great to see them. Yeti, Stormforce, Whealie, PhilW, and later a few more, Palerider, Win-xp, there may have been others but I'm writing this up a year and a half after the event, and given I can't remember what I did yesterday, no surprise there then I'm a bit vague on the details!

With time marching on, after catching up on the days events and exchanging a few yarns, it was time to saddle up again. We rode enmasse to the Seaview Hotel, where most riders already had settled in. The little bar in the hotel was packed. The atmosphere was electric. Most people taking part hadn't ever undertaken a ride like this. A lot of people in the bar that night were meeting in person for the first time. But being passionate bikers, there wasn't exactly any ice to break. The common bond of bikes, bling for the bikes, adventure riding, and the committment to make this event a phenominal success made getting along as natural as kicking a sidestand down!

Fed and watered, I was feeling wide awake. Too excited to sleep (again!). Around midnight, a few more riders rocked up the the hotel! Mudwizz and BTbloke! And to think I was worried about being the last! They'd had a few mechanical problems en route, and no sooner had they arrived than Mudwizz started to service the xr! Around 1am I turned in. Knowing full well I wasn't going to sleep, I hoped at least to ''relax'' a little. No chance. I put the radio on and had one eye on the clock for the next two hours. At that time of year, it never really gets properly dark in that part of the world.

We started to assemble around 3am. There was to be a photocall in the carpark for 4am. The roar of the bikes starting up was awesome. I felt a bit sorry for the other hotel guests. Ok, no I didn't, but I remember thinking I should!

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