Dominic Irvine & time trial legend Glenn Longland aim for LEJOG tandem record

Very much enjoyed reading the above post by withers5312!

As the son of the stoker (John Withers) on the existing record it's safe to reiterate they weren't olympians, just two regular guys who rode and raced together.... lots.... fueled by (as Cycling Goldsmith says above) bread pudding, marmite sarnies, rice pudding and sweet tea, the latter two often in the same bottle.

When my father died in 1990 (ironically of a heart attack), I came across his old CTC training diaries, and for the weekends of the End to End and the 1000, the diary entry was simply the distance rode and the time. No fanfair... followed by whatever club TT was on that week.... Some of the weekend tandem distances were terrifying. Folks just dont ride 600 miles a week, week in week out anymore. I vaguely recall dad telling me they somtimes trained with a house brick in the saddlebag.

I remember as a lad, Thursday night winter club runs would come round our house on occasion and they would bag over 100 miles, that on a "school night" too. I was always in awe of a visit of these gnarly hard men of cycling coming to my house... Pete Swinden, Pat Kenny, Les Lowe, John Taylor, Bob Beaman but its not until you get out there and start to carve your own niche you figure how hard these guys were.

Dad and Pete were some of the early adopters of "sport science" such as it was in the 60s and sought assistance from (help me out here Cycling Goldsmith) Dr Somebody from Loughbourgh Uni with some elementary indoor testing on the tandem.

They were machining their own wheel axles, building their own wheels, the machines were heavy, the clothing was heavy and gearing limited. I raced on my dads old tandem (their spare) as a student and if you had to stop or go round a corner you had to make an appointment...thankfully the A34 doesnt have many bends. By comparison my Orbit tandem handles like my road bike and is about half the weight (not of my road bike...ahem)

Its always with a sense of great anticipation / dread watching the End to End going under the hammer as it were but also sad when they pack. It was a good effort and I'm sure Glenn will recover swiftly.

We've all been there in our own way.....you get dropped, puncture, crash, whatever... Its easy to hypothisize from the comfort of a PC on the whys and wherefores but do spare a thought for these guys as they are probably gutted.

But they have (and still are) raising a whole heap of cash for a good cause. Make it your good deed for the day.

https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/tandemchallenge

Cappo gentlemen.

Ride safe

According to CW the attempt is due to begin on Sunday. More here:

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest-news/lands-end-john-ogroats-t...

It also links to a tracker - https://share.delorme.com/DominicIrvine

Twitter and facebook:
https://twitter.com/DomIrvine
https://twitter.com/gorgeousglenn4
https://twitter.com/OrbitTandems
https://www.facebook.com/tandemchallenge2014

Our club is affiliated to RRA and I have just seen a detailed route description, and it goes through Shrewsbury! Suddenly rather excited...

I hope we can follow their preparation and, even better, updates from the attempt itself. The mere mention of Glen Longland's name is enough to see older time triallists prick up their ears.

Nice contribution from Cycling Goldsmith If they break the record you could at least ride the route, even if you don't attempt the record.

Not LEJOG, but a recent feature on two local tandem record holders, who still hold the Liverpool to London tandem record, which is unlikely to be broken:
http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2014/03/01/shropshire-cycling-mates-a...

Great to hear your dad is well and still putting an enviable amount if miles in each week.

As the son of the current holder (Pete Swinden) I have a keen interest in this attempt, and although I applaud anyone who has a go at this crazy sort of thing I would like to point out my father was not an Olympian, was a regular club cyclist (in fact he still rides over 100 miles each week at 78) He and John both dedicated about 6 years of their lives to breaking records, most of which were seen as "warm ups" to the End to End attempt, they still hold 6 records including the Birmingham to York and Back, the Birmingham to Holyhead and back, (which they broke twice) and also the 1000 miles. They just trained very hard, regularly putting in 200 to 300 miles on the tandem over the weekend and often going on overnight rides to get the miles in. Nutrition was based around bread pudding and marmite sandwiches, warm sweet tea and sugary milk.

When they set their record in 1966 the route they took was 868 miles, (not including the two diversions into hospital so my father could have pain killing injections in his knee, which cost them in time). Because of new bridges and bypasses the route Irvine and Longland will take will be 36 miles shorter. With modern nutrition and equipment they should break the record comfortably if they have prepared well enough.

Hopefully I will be able to see them go over the severn bridge when they come through, good luck to them

Gethin Butler's record is actually just over 44 hours: http://www.rra.org.uk I think he carried on riding to set a 1000 mile record as well!

Andy Wilkinson did a 41 in a Windcheetah recumbent, and might have gone sub 40 without a mechanical problem.
Worth noting that Wilkinson and Lynne Taylor also set a mixed tandem record that is just over an hour behind the 1966 men's record.

So the men's record is definitely due to be updated, but riding that sort of distance is a journey into a whole different world. Good luck to them!

I'm sure there's a Legoland pun in that title somewhere, but it's too early for me to work out where.