Is it Cheating

[oldmanonabike]

I was unable to complete my Lejog attempt with the Wimps about 5years ago when i fell off my bike near Bristol and broke several ribs.
It occurred to me that I have ridden to home from Whitehaven and from home to Inverness
If I can persuade my family that this 76year old man recovering from Prostate Cancer and a heart attack ,that ,with a couple of months rest between ,I could ride from Bristol to Whitehaven and from Inverness to John O Groats would I at last be able to say I Have Ridden LEJOG ?

[Jdsk]

Enjoy it, tell the truth, and be proud of your achievement.

When can you set off?

Jonathan

[richardfm]

My son has been doing it in stages. He has one section left to do.
No, it's not cheating

[sizbut]

It's however you want to do it, there is no set route, no set time, just LE at one end and JOG the other, and some adventure and challenge in between, which criteria you have clearly meet. Some of us have even JoGLE'd instead of LEJoG'd and it still counts. So go for it, ride on and bon voyage.

[Mick F]

Hello again!

I rode with The Wimps from the Hallworthy area on the A395 via Egloskerry, Launceston and to Okehampton.
Next day, from Okehampton to Taunton .............. and I took the train home from there.

I reckon that you can do an End2End in any way you want.
Does it matter if you take a break or do it in sections? No it doesn't IMHO.
Just enjoy the route.

Me and Mrs Mick F discussed some years ago about walking LEJOG. We could take the train to Penzance and stay overnight perhaps, and get the bus to LE. Walk for 10 or 15 miles, and get the bus back to Penzance, stay overnight again, get the bus to where we left off and walk back to Penzance. Stay overnight and get the train home.

Then, when the fancy took us, take the train to Penzance ............... etc etc to Hayle, Camborne, Redruth etc etc etc .................
Then, when we got nearer home, it gets easier.
Then, as we progressed out of the Far SW, it becomes more difficult of course, as we'd need longer and longer train journeys until we got so far away it would be prohibitive.
Any road up, it may take us two or three years to do LEJOG.

[Cowsham]

This time of year is great for escapades like that since the days are long but I'd want to be completely prepared for it.

[MrsHJ]

It’s fine. I’d need three weeks minimum to do a LEJOG and that’s quite a chunk to take off work and I can’t save every longer route (EV6 is another one on my list) to do until I’m retired so I reckon you can do it any way you want.

[axel_knutt]

I've not done any recognised routes on the bike, but if it's cheating, I've cheated most of the long distance footpaths I've walked, because all but two of them were done in stages.

[wirral_cyclist]

Hardly anyone does Lands End to John o'Groats [1] and in any case I've not seen rules that state it has to be consecutive days so just do it.

[1] I mean 40 odd hours is impressive for non stop [2] but real people have to take many days.
[2] but it isn't actually non stop so giving way, having a poss even [3] all means it's only ever LE to somewhere that's not actually JoG
[3] I might just be taking the poss a bit.

[pwa]

The only rule is that you make your own rules up. Me and my wife walked two thirds of the Offa's Dyke Path some years back, and if we ever go back to do the remaining third (when my memory of sore feet may have faded) I will be saying we did the whole thing, in two bites.

[rareposter]

I'm going to go the other way and say yes, it is cheating.

I'm fine with doing LEJOG (or any tour for that matter) by any route you want but to my mind a tour is one journey. If you ride from London to Croydon, then get the train home and 2 weeks later you get the train to Croydon and ride to Brighton, you've not done London to Brighton, you've done two separate point-to-point day rides.

I mean, if you sign up to a 300km Audax and ride half of it before getting the train home, then pop back a couple of weeks later once you're feeling better and ride the other half, you're not getting that 300km Audax completion badge - you've not ridden 300km, you've done 2 day rides of 150km each.

Admittedly this is probably more important if you're doing the ride for charity and raising money because I think many charities and most donors would be a bit put out to discover that you'd done a load of day rides over the course of a year (for example) - part of what people sponsor you for is because it's supposed to be something a bit more than "a normal ride".

[pwa]

I have neighbours who, some years ago, rode the Taff Trail. They weren't regular cyclists, and they did it in portions, over months. Ten miles one day, then another ten a week or two later, until eventually they had done the lot. As an ongoing little project. I doubt that they would care whether anyone else considers that to be "doing the Taff Trail". It was their project done on their terms and they enjoyed it. There are no rules, other than your own.

[PH]

I was unable to complete my Lejog attempt with the Wimps about 5years ago when i fell off my bike near Bristol and broke several ribs.
It occurred to me that I have ridden to home from Whitehaven and from home to Inverness
If I can persuade my family that this 76year old man recovering from Prostate Cancer and a heart attack ,that ,with a couple of months rest between ,I could ride from Bristol to Whitehaven and from Inverness to John O Groats would I at last be able to say I Have Ridden LEJOG ?

You should do the ride for your own satisfaction, no one is going to be cheated out of anything. Plus, I'd say both of those rides are well worth doing in their own right, good luck with them.
Whether what you tell people is misleading depends on how you tell it. If someone where to just say they'd ridden LEJOG, I think there'd be an assumption they'd done it as one tour/ride. No one is going to be less impressed* if you tell it as a narrative, I think the opposite, the backstory makes it more so.

* I rode JoGLE in 2004, no one I've told has ever seemed the slightest impressed by that (Or interested). A few years later I rode Derby to Barcelona, similar distance and difficulty, just with better food and weather, yet somehow people find that hugely more impressive

[Gearoidmuar]

That's true! I've done Lejog 4 times. Not getting crocked and pacing it correctly is important. I've ridden across Spain from Tortosa, south of Barcelona on the coast to near Lisbon. Shorter and a lot easier than Lejog but more impressive to the non-cyclist!

[Tangled Metal]

Cheating depends on what your purpose is. To do it in one trip yes, if not then no.

If you're logging a LEJoG in some centralised log, if there is one like the record of Bob Graham rounds, then you really need to do in one. Otherwise what's the point? You're on a holiday, perhaps a cycling challenge holiday but still a holiday you're there to enjoy! You do you!