Day 5 - Alness to John O'Groats

Up with the lark this morning as we had a 6am start.

We woke up to stunning morning, grabbed our bikes and got ready to set off whilst everyone else slept snuggly on the bus.

With staying at the camp site we had a few more miles to ride until we hit the A9 but when we did the view over the Cromarty Firth was out of this world with the mist rolling off the land and making the rigs that were in for repair look like ghosts.

We had a fairly laid back ride as we just took in the countryside on our journey to just north of Dornoch - the bridge over Dornoch Firth was another stunning bridge ride. We passed over the baton (it was actually a pebble from Lands End) to team B and we got in the minibus and headed to Helmsdale a cracking little harbour village and a good phone signal meant a chance to phone and check on things at home.

After piling on the tour bus we drove into Wick for a final 'dump' stop before John O'Groats. About 10 miles out from JOG we all got on our bikes and started the final ride.

After a final hill we swept down into John O'Groats to finish our ride.

After hand shakes and hugs all round it was time for the end of ride photos.

So there you go - 874 miles with us spending 59 hours 50 minutes in the saddle knocking an amazing 20 hours off our target and raising £46,000 in the process but the most amazing statistic of all is the number of punctures - none!

There is one group of people without whom none of this would have been possible - they were up and out from 6am and didn't finish their day until all the riders had finished - our amazing drivers.

(L-R)Colin (tour bus driver), Alan, Simon, Beccy, Billy.

Quite how the guys (and girl) can cope driving a van at cycling speeds without getting fed up of the traffic queuing up behind them I don't know. Add to that the fantastic banter and the willingness to put up with no end of abuse from us cyclists and always come back smiling and cheery.

As for Colin - the phrase 'Cool as f**k' was made for him. Mirrored aviator shades, laid back attitude and a job driving fuel into Vietnam during the war this guy is class.

So that's it - 6 months of preparation for under 60 hours work and it's been bloody ace.