• 80 miles
• Ingelmunster, Belgium to Fin, France
• Gorgeous countryside, 15 mph headwind
• 4 baguettes in rear pockets, 3 weddings, 7 barets

Holy smokes was it blowing out there today, but we pushed through. The French countryside was gorgeous, which made it easier. We started in Belgium and crossed the border into France during our ride. Belgium was industrial. France was filled with agrarian villages … and WEDDINGS.

Just by chance, we got to be a part of three French wedding motorcades. The cars were decorated and driving the same speed as we were biking. Everyone was happy and honking. We said “Bonjour” with our best frenchy accents. It was awesome.

Here are some pictures from the day. Time for us to rest up now, tomorrow is a 130 mile day.

This blog post is dedicated to our friends at Zipp Speed Weaponry, especially our friend Greg Kopecky, Sponsorship Coordinator. Our bicycles have a 808 rear wheel, and 404 front wheel. This configuration is becoming the sine qua non for triathletes worldwide. The aerodynamic dimples in the carbon rim are the same as golf balls and race cars.

A shout-out to Best Western Hotel Les Beaux Arts in downtown Compiegne, France. Special thanks to managers Talvay and Ouidade for making us feel so at home. The rooms were the biggest we’ve had yet and the location was right along our route and on the river. Best Western Hotel Les Beaux Arts. +33 3 44922626. 33 Cours Guynemer, Compiègne, France.

[UPDATE] We took the ferry to France. It took around 2 hours. During the whole trip I just gazed out the window. I could not believe how wide and rough the channel looked. It still doesn’t seem real to either of us that we swam that huge distance just two days ago.

A shout-out to Best Western Hotel Du Parc and Celine Delaplace who did so much to make us feel at home. This hotel has gorgeous grounds, a sunny outdoor pool, and a top-notch restaurant. We recommend the ostrich, it’s delic.

Some stats about our swim:

• Dover, UK to Calais, France
• 14 hours 23 minutes
• 21 miles
• Water temp 60F
• In terms of nutrition… We each fed once every 30 minutes in the water on GU Roctane and GU20 using the Gu-Bot bottle. The bottle held 2 GU packets in a separate chamber from the warmed GU hydration. We ate 2 packets and 12 ounces of warm water during each feeding.
  
• Seas were pretty rough at times
• Our pilot on channel day was David Whyte. Seriously folks, he’s the best in the business and has piloted over 350 successful channel swims. 350!!! His support was phenomenal. His thoughts we only on the swimmers — and his hand-picked crew helped our crew huge. His boat is one of the largest in the fleet. I remember late during the swim when he turned around and shouted encouragement to me in the water at the top of his lungs, flinging his arms in celebration. He was wonderful. It’s a pity he’s retiring this year — but we hear he’s trained an awesome successor in Chris Osmond.

Check out these videos and photographs:

A shout-out to Skyline Goggles, especially our friend Rick Runckel, President. Neal used the Predator goggles (pictured) during his crossing. These goggles are built for open water swimming — they have a huge viewing angle and don’t hurt eye sockets during swims, whether those swims are 1 hour or 14 hours.

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14 hours 23 minutes

We made it! Everyone helped! It was awesome!

It was a gorgeous day for a swim from England to France. The middle map pretty well tells the story of our relay swim across the English Channel. We started the morning off strong on Shakespeare Beach and finished the day cold and weary just as the sun was dipping below the ocean horizon. Aches, pains, cold, and sea sickness took their toll, but they all disappeared as I walked up on the shores of France. Stay tuned for a longer trip log with more color. For now we are working through all these wonderfully supportive emails from loved ones and sponsors. Thanks for your warm vibes, we felt them in the cold channel!

A shout-out to Suunto, especially our friend Martin Schamboeck, Sports Marketing Manager. Adam swam with a T6 and Neal swam with a Core. Whether we’re defending presidents (as Adam has) or climbing Everest (as Neal has), Suunto is on our wrists. They also have this really cool software that we used during our bike rides to chart heart rate, speed and distance.

The below picture is a view near our sandy starting point in Dover. The videos are taken from the hilltop shoreline of Dover, looking out across the channel toward Calais, France.

In this blog post we wanted to give a SHOUT-OUT to all the folks out there who are reading us:

• Katie/Holly/Greg/Matt/Marie & all our sponsors who make our adventures possible
• AlexF/Mark/AmyF/Amber/DavidH/Karah & all our athlete friends
• Jim/Betty/Karen/Jessie/Isaac/Tom/Chris and the rest of my wonderful family
• Mark/Tina, Chad/Kylie, Tim/Megan & so many of Adam’s/Amy’s close friends and family
• Lindy/Ben/Jac/Dan/Anthony/Carla/Jonathan & all our bullish Wharton Friends
• Paul/Chad/Steve/Bruce/Barney/Richard and the highly valued Powerset gang (now MSFT)
• Joe/Mike/Maggie/Wendy/Tracy & everyone else in Edina, Minnesota
• Camile, Isaac/Nicole and so many other of my friends from Chaska, Minnesota
• Brandon/LateralLine
• And of course Zoe (with the two dots) who is busily greening our world so 10 Degrees Latitude can continue for centuries more.

Thanks for your support and warm vibes. Stay tuned.

• 2 hours
• 10 dudes in drysuits diving for shipwrecks in the harbor

Well, we did yet another training swim. Got the call from our pilot (Dave Whyte) last night that we weren’t going to be relaying the channel, so we decided to acclimatize swim again. Since we couldn’t go we did 2 hours today. Adam in one shot and me split between morning/evening (just for kicks).

In other news, Adam’s son Joshua almost walked for the first time today, which would have been amazing. How cool would it be if he took his first steps on the same day that we swam the channel!

Hopefully day after tomorrow is our day. Tomorrow I will post my exploration video of Dover’s anti-French fortifications — cool stuff.

Before, during and after the swim we met lots of fellow channel swimmers. We finally put a name to a face with Mark Robson.  We also met some new folks from New Jersey and California — folks I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of during our upcoming North America swims. Some of the folks we met have blogs:

• Mark Robson (congrats on your 6 hr swim today mate!)
  
• Karah Nazor (always nice to see a fellow San Franciscan, good luck tomorrow!)
  

We are close to GO-TIME here in Dover. Tomorrow there is a chance we’ll swim. Our pilot (Dave Whyte) will call us tonight at 7PM to let us know. So, keep us in your thoughts tonight, hopefully we’ll swim the channel tomorrow.

Here are some pictures that we grafted from other folk’s blogs. Enjoy. Hope you’re all well.

• 1.5 hours
• Serious chop, especially on the east side of the harbor
• 200 gulls, zero fishies

Hello from Dover! Another nice swim today. Might head out for a night swim close to sun-down. Due to the relatively high latitude of Dover (and England itself) the sun rises earlier and sets later than much of the USA. Sun rises here at 5AM and sets at 915PM. Nice long days for swim workouts.

On the home front, the last days have involved a lot of time cooking around the house and some hanging out by the beach and swimming. Here are some pics and a vid of both.

Warning: Seriously boredom inducing video to follow. If you watch 2 seconds of it you’ll get a taste for the conditions.

• 2 hour swim
• Rainy blustering weather
• 6 seagulls
• 3 wet members of our support team standing on the rocky beach

We did our second acclimitization swim today. The swim went well for both of us. We felt the difference now that the sun was hidden behind clouds, but it nevertheless went well. After our swim we gathered at the nearby public bar and met with Chris Osmond to talk about the weather and such. Here is a map showing the harbor that we’re swimming in. It has a gorgeous view of the White Cliffs of Dover and is located next to the shipping harbor where much of D-Day was launched. Good times. Wish it would stop raining.

View Larger Map

• 1 hour
• Gorgeous sunny weather
• 90 sea gulls

We did our first acclimitization swim in the Dover Bay today. It went well, and was short. It was a gorgeous weather day and based on the weather projections we won’t be seeing much sun in future days — so we really enjoyed feeling it beating down and warming our backs during our swim today.

Our familys’ being here to support us mentally/physically is sooooo wonderful! And Amy/Adam’s kids as well as his sister’s daughter Ava are such a joy to have bopping the house.

Adam’s family arrived today. We’ve been having a ball chasing the kids around the house and living life in our holiday home in the farmlands of Canterbury. As you can see from the pictures and the map our holiday home is aweseomly rural. We will upload some lived-in pictures soon — these pictures are stock pictures of the house. The house is huge enough to accommodate Adam, his wife Amy, their children Andrew and Joshua, his parents Michelle/Bob, his sister Tricia and her daughter Ava, my Mom Laura, my gram Flora, and me. It’s a full house and we love it!

View Larger Map

• Cambridge to Canterbury
• 80 miles
• Not much elevation gain
• Even fewer animals
• 20 mile an hour headwind
• 2 sore bums, 4 strong legs, 2 dirty bikes

Today was our last day on the saddle for a while. This last circuit brought us within distance of the gorgeous white cliffs of Dover. From here our swim across the English Channel will begin.

Another mechanical failure… My Speedplay pedal broke in the same exact spot that Adam’s broke. These Speedplay pedals are sure lightweight, but I think the company needs to work on reliability. It is unreasonable to assume riders will replace these $300 pedals every 800 miles. We are now both riding non-Speedplay pedals because there are ZERO local bike dealers that stock Speedplay. Boo.

A shout-out to Cadence Cycling & Multisport, especially Matt (founder), Woody (tech), Brady (coach), Luke (sales) and Mike (coach). These guys run shops in Philadelphia and NYC — and there are rumors of California expansion soon. They replace guesswork with science, and are definitely the Lexus of bike shops. Thank you guys!

• Nottingham to Cambridge
• 70 miles
• 100 sheep. 25 cows. 1 pony on a leash (see video)

Today started out a bit rocky but ended on a high note.  We’ve been in the UK for nearly two weeks now, and the longest rain we’ve biked through has been 30 minutes…until today.  I guess we’ve been pretty lucky so far.  Today was a different story.  The skies opened up, and we were wet.  We’ve been wearing an Aqua-No Jacket, and today we even threw on the Aqua-No booties.  They did a good job, but were no match for the deluge that hit us.

Then at lunchtime, and without warning, the rain broke, and the skies were blue and beautiful.  The rest of the ride was quite enjoyable despite a stiff head wind.  Cambridge is a fantastic city.  It’s probably my favorite so far.  Neal’s mother Laura arrived into town and was there to greet us with a smile when we rode up to the hotel.

We are staying at the Crowne Plaza in Cambridge.  The hotel is absolutely beautiful and service has been first class all the way.  We were met by the duty manager Carlo, who had heard about our venture.  He wanted some pics of us with our bikes out in front of the hotel for some PR opportunities and local press releases — we’ll upload those when we get them.

Below are videos from the ride and photos of Cambridge.

A shout-out to Gu Energy Gel, especially our good friend and fellow athlete Holly Bennett, Marketing Manager. To keep us going during our 4-8 hours rides we consume 1 gel per 30 minutes and Gu H2o hydration in our bottles. The stuff works great and they are constantly innovating new flavors like Blueberry Pomegranate. It’s delic, who knew?!

1. Never Let Your Tread Wear Out: Replace your tires frequently. With fresher rubber, you’ll have fewer flats and also a better-handling bike.

2. Regularly Inspect Your Tires: Sometimes you’ll come back from a ride with small bits of glass or debris embedded in the outer casing. If you habitually clean this stuff off, it won’t have a chance to work through the tire.

3. Same Goes for Your Chain: Keep it clean and lubed and your bike will shift, and look, better. And if you replace your chain before it gets too worn out, you’ll save the expense of having to fix or replace pricier items like cassettes and chainrings, which suffer increased wear and tear from old chains.

4. Buy a Torque Wrench: Modern bike components are made of expensive materials like carbon and titanium and highly engineered to save weight. But that also means they can be damaged by overtightening. Manufacturers test their products and provide torque recommendations. Make sure you follow them.

5. Find a Good Local Bike Shop and Mechanic, and Be Loyal: The more familiar they become with your bike and your riding style, the more able they’ll be to keep everything working to your liking.

1. Bad bike fit
2. Poor nutrition regimen (racing and training)
3. Bought products based on price/brand.  Paid little attention to catering to my race needs.

Last but not least — pictures from our rest day in Nottingham. We visited the Nottingham Castle, and the local bike shop Freewheel where the head mechanic rebuilt Neal’s bottom bracket and tightened Adam’s rear cassette. Thanks guys!

• Leeds to Nottingham
• 75 miles
• 1800 feet climbed
• 1000 sheep. Some cows. 63 pigs.
• 2 nuclear reactors

Our route took us through Sherwood Forest, which was fun for me. It’s hard not to feel like a kid again riding through Sherwood Forest into Nottingham!

Today was a pretty nice day.  It’s a shame that as we come further south our surroundings are less desolate and the roadways are much more populated.  As a result, we spend more time concentrating and less time enjoying our environment.  Weather today was beautiful.  Winds were calm most of the day, and there was only a 15 minute patch of rain that we unintentionally but fortunately avoided on our lunch break.

To say these last 3 days have been tough would be an understatement.  Mentally, there were a lot of obstacles to overcome.  Physically the back-to-back-to-back days of punishing terrain and distance were difficult.  I can’t tell you how many times over the past several months, I’ve cursed the name of Mike Kuhn, our coach (another link) as I opened the dreaded email that laid out the workout for the day.  “Tell me again why I’m riding 6 hrs today  I just did 4 yesterday.”  Today it’s clear.  This guy isn’t just a sadist. He had a method to his madness.  It was good to finish this segment of the ride and still feel pretty strong (and injury free!)

Tomorrow we’ll rest up and take care of some minor aches and pains and then it’s on to Cambridge.

• Newcastle to Leeds
• 90 miles
• 5100 feet climbed
• 4000 sheep; 200 cows; 7 horses

The winds were strong early on, but eased after a few hours.  We fought a similar terrain profile as yesterday for the first 30 miles, but the middle 30 miles of our route was on a highway with more consistent grading and low winds.  We spent a lot of the time riding in the emergency lane, which, despite the heavy traffic, turned out to be ok.  We didn’t get to enjoy our surroundings, but we spent nearly the whole time above 20 miles an hour.  So that was a mental victory we needed after the last day and a half.

These have been heavy endurance days for us.  Our support team has been great.  They insisted on meeting up with us more often today.  I think it was as much to gauge our mental state as physical.  There’s no way we could succeed without them.

Thanks for all of the emails of support from sponsors, friends, and family.

A shout-out to LAS Helmets, especially Alex Perez, Sales Manager. Three factors went into our selection of LAS for our helmets. They are light, aero and aerated. Ohh, and cool looking, gotta have that! The aluminum upper ventilator shovels air into the helmet and adds an extra layer of protection for our noggins.


Another shout-out to the Best Western Merrion Hotel, especially the manager Mark Wakeley who made us feel so at home. This hotel is smack-dab in the center of the city and the breakfast bar is delicious.

Ride stats today

• Edinburgh to  Newcastle
• 110 miles
• 6875 feet climbed
• Winds: 15 mph sustained, gusting to 35 mph
• 6500 sheep; 1200 cows

Tough Roads; Tough Weather. Today turned into quite a late day. We looked at the altitude profile last night, and it looked like a tame day compared with the rest of our days in Scotland. Although our tallest peaks were much lower than in the Highlands, the constant undulation, led to a ‘climb total’ significantly greater than that of any previous day. This together with the high winds, made for slow speeds and a very long day in the saddle. (nearly 1.5 times as long as my last century ride)

A shout-out to Willier, especially Gianmarco Cilli, General Manager of WIllier North America. Willier is among the best frame makers in the world. Team Lampre (best in Italy) is currently riding Willier up mountains in the Tour de France. The tight carbon weave in their frames is simultaneously forgiving enough on the rough Scottish roads, yet stiff enough to climb the Scottish highlands. Even after a long 110 mile ride, as we had today, the Willier frame keeps us wanting more.


Another shout-out to the Best Western Roker Hotel in New Castle, especially reservation managers Kavita and Jill. This hotel is beach side on the North Sea with a great billiard room and restaurant. Some of us dipped our feet in the North Sea before pedaling on down the coast.

• Visited the Edinburgh castle
• Spoke with Tim the Manager of the large Edinburgh Bike Co-op, and
• Visited local cultural shops.

It was a wonderfully relaxing day, and our quads, hammies and gluts thanked us for the rest.

• Perth to Edinburg
• 60 miles
• 3000 feet climbed
• 1 huge bridge
• 1500 sheep

Our blog today will come in the form of 3 videos.  We’re too tired to blog.  Short version…Ride today was scheduled to be 40 miles.  Arrived at Edinburgh bridge (5 miles to hotel) at 2 PM.  Arrived at hotel just after 4 PM.  We saw a lot of Edinburgh.  It’s a beautiful city.  I would have rather seen it on foot.

Tomorrow is a rest day in the capital city of Edinburgh.  We’re looking forward to it.

A shout-out to Bellwether Clothing Line, especially the awesome and honest Barry Smith, Marketing Director. The weather here is extremely temperamental. Just today we went from cold (50′s) to rain to warm (70′s). The gear has been fantastic. The chamois technology is layered and padded perfectly (FYI: chamois = butt pad) and the jerseys have awesome finishing touches like rubber gussets on the sleeves and waist to keep it from slipping. It’s gorgeous stuff, and it’s all we wear.

• Banchory to Perth
• 68 miles
• 2500 feet climbed
• 1 broken pedal
• 2000 sheep

Most bikes have 2 pedals.  Today, Adam decided to up-the-ante and biked with only pedal for two-thirds of the ride.  I think he did it deliberately to make me look like a sissy.  He submits that his pedal broke and that he had no choice.  Nevertheless, it was Adam who was the first of us to squirt up most of today’s many Highland hills, using mostly one foot. Tomorrow we bike to Edinburgh, home to the first medical school in the world and a city so green I call it the emerald city. I can’t wait! Check us out tomorrow, we’ll have lots of pictures for sure.

• 63 miles
• 3500 feet climbed, to the top of a 2000 foot peak
• Inverness to Ballater
• 998 sheep

Proven: The land speed of a Scottish sheep is 14.1 mph. They can run this speed for one tenth of a mile. We raced sheep today. Check it out.

Another beautiful day in Scotland. Today was the nicest day of the journey thus far. While the hills were more daunting, the winds were down which made it much more enjoyable. We’ve been using the Suunto T6 watch to keep the data on each ride. We’ve included a portion of the output graph from the “Suunto Training Manager” software. You can see the hills we battled. Our legs are feeling the pains of the day, but our spirits are much higher after a day without head winds. We had nearly 5000 feet of total climbing over a 62 mile ride. A special thanks to the friendly old farmer who gave us directions. We’d still be out there climbing if it were not for him. Here are some pictures from our ride on the Whisky Trail today.

• Bonar Bridge to Inverness
• 60 miles
• 3500 feet climbed
• 3000 sheep

Today began beautifully.  The sun shining and there was little wind.  We decided to put the Bellwether rain coats away and head south.

The first part of the journey was phenomenal.  We were almost alone on the road, and even though the climbs were tough, we were looking out over plush green fields, tons of farm animals, lochs, rivers, and waterfalls.

The second half of the ride was another story.  The wind speeds picked up, directly at our face, and we made a turn onto a road that, while characterized as small on the map, turned out to be a major thoroughfare.  Included in this part of the journey were two spanning bridges (Bonar Bridge and Kessock Bridge).  Both bridges had crosswinds that nearly put is in the water.  There was also a major climb that took nearly 45 minutes.  We were stoked to see the finish line in Inverness!

Swimming Loch Ness

We decided that we couldn’t make a trip to Inverness without a swim in Loch Ness!  Our support crew picked us up and we headed 10 miles south to try and find a good place to enter the Loch. The water temp was 49 degrees, so our swim was limited, but it was fun to be able to get in.  There was a cruise boat of tourists leaving a nearby dock dressed in sweaters and winter coats.  Two guys walking into the water in Speedos got plenty of attention. It was a good time, and brightened up our spirits and loosened up our muscles after the windy ride. We didn’t seeNessy, but the water was eerily black

The town of Nairn

After our swim we walked around the town of Nairn, which has a section called Fishertown (an old fishing outpost) where the houses are simple, quant and crazy close together. We walked around the town and had a blast, until we got so hungry that Neal almost passed out.  So we decided to stop with all the athletic activity and hop over to our hotel. Tonight we stayed in the Best Western Windsor Hotel in Nairn (our wonderful sponsor). The folks there are great. The old-style dining hall has all these awesome old war pictures and the English-style varnished wood bar has a huge scotch selection and great desserts – we recommend “sticky toffee pudding”.

Tomorrow we head to Ballater.  The rides start to get longer from here on out.

A shout-out to the Best Western Windsor Hotel in Nairn, especially the manager Jagdeep Sandhu. We really enjoyed the town of Nairn and this hotel is located right in the middle of it, and very near the sea. The sea breeze and the neighboring park was wonderful, and this place has a seriously awesome dining room with artwork of Brits kicking the crap out of french military guys on horseback. The rich wood in the classically British styled pub was a nice touch too. It was an awesome stay. Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, the front desk clerk let us know she was nursing a bird with an injured wing — aww.

We rode down the A836, a narrow two-lane road that is windy, rolling and gorgeous. There was a lot of climbing today; we rode up and down 4000 feet of vertical over 58 miles. It was amazing how much the terrain changed as we rode; changing from sparse and rocky on the coast to lush and moist to the south. The road was empty, just us and the sheep, so we had ample opportunity to look around and soak up the beautiful countryside.

The strong head winds and rain kept our average speed down today, but we planned the first few days to be a bit shorter specifically for these types of eventualities. Our legs were fresh and our spirits high so the rain had little effect on our morale. It was tough to be down when the ride was so pretty.

A shout-out to our logistics van: the driver is Bob (Adam’s pop) and the navigator is Flora (my Gram). It was awesome to have them on our heels today. They were there when I had a sudden hankering for a ham sandwich, and when we needed our raincoats. It’s awesome to have them around, and they are having a ball doing it.

On to Inverness tomorrow and a dip in Loch Ness following the ride. If we don’t blog tomorrow it is because we got eaten by Nessy.

A shout-out to the Bridge Hotel in Bonar Bridge Scotland, especially John who operates this historic hotel in northern Scotland. There is a picture of us with John above. The hotel is under construction and there is room for considerable expansion in the back area to accomodate musical performances and large gatherings. This family operated hotel was located right on our route and John’s homemade lasagna was exquisite.

The last 3 days has been nuts. The smartest thing we did was to plan in a prep day here in the north of Scotland. The trip from the states was not without its challenges. Several times I thought that all of the planning was going to go out the window at the hand of US Air. Never the less, 36 hours later, we arrived! This is an endurance event isn’t it? Why shouldn’t the trip over have a little endurance aspect to it as well??

Wish us luck. We’ll talk to you all tomorrow.

A shout-out to Betty Hill Hotel, especially Gordon Carr and his family who operate this family run hotel. Our first 2 nights in Scotland have been spent at this wonderful B&B, known as much for their restaurant as their lodging. They’ve been great and very supportive. We took up most of their front entry way putting our bikes together, and spent the rest of the day making final route preps, communicating with sponsors and loved ones. The lodge was filled with people here to fish and enjoy countryside. The locally sourced food is delicious and the common areas have breathtaking views of this northern sea-side paradise.