My name is Mark Parsons I'm a 49 year old who is hoping he is still in his mid-life crisis!! (rather than the male menopause). I have decided to try and raise some money for the Steeple Church Development Fund. Having been inspired by Mark Beaumont a fellow Dundonian. I came up with the idea of cycling around Scotland as it makes a change from John o' Groats to Land's End. I only found out later it was further and far more hilly!! I will be travelling a total of 1196 miles over a period of 17 days, an average of 70 miles per day. The total additive height attained over the whole trip is 31927 meters, which is equivalent to 3.6 times up Mount Everest - from sea level. Please help me by following me exploits and leaving me cheery messages and telling others about it. If you want to make a pledge all the better and thanks so much for your support. All the money pledged will go to the Steeple Development Project

Sunday, 15 May 2011

From the Chief Engineer - David Walton (Mark's Brother in law)

hello folks,
I just arrived today by train to Lockerbie in time to cycle the last twenty miles back with Mark. I intend to make him cycle at a reasonable pace from now on. Joe has been far too understanding for Mark's good :-)

Hi Stephen K+S+M,
I will post info on daily profiles as we go.
Today Mark did 120Km , 1757 ascending, 1707 descending in about 10 hours.
In short, a steady day, except he had a head wind, until I met him, things got a bit easier then!
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1 comment:

  1. Steve K16 May 2011 at 07:39

    Hello David,

    Good to hear that you are onboard (almost literally by the reports of the copious precipitation;-)). I'm sure Mark is pleased to have you there - I know I would be!

    Now down to the technical stuff.

    How is Mark navigating? GPS or just plain old maps? I would be really interested on seeing the route in Google Earth, so even if he is navigating the paper map way, do you have any planning data in electronic format (.gpx files will do, they do not have to be .kml) which I could put into Google Earth?

    How have you calculated the elevation profile? Again Google Earth offers this feature, where you can graphically display all the ups and downs, so once again, .gpx files would be great.

    I hope the weather brightens up for you.... Just checked the weather forecast. It does seem to be getting better with the exception of today (Monday). Highs not much above 15 degrees C., though. You should do it over here next time, we're going up to 25 degrees C. towards the end of the week.

    Keep those pedals turning!

    Steve

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