Eddie McGourley has been riding bikes for over 70 years, and he started racing as a junior back in 1958, but this week, part way around his 83rd lap of the sun, he pedalled himself right into the record books.
It’s yet to be officially acknowledged by Guinness, the self-appointed guardians of such things, but as far as he understands it, the fastest time any octogenarian had previously pedalled the 1,000-odd miles from Land’s End to John O’Groats was 14 days, and McGourley has just done the distance in 10 and a half days.
Riding with companion Stephen Foster, a whippersnapper of 71, McGourley set off from Land’s End on Monday 29 June, and has been riding an average of 100 miles every day since, until reaching John O’Groats in the far north of Scotland around midday on Thursday Thursday 9 July.
“On the first day, going through Cornwall, we did about 130 miles,” he tells me. “After that we were riding for around 10 hours a day. We started off every day with some porridge, had a bacon sandwich for lunch, and a big dinner. And some whisky!”
They had a support crew, but the weather has thrown everything possible at the pair, including thick fog and mist towards the end of the challenge. And wind, of course, the nemesis of the long-distance bike rider. “I was blown off my bike twice going through Glen Coe,” McGourley reveals. “I’ve got a bit of bruising, but I’m alright.”
This Wearsider warrior is made of tough stuff, however, and he’s well used to putting in the hard yards in the saddle of a bike. McGourley was three times crowned North East cycling champion in his younger days, and in 1970 won King of the Mountains in the Milk Race – the long-running precursor to the Tour of Britain. “That was the last year the race went across 14 days,” he tells me.
83-year-old Eddie McGourley at the finish of his record-setting 11-day LEJoG ride
(Image credit: Eddie McGourley)
McGourley, who ran a bike shop in Sunderland for decades and built the Basso bike he used for most of the challenge himself, remains the president of Houghton Cycling Club, an organisation he has been a member of for most of his life.
“I always get out and ride twice a week,” he says. “But while preparing for this challenge, I’ve been cycling most days. I come from County Durham – it’s pretty hilly around here – great training.”
McGourley came up with the idea of setting a new octogenarian FKT on the LeJoG route after picking up a copy of the Guinness Book of Records at the library, but he set his heart on completing the challenge to honour his late wife, Winifred, and to raise money for the St Cuthbert’s Hospice in Durham where she spent her final days.
“The nurses there were wonderful,” he tells me. “I just wanted to say thank you for everything they did.”
So far he has raised over £11,000 and the donation page remains open and active.
And, somewhat astonishingly, McGourley wasn’t the only octogenarian riding the length of Britain over the last couple of weeks. The day before McGourley set off from Land’s End, Peggy Keenor-Crome, who is also 83, arrived at the southwestern tip of Cornwall, having ridden there from John O’Groats in 17 days, setting a record for the oldest woman to cycle the route, and the fastest known time for a woman in her 80s.
Peggy is raising money for Devon Air Ambulance, a service that saved the life of her granddaughter Alice when she was a small child.
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