Well, let me begin....
Having done a couple of London to Brighton cycle rides (in June 2003 and 2005), followed by the Oxford to Cambridge bike ride (in September 2005), I was looking for a new challenge.
During the latter part of 2005, the Land's End to John O'Groats came up in conversation. I was instantly attracted by the challenge of this and immediately set about trying to persuade my friends to do it (although I realised that Andy was the only one who was even likely to consider it). After Andy declined my offer, it eventually began to dawn on me that no one else was willing to take part and it was then that I had to consider if I could do it on my own. Over the next few weeks, I managed to persuade myself that I could. A date was pencilled in for July 2006 (after the World Cup, naturally).
Now, something like this is quite a big project and I knew that I had to do plenty of research if I was to try and make this a success. I set about looking on the internet and found a good website that provided many links to other peoples websites containing their experiences and plans (mine was subsequently added at number 238). As I read through the countless stories of experiences from people who had already done it, in addition to the plans of others who were about to do it, I became more and more inspired and confident that this could be done. It also gave me the idea to create my own website (hence the birth of steveybo.com!).
With a challenge as huge as this, it would have been scandalous not to raise some money for a charity. Both the London to Brighton bike rides and the Oxford to Cambridge events were organised through the British Heart Foundation, but I felt that this event needed to be done for something more personal to me. My son had been at St Georges nursery in Tunbridge Wells and was due to leave (when he eventually started school in September), so I thought that it would be a good idea to raise money for the nursery, as a way of saying thank you for their great work. They were in the process of raising money for a new garden at the time.