'For some reason we keep making it harder than it needs to be' – Inside an attempt to cycle from Land’s End to John o’ Groats… while towing two wheelie bins

Jamie Hargreaves and Alfie Cookson woke up this week on a Welsh rugby pitch, with their hammocks strung between the posts, next to a couple of bins. Despite how it sounds, this was not the result of a drunken night out, but just the kind of improvised sleeping arrangement the pair of expedition cyclists are getting used to as they attempt to ride from Land’s End to John o’ Groats, while towing two wheelie bins and stopping to pick rubbish along the way.

Powered by Yorkshire Tea and the goodwill of strangers, they'd been going 10 days by the time CW caught up with them, having set off from Land's End in mid-April. And they are powering ever further north, pedalling even while we speak. "Our legs are fine,” enthuses Jamie, when I ask how the journey is going so far. “We're made of tough stuff. But we have gone through a couple of sets of tyres already!”

They’re not completely new to this kind of caper. Last year Hargreaves bikepacked from Derby in England to Australia, riding in the tyre tracks of his dad, Phil, who did the trip exactly 40 years earlier. During his time Down Under, he met Cookson, and the pair did an expedition on a tandem together across Australia. That went well, so they decided to team up for another adventure together, and that’s how this rubbish ride came about.

The boys are once again riding a Mercian tandem, a magnificent-looking steel-frame steed dating to the 1980s, with Brooks saddles. “She’s an absolute beauty,” Jamie purrs. It is a handsome-looking machine, no doubt about that, but it’s the rig being towed behind the bike that really turns heads and causes the most comments. It’s not every day you see cyclists riding along with one wheelie bin, let alone two.

Actually, why did you decide to bring two, I ask – surely one bin would have been enough? “For some reason we keep making it harder than it needs to be,” concedes Jamie. “So we decided to take two bins, instead of one. But we did adapt them!

They custom-made a trailer for one of the bins, and then put some bike wheels on the second one. Unsurprisingly, a long-distance bin-haul has never been attempted before (to our knowledge), so the design is all of their own creation.

“Me and Alfie are both handy with a spanner, so we just got on with it,” Jamie explains. “I nicked a universal joint from my dad's old motorbike. We got a couple of forks and wheels from some old kids' bikes. And boom! You've got yourself an off-road wheelie bin. But the time we'd built the trailer, we only had time for one practise ride.”

And what is it like to ride? "Obviously the uphills are hard, but on the straight, we sail along," says Jamie. "The downhills are much more fun," chirps in Alfie from the back seat of the tandem. At least, that is until they get to the bottom and have to give way to something. "Then it's like trying to stop a bloody train!"

They have four sets of brakes on the bike and rig. The tandem has disc brakes on the front and cantilever brakes on the rear wheel, plus a drag brake. And then the trailer also has a brake. It’s a pretty sophisticated set up, but very heavy. “The trailer weighs about 100kg, which explains why they’ve chewed through two lots of tyres.

By the time they'd built the trailer, they only had time for one practise ride. And there has been the occasional calamity. "The day before yesterday, we set off, and I was on the back, lying back and sunbathing while Alfie pedalled,” admits Jamie. “He went around a corner, and because there was no weight in the bins, we toppled over and I smacked my head and scuffed my side up."

So far, however, the boys’ sense of humour and purpose has prevailed. Which leads to the big question: why on Earth are they cycling LeJog with a couple of wheelie bins in tow?

“We wanted to do something around the environment, which we both feel very strongly about,” explains Jamie. “We wanted to use our platform on social media to do something good – just to encourage people to pick up litter. Or at the very least, stop drooping it.

"We can't stop and pick up every bit of litter. The trip would take us years. But we do stop when we see a load of it, especially on the outskirts of towns, and then we offload it into public bins. And there's absolutely loads of it. Even out on the country roads, it's really shocking.”

“But on the upside, we’ve had people and families stopping to help us clear up the road side, and they have really enjoyed it. The kids especially. I grew up in a family that was really outgoing, so we were steeped in the outdoor code. Not everyone is so lucky, and since Covid and the pandemic new people are coming out into the countryside and they don't know how to behave."

"It's a lack of self-awareness and respect," adds Alfie. "But it's also about education. I was actually really surprised at myself. At the beginning, I actually felt a bit embarrassed and self-conscious to be seen picking up litter. And I think that's what a lot of people, especially younger generations, feel. Like it's not a cool thing to do. We're trying to normalises it, so people just start doing it naturally.

“Hopefully people will see the stuff we’re putting out on Instagram, and the next time one of those kids walks past a piece of litter, or thinks about dropping a crisp packet or something, hopefully they will think about us and change the way they behave.”

A 'normal’ Land's End to John o' Groats cycling trip takes around two weeks – although people have done the traditional 874-mile road route much faster, even on a tandem – but of course 'normal’ doesn't include towing a massive trailer with two wheelie bins, or stopping to pick up litter. “I reckon it's going to take us a month,' says Alfie.

And, just to make things even harder than they need to be, the lads have decided to cycle to the base of the highest mountain in Wales, England and Scotland – Snowdon, Scafell and Ben Nevis – before parking the bike and climbing the peaks, taking the bins with them to each of the summits.

They're aiming to be climb Snowdon on Thursday 23 April, and would love some company, so if you’re in the area – please go and help take the bins out (to the roof of Wales).