Last lazy day!!

Oh boy it's nice just laying here looking out of the window feeling full of energy. I know I won't feel like this after tomorrow. Feeling worried-sick-nervous-apprehensive. GLAD Adam knows what he's doing!!! Lol

It's the final countdown

Tonight I've been putting the final touches to the route we'll be following on our trusty GPS. I was getting excited just plotting the route in to Paris! We'll be taking in the home of Van Gogh along the way, up the same road that will take us around the Arc d'Triumph, down the Champs-Élysées around Place de la Concorde and then along the Seine to the Eiffel Tower. This will round off the roughly 300 miles we will have cycled in some style.

I have a few nerves, mostly due to the fact that Tom is relying on my entirely to guide us through France and ensuring that all the hotels and travel have been booked. However nerves are turning to excitement as Friday draws near.

I went for a little spin with the "Logicalis Roadies" tonight, just to keep the legs warm! Used Strava's Fly-By feature for the first time and it's quite fun...

If you click here you can see that in full-screen. On the first lap, I was just trying to keep up with Dan. On the 2nd lap I got stuck in traffic along the A4, but you'll see me chasing down Allan and Andy, then overtake and attempt to chase down Dan. Andy goes with me and we fight it out back to the finish.

Also tested out the GoPro and handlebar mount on tonight's ride - the results were good enough although slightly jerky. Hopefully YouTube can smooth that out! I'll show off some of the highlights, although I'm sure that's mostly only interesting the Logicalis Roadie group! :)

I hope we get some followers to the blog to cheer us along like we had in 2009. I'd really welcome your questions and comments along the way. We'll do our best to answer as we go!

But even if that's not the case, I'm looking forward to be heading on a cycling adventure with my mate.

Allez!

Á Paris!

	Not long now until Tom Barron (honourary Amateur) and I head to Paris. I'm hoping he'll put some words "to paper" both before and during the ride. Hannah has suggested we should do it for charity again and I think she may be right. I don't like the feeling like I'm pushing people in to donating and I think plenty of people are burned out with their friends and colleagues doing sporting events for charity. So I may set up a link and just send a quick email to point people at it. For me I'm excited about the ride, I'm in great shape and have many fewer nerves knowing what's to come and now regularly riding similar distances. However watching the videos of the Paris ride from 2009 and the 4-in-4, I'm reminded that it's one thing doing a big ride on one day and quite another to do four back to back!

My first post!

Less than two weeks to go, I'm getting excited - no children (except Adam) for 4 days!!

2015 Challenge Minety to Moët

So next years challenge has been set and agreed. 300 miles in 4 days between home (Minety) to the home of Champagne (Moët) in June. As there will be a new crew this year I'll be setting up a new blog and will link it to this site.

Just enough energy for the celebrations

Well that's the final climb done. The best description of how I now feel is that I've purged the last remaining energy from my body. It feels go

A very cold but completed Col du Tourmalet

17.7km of climbing done. Slow with some tough moments but overall a great climb. It took 2 hours.

Sent from my HTC

Preparation

The packing has been done and the bike is now in the lap of the British Airway baggage handling gods. Good look Cervelo, I hope you make it through unscathed!

It looks like with the help of my friends and Nationwide colleagues I'll raise over £500 so there is no backing out now. I just need the legs and lungs to hold out.

Quite nervous.

2013 Challenge - Pyrenean Raid

So the 2013 challenge has had a number of ideas suggested and rejected. It came down to a final two. The 2013 Etape or 3 classic Italian climbs. After some consideration had decided to go for  Italy. I'd have loved to do the Etape again and I had great expectations of what the 100th anniversary of the Tour de France Etape was going to bring. However, with only one course choice, no recognisable climbs and an almost identical profile of the 2011 Etape it just didn't feel special enough.

So the Challenge for 2013 was to do the Passo Gavia, Mortirolo and the Passo dello Stelvio in two days.
Unfortunately after looking at combining the trip with a family holiday in August it just wasn't possible to find a reasonably priced holiday home in the Northern Italian Lakes. So back to the drawing board.

After a quick conflab it was decided to aim for some classic Pyrenean climbs. at present the plan is to do the Col d'Aspin, Tourmalet and the Aubisque.

The only members of the Tour de Amateurs for this years Challenge will be myself and my twin brother Neal. I think we'll see if we can raise some money and make the whole training and trip doubly worthwhile.

I'll create another post with the details of the planned ride later.

More Photos - Etape Act 1 - 2012

Etape Photos

So here are the photos of my experience of the Etape - Act 1 - 2011

Etape Act 11th July 2011 - The Figures

BOOM!

Did it! Etape 2011 has now been completed with a lot of suffering. Burst into tears after finishing.

The Training Gets Hilly