Final Preparations

Just finished packing up my bike into its box and getting my bag sorted..

Done just a few gentle miles over the last couple of days. I spent last night replacing the brake blocks and trying to adjust my brakes and gears to the point where they actually worked well. Bike maintenance is not my strong point, so I may be spending much of Friday and Saturday in some further tinkering.

I am travelling down to Gatwick tomorrow after work by train and staying over in a Japanese style mini-hotel at the airport (www.yotel.com). Should be fun.

Then it's the 7:05 flight from Gatwick to Toulouse.

I'm going to try and keep updating my twitter account (http://twitter.com/gizzajob) with SMS updates over the weekend. There is actually a feed from there to this blog (upper left corner).

Obviously lots of emotions running through me at the moment - it seems to have been a long journey to get here. I must say that I have never once found the training onerous (maybe I never trained hard enough!). There have been a few occasions where I've made the sacrifice of not partying too hard because I was riding the next day, and that has been difficult. But in every case I think I enjoyed the morning ride so much it made up for not getting legless.

I feel that I'm in as good a physical condition that I could be. And this in itself feels rewarding. However I perform on Sunday, I have actually enjoyed the journey immenseley. In some respects the ride will be an anticlimax.

However, I have not really given the ride itself much thought. I love the mountains and I have not been in any large range for two years, when I last rode in the Alps. Just being there is wonderful in itself, and this will be my first time in the Pyrenees in the Summer.

The last few weeks have been so busy with work and life in general that I don't think I've prepared for it mentally. I think I will gradually unwind as I have south by train, and then plane and then coach.

I'll try and post again tomorrow before I leave work.