Londres-Paris

Two days to go before the start of the London-Paris -- only one day, really, because sign-on is tomorrow afternoon.

Now it's so close, I realise how much of an unknown quantity the next few days are going to be.   The first day is nearly 180km over 1500 metres of climbing -- further and nastier than I've ever ridden before.  And the following two days, although slightly flatter, are also 170k apiece.  

I'm hoping that the drafting of the pack and the rolling road closures will mean we can keep the optimistically high average speed targets set by the organisers.

A final e-mail from them urged everyone to get their bikes serviced before the ride -- tacit acknowledgment of how few people now service their own.   I tweaked the Casati at the weekend and, on the day after, had a traditional crisis of confidence on a 60kph descent.

"When I pulled the cable through on the front brake, did I actually screw in the holding bolt fully -- or just set it finger-tight, planning to finish it off later?"

But getting someone else to service it would only bring other worries -- "What if  that monkey in the shop didn't actually tighten the bolts when he replaced the brake blocks etc.?"

And there's a pleasure in getting your bike ready for a big event.  If it moves, grease it. If it doesn't, polish it.   Ten minutes with a cone spanner to get that final bit of play out of the rear Mavic.  And two rolls of fresh white bar tape.

Hey, we're going to Paris.  Wish us luck.

Good Day Out

I love the continuity of riding bikes -- the way that, no matter how fancy or sophisticated your equipment, you still have to use your legs to turn the wheels on the roads and the hills don't get any less steep.  

And many of the roads where you train have felt the treads of a million previous riders, especially in the South of England,  where cycle-friendly tarmac is at a premium.

120k yesterday on a route that would have been familiar to my father and his clubmates in the 1930's.  Richmond Park, Kingston, the Esher Road,  Cobham, Ockham, Leith Hill, Pitts Hill, Ranmore Common, Shere, Ewhurst, Whitedown, Abinger Hammer, Box Hill -- a roll-call of Sunday club runs, time trials and tea-stops.

And when things get really tough,  you can put aside your energy drinks, gels and recovery bars -- and just revel in a pot of English tea and a toasted teacake.

The Devil's Work

There was a point about five minutes into the Hot Chillee Devil Take the Hindmost at Donnington Park when I suddenly remembered why I hadn't actually raced a bike in nearly a quarter of a century.  It's bloody hard and unpleasant.  And frustrating.

The familiar despair settled on me when I got shot out the back of the 4th Cats after less than a lap of the 2.5 mile Grand Prix circuit and realised I was on my own.   Into a vicious headwind, with a long, merciless hill which left you knackered and boiling just before the finish line and the picnicking spectators.

The organisers had, with a rather literal turn of mind, booked an actual Beelzebub lookalike, complete with satanic girlfriend, to hop out and pull stragglers off the back of the pack but, with a cruelty worthy of Old Nick himself, they weren't actually going to start until an hour into the race so there was to be no salvation there.

I kept hoping that Julie the Commissaire might take pity and force me to retire on the grounds of being too old and fat to carry on but, cruelly, she just swept past every couple of laps -- leaning out the sunroof and cheerily shouting encouragement.

So on and on I went - on the hottest day in the UK this year, until the Devil finally wagged his fingers and allowed me to make way for the serious racers.

Why?  Because we raised some money and awareness for the Geoff Thomas Foundation -- a leukaemia charity that I passionately believe in. (If you enjoy this blog, please feel free to sponsor me on my ride to Paris by clicking here).

Because, nearly 70 years ago my father raced at Donnington Park in one of the rare pre-war massed start bike races, and it seemed a fitting way of honouring his memory.

And because I got to meet and talk to two of my all time cycling heroes - Stephen Roche and Graeme Obree, who both turned out to be as friendly, modest and charming as you could want your heroes to be.

Graeme spoke movingly and intelligently at a Question and Answer session about the sensitive subjects of depression and doping, especially when he said that drug cheats' worst crime was robbing the fans of the magic of a great performance, untainted by suspicion.

And I spent a whole warm-up lap cycling alongside, and chatting to, one of the greatest bike racers of all time -- surreally, every time I looked over , there he was - Tour De France and Giro winner, World Champion, a little larger and greyer than in his prime but still unmistakably a class act.  

For that alone, the pain was worth it.