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.