The Navigator
1 - Describe yourself in three words
Indolent, foody, optimist
2 - What motivated you to do this ride?
I feel like I've been discussing the idea of it with Amy and Michael for years, now. I've always enjoyed my cycling, and they kept doing triathlons we talked about riding a bit, and then they vaguely floated the idea of London to Paris and I got crazily enthusiastic. So when the idea got a bit more concrete, I was completely up for the ride.
My wife (Beth) and I are also planning on moving to the US shortly, and what better way to say goodbye to European summers than to do something like this?
3 - What book are you reading now?
Right now, it's Belching Out The Devil, about Coke's evil business practices, but it's really very boring and it's annoying me, and I'm going to have to have something else along for the journey.
4 - What does your training regime look like?
Training regime? I'm meant to have a training regime? Hmm. I've been tapering for the last 6 months, I think. I'm hoping my base fitness will get me through, which it should as long as nobody's trying to make record time. I play football in Regent's Park for a couple of hours on Wednesday nights, and cycle there and back which is about 15 miles in total. It's London city cycling so it's a lot more accelerate-stop-accelerate than open road riding, and therefore better training. Although there are no hills. Hills might be a problem for me. I'm also running a fair bit, between 5 and 7 km two or three times a week, and have been doing some boot-camp circuit style training on Wandsworth Common with my wife's personal trainer. But only two sessions of that.
For all that I've not done the physical exercise training, I suspect the real problem for me is going to be in the conditioning for the rest of the trip. 4 days in the saddle after not going out on any long rides is going to become quite painful in the backside, I suspect. And I am not tent-ready. I've never been the best of campers, so three consecutive nights sleeping in tents might be the limit of my endurance.
And, as one of the few on the ride who doesn't have children and is used to quiet and calm, I'm also not child-conditioned for three nights with kids around. I don't know if there is any training regime that gets you ready for that, though.
Still, it might be the thing that encourages me to get back onto the bike the next morning.
I keep trying to plan routes and map the journey - I picked up paper maps last Wednesday to add to all the digital stuff I've been doing - but I'm quite apprehensive that I haven't picked the optimum routes to avoid hills and avoid traffic (the two don't always go together, either). This almost makes me more apprehensive than all the rest of the lack-of-training. I hope there are enough people along with GPS's and iphones (keep them charged!) to correct me every time we go wrong or don't like the road I chose.
5 - Two weeks to go... how do you feel?
Well, I've just spent three days drinking in the sun at The Oval, and I started that with a hangover, so right now I'm feeling fat, slow, and totally ill-prepared; and we're less than one week away now. But definitely excited; the bike came back from a service on Friday morning; the front wheel is now true, which helps. I wasn't thrilled by the idea of 300km on buckled wheels, and having a shinier, better, less beaten-up old bicycle added to my buzz. Slightly apprehensive, of course, but mostly just excited.
