Day 1 of 124

So, here we go. Welcome! This will be my training diary/place to moan about cycling, drivers, roads, weather, health... well, anything I want to, really.

The general gist is I'm going to ride the Welsh stage of the Tour of Britain on the 21st of August as a Tour Ride, in part for the Prostate Cancer Charity, and in part for me.

It's 180km, from Welshpool to Caerphilly, arguably the hardest day in the 8-stage tour, and I aim to do it at an average speed of 35 kph - not just far faster than I've done that sort of distance before, but far faster than I've cycled for any distance at all. Why 35? Because it's half-way between the 30kph I can maintain now, and the 40kph I expect the pros to do it at.

I'm going to have to work pretty hard to get up to that sort of level, so this blog is here to keep me focussed and hopefully prove that I'm not just dossing off and hoping for the best! The widget on the right will update whenever I do a recorded ride, but it's not necessarily an accurate reflection of my complete training schedule (I can't use it if I don't have the pocket room, and it tends to bug out sometimes) or the speeds I ride at (it doesn't stop for lights). The general trending is good, though.

So, there's a sort of baseline ride up there now that I did this evening, over the sort of terrain I expect to be hitting on the actual ride.

There's a long way to go.