You can’t just turn up at the start-line for Ride Across Britain with minimal training and a bike picked up a few weeks before at a bike shop.

When it comes to cycling, preparation is everything. Preparing yourself physically, preparing your bike, preparing your kit. It doesn’t mean that you will complete the ride, but it increases your odds significantly.

For most people a cycle ride is a few lazy miles.

For club level cyclists like myself, a decent cycle ride is 100 miles. Preferably with 1000s of other cyclists in an organised sportive. I’ve been known to complete a 100 mile ride in approx 5 hours. That’s 20 mph average.

However, to Ride Across Britain, you need to be able to ride 100+ miles every day – for 9 days – in all weathers. History tells me that is can be 25C at Lands End on Day 1, and below zero at the start line in Northern Scotland 6 days later. The amount that this can take out of you physically is enormous.

So, in preparation, I’ve been cycling all year – visiting Mallorca for the Mallorca 312 Sportive, through to a weekend of two 100 mile sportives back to back in Lincoln and Birmingham as well as The Tour de Yorkshire, Tour of Ripon and others.

These have all helped get not only the miles in my legs but also to train specifically for some of the climbs that are a feature of Ride Across Britain – including Cheddar Gorge, Shap Fell in the Lake District as well as Glenshee and the Lecht in Northern Scotland!

Update : 3rd September

It’s Tuesday and the ride starts on Saturday. My bike was collected on Saturday just gone and I’ve today done my last commute to work – on my 2nd bike.

My bag is packed – though needs some more re-packing as I have to add name stickers to a lot of stuff. I’ll be finishing that tomorrow ready to leave on Friday.

My Ride Across Britain starts on Friday – at 6.30am when I catch a taxi to the airport. I’m on the mid-morning flight from Manchester to Newquay – this is a bit of a guilty pleasure as the CO2 levels from flying are very high and I could have caught the train to Penzance instead.

At Newquay airport, I’m then onto the coach – put on by the R.A.B team – to take me down to Lands End. There I will slide into the RAB bubble for the next 9 days. Hopefully, to leave on Sunday 15th when I catch the bus from John O’Groats to Inverness ready for my early morning flight back to Manchester on the Monday morning.

There is a lot of online discussion about final preparations, and nerves etc. but in reality I’m currently very calm – I’ve done everything I can do by way of preparation and it’s too late to do much else. My preparation isn’t perfect – I’m not 100% happy that my saddle is comfortable (which could become a very big issue over 1,000 miles!) but I can do no more. I’m not nervouse about the challenge, but looking forward to getting stuck into the ride on Saturday morning.

6th September 8am

So, as the picture above shows I’m at lands end… The scale of everything is enormous! Pretty much 800 of everything… Tents, bikes, charge points.. The lot!

So, I’ve got my tent sorted…. Sleeping bag and stuff all sorted.. Checked the bike has arrived and working…

Now time to chill, meet people and have a beer (that’s called carb loading!)