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Another month another cold…this week’s is my third of 2010 and although it’s no monster it’s been enough to stop me doing any kind of meaningful training since Monday. So it feels like another week’s been lost in the drive to build up that all-important base fitness.

The day has dawned and once the office stuff is completed and the other passengers are on board we will be making a dash for the ferry.

Packing the car was an intricate piece of art with frames cross angled and wheels packed in last. It took about 45 minutes in the cold and dark last night but the advantages of not having a rack will apparently become clear in fuel consumption from a lack of drag.

Brief update today... tyre purchased so just have to do the maintenance on the Bianchi tonight before squeezing three bikes into the car.

Straight from work tomorrow will be picking up the other riders and to Portsmouth for the night ferry.

From Le Harve on Friday morning it will be a 12 hour drive to the appartment on the coast near Girona.

How we will fare getting through 40cms of snow near the border and Perpignan is not yet established ...

So three days to go before we head off for our road trip to Spain for a bit of cycling.

The good news is that it is snowing heavily where we are going. See webcam. Rotten luck eh?

Well the better news is that the forecast for the end of the week is looking a little better with up to 12 degrees on Saturday. Cold nights though so we will be huddled up in the appartment as it has been locked with shutters down since September... brrr.

Over a decade of different bikes with one constant, when it just works there's no need to change.

The roadkill bodycount on this morning’s training ride was as follows (one of each): seagull, rat, badger and rabbit. Looks like the rabbits got off relatively lightly last night.

I usually figure I’ve chosen a good route if I see more live animals than dead ones, but the only noteworthy live one today was a pheasant that jumped out of the hedgerow as I passed, making such a racket that I nearly fell off. For a few seconds I would have cheerfully added it to the roadkill list – but only for a few seconds.

So this week sees the fruition of weeks of planning when we head out to Spain for some miles (and hopefully) sun.

A couple of routes have been specced (as regular readers will know) and there will be plenty of climbing to test us all. Especially bearing in mind most of our recent riding will have been on turbo trainers or in the snowy windswept fens. But enough of me getting my excuses in early.

I finally got together with some of the other racers against time yesterday, for a training ride around Guildford (this one, in fact). Only five of us could make it – there will be something like 15 on the ride itself – but it was still very good to meet up and compare notes on training, fund-raising and the logistics surrounding the big event. And of course, to secretly assess relative fitness levels*…

Some weeks back in the context of a very unusual Bianchi, which, some implied had been conceived from a very large, spares bin, Tony playfully suggested I might be able to conceive a smaller production run myself. Reasoned or otherwise, pattern and obsolete parts entice me-going a long way to explaining my gravitation to people’s winter bikes. I don’t subscribe to the philosophy that winter/trainers must be thrown together blindly using a hotchpotch of random parts from the spares bin.

Ahead spacers above the stem?
Say it ain't so Ernesto, say it ain't so.