Mission: Improbable

I don't normally talk about domestic rides too much before I do them, but I'm making a slight exception here. I haven't ridden my bike, any bike, since 9th October with its (for me) abortive Etape Cymru. However, on Sunday I'm going to attempt to ride a 210km Audax (the "Eureka! 210" - named after the legendary cyclists cafe on the Wirral that we visit, a favoured haunt of Chris Boardman [the ride's actually 213.5km, which is just over 133 miles in old money]).

This is not wise.  No riding for 5 weeks, then that much? Hmm. However, I'm devising ways of getting round. These include:

a) Bimbling - see last post. I'm not going to ride fast just because I can; if I do the chances are I'll be extremely slow indeed as the ride progresses;
b) Analgesics (selection of) - let's face it, bits are going to moan with that length of time on the bike, so some drug-related therapy will be needed;
c) Conversion of my Ribble tourer to a lean, mean Audax machine.  Actually it's not particularly lean or mean with its maptrap, dual front LED lights and battery pack, two rear lights and a big saddle bag.  But whatever, at least I needn't worry when the sun goes down;
d) Adoption of the "well if I wasn't doing this, what else would I be doing" strategy that's got me through plenty of other long days in the saddle. It's best not to answer the question in reality, because it would feature things like "sitting reading the paper in a nice warm room with your feet up", which will seem more appealing at 4 pm on Sunday when I've got plenty of pedal-turning left;
e) Putting the ride in context - and that context is this is the first ride in a four year programme to enable me to ride Paris-Brest-Paris in 2015. I've just received this quarter's copy of "Arrivee", the magazine published by Audax UK, and it features five separate accounts of this year's edition. Suffice to say I'm inspired.

So, all that remains for me to do now is trim my beard and dig out the best socks to accompany my sandals. Joke, Audaxers aren't like that at all any more. Well, most of them anyway.

There'll be a full report on however much of the route I manage to get round at some point next week, as I'm off to London on Monday for a busy few days. Basically, it's a massive circuit of Cheshire that includes quite a chunk of Wales, starting and finishing near Cheadle Hulme. Wish me luck my friends; there may not be hills, it may not be icy, but I sense I'm going to need it.