Back in April 2016 I watched the prestigious one day bike race Paris-Roubaix on TV and it turned out to be one of the best cycling races I've ever seen. The eventual winner was Mat Hayman who was riding for the Orica-GreenEDGE team and he later said that the best advice he'd ever been given was simply "always keeping riding". It certainly worked for him and I'm sure it'll be a mantra I'll be using in nine months time as I cycle, along my with friend Gareth, from Montpelier in Bristol to Montpellier in France. If you want to watch a great behind the scenes video of that Paris-Roubaix win then you can watch it here - it's always good for inspiration!
But back to our cycling trip! For around three or four years now Gareth has been talking about doing a ride from Montpelier in Bristol to the similarly named city in the south of France, but as with many things life has somewhat got in the way and it's continually been a "one day" idea. The concept for the trip stayed in both of our minds and the time has finally arrived where we can take from the page to the road!
In September we'll be setting off on this challenge, which is around about 1,500km, or similar to John O'Groats to Lands End in old money, and we'll be doing it all for charity as well. Further details on our chosen charities will be covered in later posts and we'll also post about our preparations ahead of the trip. This will include details about the route we're taking, our training, the kit we're using and then during the ride itself we'll be blogging from the road in all its pain and glory.
Until next time here's a picture of my Rose X-Lite CRS with my cat Haruki as it wouldn't be a good blog post without a cat in it!
