Le Grand Depart

Less that 24 hours to go and I’m all packed. I’m feeling good and I’m ready to set off now. Well not literally now as I’m really comfy on the sofa, but tomorrow morning.

I’ve got a bit of a dilemma to figure out. Even though I’ve been super thorough with planning (yes I even have an excel spreadsheet), I’ve decided to set off from Cardiff but haven’t taken into account actually getting to Cardiff during rush hour. Duh. Jumping on a train into Cardiff is a no go at rush hour with a bike so I’m having a bit of a re-think and may set off from here (Pontypridd).

I’ve had to swap from large panniers to smaller panniers and scale down packing for my first three days. On a recent fully loaded training ride I found that my heels were hitting the larger panniers. My Alpinestars wasn’t really built to be a touring bike, it was originally built for racing so I’ve had to pack even lighter and travel with smaller panniers on my rear rack. I’ve still got 10kg of weight to haul around but I think if I had large panniers I’d probably pack stuff I didn’t really need.

Further support and kindness has come my way this week with my local Tesco Pontypridd Extra donating some foodstuffs for the journey. Huge thanks to Tony Rees, the Community Champion from the store. I’ve also had a donation of ‘power cake’ from Therese Holmes at VPilates in Dinas Powys. It’s not really called power cake but that’s what its going to be known as. It’s full of delicious, nutritious and healthy things which will keep me going on my journey.

Power Cake!

Bikey McBike Face (my Alpinestars) went into Halfords for a final tune up so that’s all ready to go too. I’m just going to check the tyre pressures, tighten the saddle and that’s about it. Tomorrow will be the start of what is to be a really different Monday, nothing like the norm! I’ll leave you with this little picture and will update you with my progress along my travels.