28/03/09 Hardening the bodies ...

Now the hard bit starts. I cycle at weekends which at this time of year is pleasant - the heat starts next month, and try and do gym spin classes at the Ritz Carlton. Cherry came out for 3 weeks on 19 March, so we immediately went out for a ride to the F1 circuit Costa Coffee (45k). On Saturday we went as far as could down the west of the island past AlJazeyer beach and clocked up 75k. Friends Seana and Richard have the only tandem in Bahrain and they kindly lent it to us for practising, so last weekend we went out on the tandem for 45 and 56k rides.

We need to do more as the LE2JOG days are between 60 and 80 miles.

Now lets see how we progress.

28/03/09 Getting organised

First things, the bike. Lots of wiggling (http://www.wiggle.co.uk/) produced mudguards, a rear rack, rack bag, handlebar bag, cateye computer, padded grips. These got fitted when last back in UK at beginning of March.

Bikeadventures provided their trip notes, and I plotted these with http://www.bikehike.co.uk/ to save them as .tcx files for loading onto my Garmin Edge 305. But as you do, I decided to upgrade to a 605 to get the basemaps. This was ordered last night, and I should get it in a couple of weeks. Having the helpful garmin insights from http://frank.kinlan.co.uk/ should allow me to load up openspacemaps, and save the daily courses to the Garmins microSD card.

Train booked down to Penzance for the start (got in early so cheapest advanced fares) and Easyjet booked back from Inverness. Flights booked from Bahrain to/from London around the dates of the trip.

So thats the hardware. What about the wetware?

28/03/09 The challenge..how it started

For a number of years I've wanted to cycle LE2JOG. I cycled the Sustrans C2C in 2002, then moved to Saudi Arabia and now Bahrain so such holidays took a back seat. I said to myself "when I retire". But there is no deadline for that, so last year I hinted that I was going to do it myself in 2009. Without being prompted Cherry said she was coming as well, well thats her decision so I won't be held accountable for the weather or pain!. Then jetlagged over Xmas I was browsing the internet as you do at 4 in the morning and bought a Viking Saratoga tandem for 300 quid for fun. It arrived 3 days later, and we said "hey, lets do it by tandem". We decided that we didn't have the time (and not being in the UK) to handle the logistics so after more Googling decided on http://www.bikeadventures.co.uk/. Their trips had good reports, and we booked on the 5-20 June 2009 group. Feeling we were being self indulgent to date, so we looked to raising some money for charity, and Watford Mencap is close to our lives and location so we are doing that through www.justgiving.co.uk/le2jogtandem.