"Too late to back out now"

For reasons that I may try to explain when I understand them more fully myself, I intend to cycle from home in Quorn near Loughborough to Assisi starting on Friday 18 June 2010. This blog is intended to satisfy the bemused curiousity of family and friends and to elicit helpful information and advice from anyone who has attempted anything similar, assumimg such persons exist. Comments of all kinds are welcome since I hardly know what I am doing either as a long distance cyclist or a blogger.

From Quorn to Portsmouth is about 190 miles if you avoid A roads and large towns. From Caen to Assisi is about 1000 miles without taking into account all the twists and turns which usually add another 10% or so. Allowing two days for the trip to Portsmouth I have booked onto the overnight ferry on Saturday 19 June. I hope to complete the continental leg in about ten days which means averaging a little over a hundred miles a day. This should be feasible if nothing goes seriously wrong with me or the bike. I have to be in Assisi by Thursday 1 July. My wife, daughter and granddaughter will be spending that week in Umbria but will be leaving on Friday 2 July to join the rest of the family for a week in Switzerland. I could, of course, spend part or all of that week riding back to Switzerland to join them but prefer to avoid doing so. You can have too much of a good thing.

Over the next couple of weeks I  will try to post a bit more information on kit, accommodation and other aspects of the preparation including an account of the Dragon Ride next Sunday. Since it is in Wales this will count as experience of cycling in a foreign country. It is also an opportunity to commiserate with all the Cardiff fans after their loss at the hands of a rampant 'Pool at Wembley last weekend. Assuming I can sort out how to send posts from my phone I will send a daily progress report from the route once I set off.