My Kilimanjaro training and Unicef fundraising events continued this past weekend, when I took part in the L’Etape UK cycling sportive in the Chilterns on Sunday. Two friends and I faced 100 miles of cycling, and over 7000 feet of climbing, on a course that was very up and down, with little flat sections on which to rest. The day started off brilliantly, when I dropped and smashed my phone when loading my bike on to the car, great! It was also slighlty spitting with rain in the early morning, something which wasn’t on the weather forecast, and of course, none of us had brought any rain gear.

I am relatively used to cycling long distances, so didn’t think 100 miles would be too tough for me, but I (or rather, my bike) wasnt quite prepared for a lot of the sharp bends and rapid descents. I really must pay more attention to bike maintenance, as I almost turned my bib shorts brown on more than one occasion, when my brakes didn’t stop me quite as quickly as I’d hoped. On one of these, I was racing down a fast bend but didn’t know a junction was just ahead. I pulled back on the brake levers, but rather than come to a stop, I just carried on, slowing down only very slightly. Thinking I was going to maybe come a cropper, I unclipped my shoes from the pedals ready to bail out of the bike, but somehow managed to just save myself by cycling into the gutter, narrowly missing cars that were racing past. The next few miles of cycling were quite nervy, until I was able to adjust my brakes at the next rest stop. Needless to say, my wife wasn’t too happy at hearing this story when I returned home later in the day…