Don’t believe a word you hear about Heathrow baggage handlers – my bike bag arrived unscathed and my bike now sits fully reconstructed (thanks to the Cytech basic bike maintenance course Sue bought me) with its tour buddies in the garage awaiting the first day tomorrow.

I have met our guides – Reece, Alberto, and Roger – and a good number of fellow riders. Of course given my age I am struggling to remember peoples names but it’s the bikes that are important!

The prime topic after Shimano vs SRAM and disc vs rim brake has been the weather. Since I landed at Noon we have had both torrential downpours and sat outside in the sunshine having lunch so we are none the wiser as to what to expect tomorrow. The best guess currently is that we will definitely get rained on during the morning but possibly not quite so much in the afternoon. Great!

We have a group dinner this evening when we will all be together for the first time. This is when the lead guide (Reece) generally tells us that the weather will be fine, all the road surfaces are great, there aren’t any really steep hills, all the breakfasts are good high carbohydrate/protein ones, and we should expect a tailwind all the way. None of us will believe a word and no one will sleep much tonight.

Bring it on.