The Tour de Ireland

The Olympics proved us Brits are good at cycling. It must be in our blood, which makes sense because that seems to be how most people have been taking on the Tour de France for the past several years. But I maybe had a transfusion because I cannot work out how exactly does one prepares for cycling about 100 miles per day for 5 days on your own from the most southerly to the most northerly point of Ireland?

I'm not sure you can physically and the logistics need to be flexible. I have a start point and a bed for the first night, an end point with a return flight booked and a map but no idea of the bit in between. As few clothes are packed as possible to still cover all eventualities (although let's face it, it will be wet). I need to take my bike apart to take it on the plane and don't know if I can reassemble it. This is a state of organised disorganisation.

But I want to do this. I wanted the challenge of a bike ride between a coutry's extremes. Lands End to John o'Groats was just too far for holiday entitlement to allow and Ireland is the perfect alternative. It has enough in common with home to be familiar and enough differences to be exciting. I have never been there before and my first experience will be the villages and towns that hug its west coast. I do not have to worry about making myself understood if I get lost or when trying to find dinner or a bed for the night and they drive on the left. I don't even need an electricity adapter. Am I convincing you or me here?

The big fear for me, over ad above the cars and mountains and wind and rain is that next week, for hours on end, I will be alone with my thoughts and I don't know where that will take me. I may discover a cure for all the worlds ills, I may come back with zen like serenity, I may come back mad. Most likely though is that the only changes will be physical - slightly bandier legs and needing a cushion with a hole in the middle.