Numbers are on, kit is out, now to find out where the start is?! :)

New for 2008, our in house reporters will be giving day-by-day coverage and analysis of the London-Paris Cycle Tour, stay tuned as the site will be updated with live news soon.

www.londres-paris.com - daily news

We're back in business! Finally got around to swapping wheels today so I now have a functioning power meter on the S-Works again - this time the 2.4Ghz wireless version.

I've decided to use this for L2P after all. The weight penalty is a small price to pay for the information I can get from the unit. If I was really concerned with weight I'd not be getting pissed every second night either, right? :)

I'll fit the wired version onto the Ribble probably. This will be good as I am STILL riding with a broken spoke on its original Mavic Cosmos wheels. Two shops haven't managed to find one of these straight pull spokes for me. Bollocks to 'em!

The 2 days of English summer happened this weekend. This coincided nicely with the LFGSS ride to Oxford on Saturday and the final L2P ride before the main event in under 2 weeks time!

Wayne got us the CS Grupetto kit this week which the roadiescum(tm) trio of Wayne, Des and myself wore to full effect on Saturday. It will be coming out again for our triumphant ride along the Champs Elysees very soon..

Video of the London to Oxford ride.

Mini Cooper's photos

I can't be bothered going into any detail for these rides other than cheers everyone they were both great fun and will take a couple of days for my legs to feel fresh. :)

In technology news I've bought a new Powertap. Yes, another one! This one is the 2.4, the wireless one. I've sent the CPU of the wired one off to be repaired but in the meantime I thought to hell with it and just bought an almost new wireless one. I might even end up using this on Londres-Paris. Power addict.

Also bought a pair of Skins Powersox to try as coach is all about recovery. The marketing spiel behind these screams "buuulllllshhiiiittt" at me but I've clearly got more money than sense at the moment so to hell with it - any potential legal advantage shouldn't be frowned on.. especially since I've seen the guys I'll be riding with on L2P! Scary-fast.

My Mum and my Aunty are arriving here at 15:30 from a trip around Europe so I decided to do the Medio Fondo 100k version of this ride rather than the full 170k/100mi Gran Fondo.
It was a 40k cycle there and 40k back so I still end today with 180k on the clock! But at least I'm home before the guests arrive.
My poor coach had told me not to do this so hopefully she'll be impressed with my choice of the medium course :)

This was a good test of my legs after the massive Tour of Wessex last week. I was quite worried about my achillies pain flaring up again. Thankfully this didn't happen, although the inner left knee tendon pain is still happening.

One other issue for me was the fact that I've been crapping through the eye of a needle for the last 2 days! I know you wanted to read that. :) So much for this fruit and yoghurt rubbish - I now know why it makes you lighter! I'm going back to tried and tested: beer, kebabs and chocolate.

The ride itself was another solo affair since the majority of riders opted for the Gran Fondo or the 80k Corto Fondo routes. I passed perhaps 10-15 riders and no one went by me so I figure anyone in front of me was riding in a bunch and left early. Cheating so and so's! :P

3:53:57 was my time, 4 minutes off the Gold standard of 3:50 for this distance. Doh! Still, I didn't have a speedo so without distance and speeds, pacing was done entirely by feel.

I've since found out that there was only one rider faster than me! The people already done must have ridden the short route.

My legs have been "dead" since. I'm hoping they're sorted out before the Londres-Paris in a couple of weeks...

www.chiltern-hundred.org.uk - 2008 Report
www.chiltern-hundred.org.uk - 2008 Results

According to the provisional results I came 2nd in the Chiltern 100 Medio Fondo, 8 minutes down on the winner
www.chiltern-hundred.org.uk