"Truth is I need a focus to get me off my fat arse"

I can't claim those words, but they rang true. They came in an email from Phill, an email entitled "Wessex". This referred to the Tour Of Wessex, an end of May three-day sportive. It covers 320 miles over the three days in the Somerset/Dorset area - an area we know pretty well from the infamous Day 2 of the LEJOG.

Naturally I leapt at the chance to enter - lured by the cycling and camping combination - and it seems that Jon and Darren will be riding too. It's almost as if we're getting the band back together. We need some "Mission from God" shirts to wear.

Now, one of the interesting things about the ToW is that you can choose to ride a single stage or a shorter route on a single day. This means that if 320 miles seems a bit much you can still join in the fun and do 23 miles, or 73 miles, or 106 miles, or 117 miles. It really is achieveable for almost anyone who cycles.

So what's stopping you? Join us, and we'll supply the Snickers bars.

Hello again!

Posts have been few and far between, mainly due to not having done anything particularly interesting or noteworthy. I did visit Las Vegas where I shot some innocent paper targets with machine guns, and I even found time to ride a bike through Red Rock Canyon.

Yes, it's red and it has rocks in it. Check out the fetching hire bike.

It was pretty good, for a hire bike. Some fool had fitted the brakes the wrong way round though, but that didn't really matter as I barely braked anyway.

Today's ride was a dose of winter reality. From these pictures of the bike after the ride it's difficult to tell whether I was riding on or off-road (apologies for the cross-shifting but I only allowed myself to use the big ring).

And...

Filth, pure filth. I even had to bunnyhop a branch at one point, as an oncoming car prevented me riding round it. Still, if Cav can do it at 50mph, I can do it at 17...