2 months to go

Off to France this afternoon for 10 days, and have after a bit of deliberation decided to leave the bike at home - going to focus on a) running, b) getting back into swimming and c) actually having a bit of a holiday. I'm working on the basis that it's possible to overdo these things... after all, you don't want to end up despising every training session you do, and frankly I'm beginning to get quite bored of my bike!

Overall, at just over a month into the campaign, things are going pretty well. Shoulder injury seems to be coming under control, and hasn't (yet) been replaced by any other injuries, so the body is intact which is the fundamental. The kit is coming together, though not without problems - the Calfee guys are no longer sure if they can hit the deadlines, which could mean I'm faced with not having much opportunity to train on a bike, or perhaps not even have a bike in time; pretty irritating, but there's a couple of other options to be explored. And I've got first press exposure, and am doing pretty well for baseline sponsorship.

The big problem is the bike, though. This is the real headline-maker, and the icon of what has become a key point I'm making - that products made with environmental concerns at their very heart can still be high-performance products. And the bike is the most tangible evidence of that...

Once I get hold of the bike, plan will be to hold some sort of event in central London, together with the rest of the kit. Although, thinking about it now, and bearing in mind an encouraging email from a wetsuit manufacturer, it might be about coming in to work in a wetsuit for a day... that would make quite an impact...