Although I did not get round to doing this until June 2003, I had mentally planned it since the winter of 1989-90. My thoughts then were on riding to Sardinia to watch England play their group matches in the 1990 World Cup Finals. The idea was to ride in as straight a line as possible, to Nice, take the ferry to Bastia, continue through Corsica to Bonifacio, ferry again onto Sardinia and finish in Cagliari. In my mind at the time, this was the perfect trip. There were goals: [no pun intended] to see the England football team play, for the first time, to crunch through the French countryside, while getting fit and losing a few pounds, at the same time as eating my own weight in French provincial cooking. I would take in some of the high alpine passes and possibly improve my knowledge of the language a little.

For one reason or another this did not happen. Nor did it happen during any of the other years when I took a fancy to it. Until last summer, when my son, Patrick, Bert Trautmann, Dino Zoff, Gordon Banks, Lev Yashin, Jennings. [yes, he is a goalkeeper] asked me, out of the blue. if I fancied a week's cycle touring after he'd finished his exams. Of course I didn't believe he was serious. 'Where do you want to go?' 'Somewhere with mountains.' 'What about Wales or Scotland?' 'Mmm, maybe.' Then came the Easy-Jet inspiration. 'What about Geneva to Nice?' 'Mmm, maybe' The boy takes a step back as the force of his father's re-ignited enthusiasm threatens to overwhelm him. He knows what might come next: the Urals, Samarkand, Taskent, the Hindu Kush, the highlands of New Guinea. 'But I have to be back on the 17th for Jemma's birthday.' His girl friend's birthday and a cluster of post- exam parties did put a stop to Patrick's interest. But not to mine. Geneva became Calais as I thought back to 1990.

I ought to say from the outset, that I am really quite a lazy cyclist. At the same time however, although I am fifty-four, as soon as I pull on my go-faster gear and jump onto one of my three ageing bicycles, I become a competition monster. Commuting to whichever part of London, I might be working in, I want to be in front. Nothing gives me more pleasure, when on a bike, than to cruise past another rider half my age on whichever of South London's arterial roads. Of course this happens less and less as time goes by. I take excessive pride in telling my mates in the pub that I've done a round trip of 45 miles to work and back. That kind of distance is unusual, but I almost always ride to work. I enjoy riding in heavy traffic as much as the quieter cycle routes. Hammering up to a major roundabout at high speed and getting the timing right so I just coast round with the other traffic gives me mighty satisfaction. The aforementioned laziness applies to the club type of ride. In my case this would be the obvious jaunt to the Surrey Hills and back in some style of picturesque loop. I rarely go out for a ride in the country. It's just not interesting enough to pass through Purley or Worcester Park too many times in a calendar month. I only get real satisfaction out of recreational cycling when, rather than riding from A back to A via B and C, I'm going from A to B to C, then onto all the other letters, and a few from other alphabets.

A particular dislike of mine is Richmond Park, again an obvious little training run: Earlsfield, Southfields, Putney Heath, Roehampton, Sheen Gate, zoot round one of Greater London's green lungs. What could be better? Watching a 0-0 draw on Sky Sports, with a blinding hangover and a roll-up between the lips that's what. I did it once last summer on my return from this trip I'm trying to tell you about. And? It's boring: a piece of fabricated faux-rural drabness. As for the animals. Well there are sheep. I'm originally from North Yorkshire so I have seen a lamb or two, but never close up, honest. As for the deer, they are tame. You can ride through a whole herd of Richmond Park Deer and they just stand there chewing grass, when they should be running for cover, but there isn't any cover. There's a golf course.

Still, I've always liked cycle touring since I did a circular trip from my home town of Redcar, then in the North Riding of Yorkshire, down to Mid Wales and back through Snowdonia and Lancashire, when I was 13[and a half]. Since then I've done a few trips with my wife, Barbara, and more recently with my son, the plucky custodian., tagging along.

So this little adventure, minus the London to Dover and the island stages started on 10th June 2003. The thinking behind leaving at that time was, on the one hand, to be more or less certain that the big Alpine Passes would be open and on the other, to avoid the oppressive heat of July or August. Oh how we laughed. We were booked on a flight from Nice back to London on the 26th June. We planned to cover, on average, 100km per day and take two days off .