After arriving in London, assembling my bike I decided it was time to get moving. Originally I had planned to ride from London to St. Andrews to attend my first conference, but circumstances arose such that I had to leave Canada about 4 days later than I had originally intended. This would give me 4 days to ride some 800 miles on a fixed gear. Not likely.

Now given some good training and weather (hmm... foreshadowing?) I might be able to do a single 200 mile day on its own, but four such days back to back. That is so wrong I was almost tempted. Then some sort form of sanity took over as I realized that the Tour doesn't even do that large a mileage. At most I believe they cover 150 miles (240 km) in a day, plus they are not hauling gear, they are on bikes that have more than one gear, and they have support riders and cars offering help.

Now I have thoroughly justified being a slack ass I decided to make it easy on myself and take the train from London to York the evening prior. After which I set out on an epic 100 mile day with rain, wind and 17% grade climbs.