So the bike is apparently wrapped in bubble wrap and loaded in a container snug and safe on her way to Buenos Aires. The nav kit was apparently fitted and tested and all works fine.

Spoke to Duncan T this evening and we both agreed there’s no going back now.

Of greater concern, the full route has now been published on www.dakar.com. Most days are 600k or more. The longest special stage has 600k of race speed off road. Just reading the descriptions of the stages has been a 2 glass of wine experience. Race number 141 will do his best to get to the end of day one… 

Sunday night and the wind and rain are howling against the windows of the flat. Even with the heating on inside it feels cold just listening to it. Training is pretty much at peak level now – I’ll probably back off a bit as we get to Christmas. Ran 16k yesterday in the p*ssing rain. Not nice but felt worth doing.

Drove up to Perthshire last night to attend a private gig in a castle owned by one of Alison’s fiddle playing mates. A really good night with plenty music. We stayed in Alyth and took the road bikes in the back of the landrover so we could go for a decent pedal on country roads this morning. Rather stupidly we didn’t take a map. What started out as a gentle pedal in late winter sun ended up being nearly 3 hours of purgatory when we got lost and the weather turned windy and cold. Ended up on a climb up to 1300ft then repeated the exercise a couple of times to get over the hills back to Alyth. Freezing cold – it took me about 30 minutes in the landrover to heat up with the heater on full blast.

I’m kind of guessing that I might end up complaining about the heat in Argentina in January – but right now some sunshine and warmth would be quite welcome.

Some photos of the bike at my parents before it went to Patsy’s.

A lot has been happening in the last week or two. I delivered the bike to Patsy a few weekends ago. It took me 10 hours to drive a transit through tipping rain then October holiday traffic (I don’t have kids – I didn’t think) from my parents in Lanarkshire to Patsy’s place in East Sussex. Tony has been doing the final things on the bike so hopefully that’s all nearly finished and Patsy will take the bike to Le Harve next week to be loaded up.

I’ve still one or two paperwork things to sort out but otherwise it’s just a case of getting my kit together. Most of the riding gear is now in place. Dom at Kriega has provided me with a pile of kit which is brilliant.

The riding kit looks like the following

Airoh Stealth Helmet; Leatt Neck Brace; Oakley Crowbar goggles (x2); Fox Gloves; Acerbis Desert Jacket (Kriega Hydration Reservoir fitted); Thor body armour; 2XU Compression base layers; Thor trousers; Asterisk knee braces; Sidi Crossfire Boots; Kriega R8 Belt Pack

Spare gloves, Goggles and Helmet Peak will be loaded in the boxes.

Departure is getting ever closer.

I was at Glentress with Alison and Chris on Saturday. On the way there in Chris’s van he suggested that I should wear pink lace ladies pants throughout the Dakar.His thinking is that it will force me to ride carefully in order to avoid medics having to remove my clothing at any point…Hmm….I remain unconvinced