Definitely Paris to Venice

Apart from riding a few miles in the Cotswolds and sinking a few beers over the weekend, we also looked at the route for September in more detail.

It does look like it will be a real test for a not especially talented cyclist like me. Which is what we all wanted, of course. No point going all that way and being bored because it was easy!

The latest version of the route has us covering 905 miles at an average of 70 miles a day, which means we'll need to do much more in the earlier, flatter stretches, because 70 miles in the mountains, several days in a row, is a different story altogether.

So we have a two days around 90-100 miles early on and a couple of 40 or so in the Alps. That schedule will get us to Venice on the Friday evening, giving us a day to spare for mishaps on route and maybe some sightseeing time.

The route takes us through Fontainebleu, Colmar and Freiburg, past Lake Constance and into the Dolomites at Cortina, among other wonderfully evocative places. We should even see a bit of Liechtenstein, as well as France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy.

But it will be 70 miles a day...

Roy