There's a place I go and I am far away

It really is the only way to cope with the monotony. Get your technological music device for the ears out of the drawer, select a high tempo section, close eyes and dream of stories for boys.

Yes, welcome to the first ever blog of the un-bloggable. The tedium that is cycling on a static bike for 80 minutes. What can I tell you about the scenery? There were some clothes drying on the radiator? To be fair, I do have a display to look at, with lots of data. I like that. RPM? Power output? Notional speed? All there and more. But all just disguises the fact that this is not cycling, it's training, no worse, it's "exercising", perhaps the purest form of torture, keeping one's body healthy for the sake of it, rather than for my pleasure.

Good news is here though. I have booked to visit the Pyrenees again, and better still have planned three monster days to ride there. Bunny and I will stay in a place not far from Luchon, and ride some old favourites from last year, all bar one in the other direction, and some new cols too. What pleases me most is that all the rides are circular routes, and the total climbing is more than four and a half days of the Raid Pyrenean (as an aside the route of which has been changed to avoid the busy Col du Puymorens and Bourg Madame, so it's more attractive than ever, and I found out you can do it East to West). And we are taking our own bikes. Now I have something to look forward to, contemplate, and dream of when I'm on that static bike.

So I didn't move for 80 minutes, while inside my head I was far away.....