Riding a Field in a Corner of England

Rest days on the Tour de France these days seem to mean a day of Sky press conferences, largely about the question of doping. Sky are struggling to give the press the evidence that they want, without compromising their right to keep the exact details of their riders’ performance from the teams they race against. I have no doubt that they are a clean team, and the questions are justified given the history of the sport, but they must be getting more than bored of them by now. Froome’s win was spectacular and anything out of the ordinary in cycling leads to suspicion, I guess.

I very much like Dave Brailsford’s offer to allow WADA complete access to the team. I’m sure that won’t satisfy the whole world but it’s a remarkable amount of transparency for any team.

Where there is no suspicion of doping is when I ride. My performances are far from suspicious as you can see form this little gem from the weekend.

This ride did not entirely go to plan as you might be able to see. In the heat and with a lot of very similar looking tracks over farmland and along the side of fields I managed to lose my way a good few times. This even included doubling back on myself where I meant to head in a loop and somehow even riding the same section of track in the opposite direction without realising. It’s another one to come back to to get right. Despite that it was a big wide open ride in the sunshine and there was nothing wrong with that. I am fairly sure it’s not one to do in the wet as there were some distinctly potentially muddy sections, but maybe I should go back while the sun is still blazing down.

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