We wanted to give you a flavour of what to Expect in The Ride and the best way to do that is to publish some of our fantastic articles here online, so read on and when you're done we feel sure you'll want to buy The Ride for lots more of the same (and lots more of not the same at all).
Wallowing in a drowsy slumber, I'm suddenly shocked from sleep by a plaintive cry from the next room.
Jerked awake, heart racing, I peer blearily at my watch: 5.58am. Two minutes before the alarm was due.
I drag myself away from the magnetic pull of the duvet and hurry into Felix's room to do the dutiful father routine. With bottle plugged securely into child I sit in the cosy darkness of his room and wait for him to drift back into milk-filled sleep. I stay like this for a while before depositing him back in his cot.
After the slow, careful movements of moments...
My bike died yesterday. Or maybe not
A few days ago I noticed a creaking sound when I pedalled, but it wasn't coming from the pedals. It seemed to be caused by some motion when I was on the saddle, so I assumed the seat post had become dry and crusty - that makes bikes creak. So when I got home, I relubed the post. I also took apart and reassembled the bottom bracket cartridge, just for good measure.
But riding to work yesterday, the creaking sound was still there, perhaps even worse. At Lex and 60th, I stopped at a red light and examined the frame. There, like a chasm in front of me, I saw a crack...
If you'd asked me four or five days before the final stage, I'd have said: "I don't think I have much of a chance." Then three days before the last time trial, I won the stage, and my legs were fresh again.
A couple of nights before, I started thinking seriously about the time trial: I was considering using triathlon bars but it was a whim, not part of a grand plan. I'd done no studies on them, just picked them up.
I also thought about the time trial I had done against Laurent Fignon in the Giro d'Italia earlier that year. It was 50-plus kilometres but I took a minute and 21 seconds out of him. It gave me the confidence the day before to start calculating how many seconds per kilometre I could claw back...
