I started this bog entry on the very first day that I arrived to cover the Giro d'Italia for Eurosport. I'd come off the back of 2 weeks riding with Magnus Backstedt and felt good at the prospect of another 3 weeks of daily training with a fast group...

When they started talking about the relative merits of welding an 60mm aero tube at the tapered side to avoid the flex associated with lateral forces, I knew it was probably time to slowly shuffle away and make the coffee...

The results of the blood tests have returned and I have been able to let out a huge sigh of relief, safe in the knowledge that there appears to be nothing untoward in my kidney or thyroid function...

I am in a consulting room, wearing my DHB Southsea jacket and Wiggle Sweat Shirt. I am on team orders but have not been training properly for four/five months now. It gets to you. It hurts...

Would you have believed that this winter was going to turn out just like the last, full of ice and snow? Even when the majority of the ice had long since disappeared small pockets of the horrid black stuff lurked all over this part of Shropshire...

"Ride your bike, ride your bike, ride your bike" so they say, was the answer Fausto Coppi gave an aspiring rider who, having summoned up the courage to approach the great champion, had asked him how he too could become great. Not much has changed really. Despite the advances in nutrition and the arrival of power meter training there still isn't a substitute for miles in the saddle....

I don't like training sat on the drops for hours on end to be perfectly frank. Well at least I didn't, but now it seems perfectly natural to warm up and then spend the rest of the ride with my hands welded in the bend of the bars. Knowing how unusual it is, my great friend and colleague in the Eurosport...

So in the end it was not to be for our first attempt at a long distance record. It is a bitter, bitter pill to swallow when you finally have to make that call but it does come and it comes to just about every rider who attempts distance records...

They say that time trialling is the 'race of truth'. Against the clock you can't hide in the bunch, can't shelter from the wind or exercise any tricky sportsman's games in the pursuit of your goal. In time trialling you can't cheat the wind, can't run...

It has been a long game this record seeking team. We have been beset by injury the weather and luck but now after 8 months it really looks like we are the cusp of something big. It is a wee bit like looking into the crater of a live volcano...

There are races and there is the Tour de France. This bizarre cross between a medieval army on the march and a circus takes over my life every July. Over 8000 people, live, work and travel with the Tour as it...

A quiet word of advice for anyone thinking of contemplating a record attempt... don't move house at the same time. I have to think back a long, long time to remember...

So 3 days of carnage among the twisting and turning roads of the Netherlands comes to an end for the field in the Giro d'Italia. Riders are limping away to lick their wounds on the oddly early rest day that...

Rocket 1 has now been picked up from Terry Dolan and although some development work still needs to be done the machine is ready for its first road trials. The whole team is excited and keen to get the pedals turning.

I remember, as a younger version of myself, and racing in Belgium - when I lived there, that one of my pastime escapes was to read. Alistair McLean's book - Where Eagles Dare was a fave and it became a good 'escape' read. Even if you only watch the film it is still brill!

I have to say that up to now just about everything has gone right for Team Wiggle Tandem. Our sponsors and crew have been phenomenally supportive and with a steady diet of training and the honing of our knowledge of records and each other as riders, it couldn't have been too much more on song.

On Islay there was a time when people rode bicycles as a matter of course. I know, I have asked many senior folks and when asked they get the glazed look of reminiscence and talk fondly of bicycle riding all over Islay.

With crunching reality 2010 is upon us and clearly Skadi, the Norse goddess of Winter is no great lover of tandem attempts as she's made damn sure the country has received the very best arctic weather direct from Scandinavia. There comes a point when you just have to shrug your shoulders and accept that you are just not going to get out training on the roads much...if at all.

We can tell the way the weather is on Islay by the plane arriving in the morning. This is a small plane serving the island and brings in folks and the post too. It can fly in almost all weathers except when it is too too bad. This could be too windy – you know the type that blows your dog inside out or lets the chickens lay the same egg three time, or when it is too misty/foggy or plain frightful.