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It’s all getting closer now.

I’ve used up the money put aside in the home improvements account so all focus is now on general home maintenance not involving money and trip preparations.

I have 2 ½ weeks before I plan to depart. Most of the other contestants are departing on the 15 Feb. That’s 13days before me. But really to be fair I thought I should give them a bit of a head start. After all, in an event of this magnitude what’s a couple of weeks? One of the contestants, Mike, a real trooper, said he’d go slowly initially to let me catch up.

I have begun to lay all my gear out on the spare bed as I’m sure we all do in situations like this and once I have everything together will practise packing it in the panniers. At that stage the big cull will be undertaken. This is the point at which you go ‘My panniers aren’t big enough. I either have to lose some stuff or grow some panniers’.  Desperate measures will need to be taken such as ditching the electronic chess set, and maybe leaving my antique compass at home. But I will not resort to dispensing with my electric hair trimmers and home grooming kit. Although I might be thinning a bit on top, contrary to popular belief, I still need to shave and cut my hair regularly. It seems to me so many long haul cycle tourists seem to come out of the wilderness looking like wild Yeti men. I like to think that if the early English explorers could always manage to cut their hair and have a shave in remote places I can manage it too. Indiana Jones always looks pretty sharp on the Tomb raider programs. I intend to go one step further than my colonial ancestors and shave my legs as well. After all, by jovs this is a bike race!

Hairy Cyclist Lost His Bike

Always tinkering with my kit, I have decided to combine my sleeping mattress with my bike bag. I might even market it as the ‘Sleepy Head Bike Bag’. The Sleepy Head bike Bag is guaranteed not to puncture, does not need to be pumped up, rolls up like snow foam and then once you get to the airport you simply throw your bike in it and jet off to your next adventure. Caught in a tricky situation you might even be able to zip yourself up in it and pretend to be a homeless man.

Kiwi Ingegu, Injignu, Smart thinking

What I have to say now will be of great interest to the more competitively minded of my followers and supporters. The World Cycle Racing site has added me to their riders list. Check it out;

 http://worldcycleracing.com/niel-coventry-brown/

I am there and will be doing my best to not only survive this little adventure but also to put some of the other contestants to shame. After all not only am I the only New Zealander attempting this challenge and need to do my country proud, I’m also the only entrant from the Southern Hemisphere.

Adi suggested this week that we redo our wills. Are you thinking of departing the land of the living, was my first thought. My second thought was that she thought I might be a temporary Earthling.  I think I might have to once again reassure her that this is not a race to the death and as soon as it starts to hurt too much I’m going to do what I always do in races… Stop for an ice cream. Doing a will I thought would be pretty easy. If Adi dies without me I simply get everything, and if I die distraught as everyone will no doubt be its only right that my chicken Woo should inherit all.

When Adi told me she had made an appointment to sort it out with the lawyer and it was going to cost $260 each I almost died there and then! Out of pocket by $20 an hour later I had bought a Will Kit from the bookshop. All four of us are around the table now trying to work out who gets what. Bob and Woo can’t seem to agree on anything.