My home town of Reading is only thirty minutes or so from central London on the train and over the next couple of months, I will be very grateful for that small quirk of geography as I will be up in the capital quite a bit.

First off is my first training session as an Olympic volunteer. Now, I must first say that I have yet to be accepted as an official ‘Games Maker’ but I have been asked to attend a training session nevertheless at Wembley Arena on the 5th February. Read into that what you will. Let’s hope it’s a good sign rather than anything else…

A week later, at the start of the half-term on Monday 13th February, I’m due to appear on The Bike Show on London radio station Resonance 104.4 FM hosted by Jack Thurston talking about Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie. I’ve known about the show for quite a while but, shame on me, have never listened to it so have just spent a couple of hours catching up on recent podcasts from the programme and I have to say it makes very good listening indeed. Highly recommended, especially last week’s interview with David Herlihy, author of The Lost Cyclist, the story of Frank Lenz and his ill-fated attempt to cycle around the World in 1892. More details about my appearance in due course so watch this space.

48 hours later on the 15th February, I’m in Crystal Palace attending a Cycling Book Club at Blue Door Bicycles. The book they have chosen to discuss is… mine! If you are anywhere near the shop (the postcode is SE19 1BG), the kick-off time is 7.30pm. It would be great to see lots of people there. I’ll be talking about the cycling journey along the Eurovelo 5 as well as the adventure of writing and publishing the book although I think the former topic will dominate discussion. I’ll hopefully be joined by Paul, my friend in London who gets a mention at the very start of the book on cycling day 1 and also by John, a friend from Yorkshire who I haven’t seen for many years (the last time was when I bumped into him at a cashpoint in Halifax and we ended up going to see Halifax Town as it then was playing at the Shay stadium) who followed my journey online and who was then very complimentary about the book itself. He happens to be in London that week for work and offered to come along so I am very much looking forward to catching up with him again.

As if all that were not enough, the esteemed (I think) London Cycling Book Club have also decided to have Good Vibrations as their book to discuss at their next meeting and I have offered to go along and meet the group. Once again, I’ll be following in the footsteps of David Herlihy as his book was the last one under discussion. The group normally meet in Fitzrovia although the exact location, date and time have yet to be decided. Again, watch this space for more details or simply follow me on Twitter at the newly renamed @CyclingEurope where I will reveal all (when I know all).

There is no escape…