Fitness, time, money and equipment. 

Those were the four key things that I listed as potential hurdles if I am ever to cycle the length of Japan in the summer of 2020. Of the four hurdles, three are relatively passive, but one is, by necessity, active: fitness.

With this in mind, a rather timely email arrived last week from Cancer Research UK. Could I help them in publicising their annual Cycle 300 fundraising month aimed at cyclists? The idea is that people commit to cycling 300 miles over the course of the 30 days of September raising money via online sponsorship. Yes, I would be delighted to help you out was my response and you will have noticed the banner at the top of this page encouraging you to sign up and raise some money for the charity. If you’d like to get involved, here is the link.

But hang on. There’s nothing worse than people encouraging you to do something but not actually getting involved themselves. Wouldn’t this be a great way for me to kick start 20 months of getting much fitter in preparation for cycling the length of Japan? Well yes, it would. So I have signed up myself, aiming to raise £300 by cycling 300 miles during the month of September. If you’d like to support my efforts, that would be wonderful: here’s the link to my fundraising page. Better still, sign up to cycle your own 300 miles in September.

That said, I won’t of course be cycling 300 miles; I’ll be cycling 482.803 km… This is, after all, Cycling Europe.

She is riding a road bike and wearing warm clothing.

OK, go on then…