The start.

For those of you who don't know me, or I haven't bored to death blabbering on about my plans, this is a bit of my background and a little part of my story thus far.

I left school at age 18 and went straight off to work. I had a vague intention of heading off to University after a gap year (that idea didn't work out too well), but didn’t have much of a clue as to what I wanted to do. Living in Jersey I found an entry level job in finance, and now - seven years later - I’m still in Jersey and still in finance (though admittedly a different Company) and I’m bored.

Don’t get me wrong – I love my life in Jersey. I have some great friends, my own place, a job that gives me different things to do every day and interesting people to work with (both clients and colleagues for any that might be reading!). My issue with all of this is that I’ve never really had to challenge myself for any of this. 

So this is me pushing myself. This is my challenge.

At age 23 I found myself with a bit of a pain in my ankle. It deteriorated progressively until I was unable to walk on it without the use of a stick. Long story short (and it was a REALLY long story), I ended up having surgery whereby my leg was opened up and my Achilles tendon replaced with another tendon from my leg. The recovery took a long time, but thanks have to go to my Doctors, surgeon, physio and everyone else involved – they did a great job.

On speaking to my Doctor during my rehabilitation, I mentioned that I was thinking about hiring an exercise bike to get my ankle back into shape. I had previously stood and shaken a bucket to help him raise money for a huge Hospice bike-ride he’d been involved with, so I thought his response might be positive. It wasn’t. His response was that there was nothing more boring than cycling facing a wall, but if I wanted to help my rehab then I could do worse than get a real bike.

This was, without doubt, amongst the best piece of advice that I have ever received.

Everyone has their own “thing” when it comes to exercise. Some get lycra’d up and head to the gym, some play football, some tennis and some, that insane few, run. For me, it’s cycling. I cannot get enough of it, so when I decided earlier this year that I needed to get off the rock for a bit, it seemed the obvious way to get out and see the World.

So that’s what I’m doing. I intend to head off in April 2012, through France for a month (with a short break for my brothers stag-do in Las Vegas in May), up through Belgium, then hit the Netherlands for a bit, cross Germany (heading off to Ireland in the middle of it to act as Best Man for the aforementioned Brother’s wedding!!), into Poland, through the Czech Republic, down into Austria, then Hungary, re-visit Croatia, cross the Adriatic to Italy and down through Tuscany and then across the Ionian to end up in Greece. Hopefully.

That’s the basics of the plan, though there’s no doubt that it’s entirely open to change at any moment along the way. There’s a long way to go before I head off, let alone get anywhere along the route, but I’ve started the bike rolling, and I cannot wait.