Does this go to its right home? Sorry subscribers for these strange updates, last minute testing. More exciting blogs coming soon

My Surly has been so reliable since I bought it six years ago that I have never needed to fix a puncture, much to the envy of my office mate who often grumbles into work saying he had to fix two punctures on the way to work. Though I love the fact it hasn’t happened to me, it’s also not the best preparation when I’m about to head off across the Nullarbor for six weeks. So a few weeks ago I took myself off to a bike maintenance course at Dismantle (www.dismantle.org.au) down at Fremantle, and they were great!  Zoe and Pat shared their knowledge and passion for the bike and were very patient with my very basic questions. I now know a bit more about how the bike works and have been tinkering with its bits over the last little while. Broken spokes though still fill me with dread and I’m yet to figure out how to change them in the middle of nowhere. Must keep that on my to-do list. Here’s the crew on the day, a couple of the guys had recently done a cycle trip around Iceland and Alex on the left is cycling from Perth to Melbourne next month so it was great to swap notes.

Preparations are in full swing. I love a list but it is getting ridiculous. There’s all the preparations for the ride, researching the route, building playlists and downloading audiobooks, and working out the logistics of teeing up my fantastic support crews of family and friends who are joining me at different stages along the way. And of course, there’s trying to get fit. While holding down my day job, I’m jumping in the saddle whenever I can trying to get my body ready for what I know will be some grueling days ahead. I’ve been heading in all directions out of Perth so getting to see some beautiful parts of this state. Up north, out to the hills, down on the south coast in Denmark and Albany, along the road to Mandurah, and most recently, down in the south west around Bunbury and Dunsborough.

My friend Paul is riding with me for the first 10 days from Perth as well as supporting later on, so he’s been joining some of the training rides. Here we are a few weeks ago on the gorgeous country roads outside of Busselton, with a shot of Paul when we unwittingly hit the cycle leg of the Busselton Half-Iron man and didn’t really have much choice but to join them for a few kilometres before we could jump back on the highway. Although we tried to blend in, we did feel a little conspicuous in our Dutch team orange tops and got a few questioning looks but luckily most of the riders had their minds on other things and didn’t seem too bothered by a couple of intruders!