I’ve left it quite late this year to organise a long distance bike tour. I should be busy building a new house but lots of things have got in the way of that so I’m taking off for 18 days in France and particularly the Pyrenees. For the past 40 years or so I’ve watched the Tour de France as it makes its way through the Pyrenees and thought it would be interesting to see what the gradients are really like. I tested myself in the Alps in 2015 and struggled up the Col du Galibier and Mont Ventoux but that was pure pedal power. Now I’ve got a motor to help me up the steepest slopes and I reckon I shall need it. I’m cycling from home to Portsmouth to catch the overnight ferry and then jumping on a train in Caen to Paris where I change stations and onto the TGV to Toulouse. A night in the Pink City and then four days of gruelling climbing before the Pyrenees spit me out at Pau. Then across to the Atlantic coast at Biarritz and up the flat west coast to Brittany and a ferry from St Malo to Poole via Guernsey: it’s then just a short cycle home. Follow my adventure on bailward.co.uk.