And Finally

In many ways Bali was the perfect place to recover from a month of cycling. From a position of feeling nauseus when looking at images of the Tour de France in Seoul the relaxed atmosphere and company of good friends set me back on course quicker than I had expected. Once the ceremonials were out of the way I was just about able to think about getting on a bike again and looking at a map of the 140km x 80km island there was a small part of my shrivelled brain that began plotting a high speed tour.

Ten minutes in the taxi from Ubud to Kuta was enough to put me right. The roads here play host to a fast-moving fight between the cavalry charge of scooters and the heavy artillery of lorries and picking my way though the smoggy battlefield on a bike was only going to result in unneccesary bloodshed. I resolved to ride the waves.

Since arriving on the beach I have therefore kept a steady routine of entertaining the locals with a wobbling waltz of welshman on wave in the morning, and the surgical necessity of burning off the cycling tan in the afternoon. Snobbishly observing the feeding and mating habits of the Australian mammals that migrate here at this time of year has mostly occupied my evenings, other than my birthday when we taught them a few new songs.

Somewhere in this hectic schedule I have managed to work out the final figures for the Tour de Kaz which for the cyclists and accountants amongst you are as follows:

Total Kilometres: 4005

Total Days: 29

Total Cycling Days: 24

Most Km per Day: 252

Least Km per Day: 90

Average Km per Cycling Day: 167

Nights in Hotels (of sorts): 16

Nights in Tent: 6

Nights with Families: 6

Nights with Gazprom: 1

Punctures: 1

Crashes: 1

Crashes involving other vehicles: 0

Times when one wheel came off: 1

Times when the all wheels nearly came off: Countless

Renditions of "Men of Harlech": Several, Daily

Renditions of "The Long and Winding Road": Long - 24, Winding - 0

Fingers currently lost feeling: 1

Toes currently lost feeling: 3

Bee Stings: 5

Unsatisfactory Meals: Hundreds

Unsatisfactory meals shared with the flag-carrier for Krygyzstan in the Salt Lake City Olympics 2002: 1

People mistaking me for Ewan McGregor: 3

Least useful piece of equipment: Helmet

Most useful piece of equipment: Imagination

Most relevant Tolstoy quote from War and Peace: When a man finds himself in motion, he always thinks up a goal for that motion. In order to walk a thousand miles, a man needs to think that there is something good at the end of those thousand miles. One needs a vision of the promised land in order to have the strength to move.

Equally applicable to Bike Tours, Stag Dos, days in work....

My goal is now to find my way home. See you all there.