It's been a hectic last few weeks. Besides trying to sell all of my possessions that can't be taken with me to Berkeley (and hold insufficient sentimental value), I spent a considerable amount of time working on another social network analysis paper with my friends from Kings College London, a colleague from Last.fm and two professors from Iran and Korea. Once that was all done and dusted, Phil and I belatedly started planning in depth our proposed short (but actually not that short) cycle tour.

Phil is an accomplished audax rider. Friends of the Geek on a Bicycle will note that he was the person who first motivated me to get cycling and if not for him inspiring me to start cycling to my high school, I'd still be as obese as I was as a teenager. We first got to know each other at the back of the field during a mandatory school cross country run. As plump 11 year olds, we were terrified of the consequences of being lapped by a considerable number of ours peers. Phil's eldest sister was training to be a lawyer at the time and I have fond memories of him threatening to get her involved if we were punished for being too slow!

During sixth form we both commuted by bicycle each morning and evening. In our holidays we would cycle together around Hertfordshire, and into London occasionally. For one week in Easter 2005, we took our bikes to his parents' holiday home in France and spent our days reading books, trying to get a pirated copy of Motorcross Madness to work over between two laptops connected by a crossover cable and, of course, cycling. It was an immense achievement when, on the last day,  we cycled a shade over 80 miles on our venerable mountain bikes - Phil riding a maroon red Grisley rigid mountain bike  and myself on my (now stolen) Hardrock Pro with front suspension. At the beginning of the week I would struggle to make it up a hill near the cottage called 'Pain-de-Sucre'. This was a hill with a considerable gradient and I'd usually have to get off half way up and walk. By the end of the week I was able to make it all the way up.

As happens, we grew apart during university - him studying classics at Liverpool University, a considerable drive away from Cambridge. We met extremely infrequently since he visited home rather less than I did. During that time we both took our passion for cycling further. I joined the Cambridge University Cycling Club and started racing. Meanwhile, Phil signed up for a series of audaxes, completing the 1200 kilometre Paris-Brest-Paris ride in 2008. While I thought the Tour D'Afrique was hard, Paris-Brest-Paris was in a wholly different league. Phil cycled this distance over just five days, sleeping rough and carrying everything he needed with him. The weather that week was extraordinarily poor and he cycled through rain and wind, sleeping for a handful of hours every night.

After university we both found ourselves in London and working similar careers. While neither of us have done any epic rides since, we were both keen to do something similarly involved. I knew that before I started my Master's course, I wanted to experience as much of Europe as possible and to try and do something meaningful. Phil had similar holiday ambitions and proposed Calais to Brindisi - a historically significant audax route based on an old passenger train that used to take well off Britons out to their summer holidays in continental Europe.

Audax pace, is, I'm told 14 days to cover 2100 kilometres. (Bear in mind this route crosses the Alpes.) We're giving ourselves 20 days and have truncated the uninspiring first two days of the trip from Calais to Paris. Tomorrow morning we'll be on the second Eurostar train of the day to Paris (and at the time of writing, I'm rather hoping that our bikes have already made it there, courtesy of the EuroDespatch centre at St. Pancras).

With a rest day in Aix-les-Bains, again in San Marino and finally in Brindisi, I'm hoping that my body will be able to cope with what will be about 80 miles a day on a fully laden bike. I'm not a particularly strong cyclist in the physical sense of the word - one of the decisions that really helped me a lot in the Tour D'Afrique was taking an exceptionally light (but sturdy) bike. Loading this up with 8.5 kilos of touring load is going to test my limits but I'm hoping I'll emerge stronger at the end of the trip.

The other physical difference (aside from the transient limb injuries that I've undergone various surgeries for) is that since the Tour D'Afrique I've been diagnosed with Hashimoto's thyroiditis. This in itself didn't prove to be a problem during that trip (aside from many amusing photos of me napping on moderately expensive expeditions). Now, three years later, even with treatment, I do find myself unreasonably tired often. Perhaps not enough to negatively impact our progress on the trip but enough to perhaps temper my psyche.

So, perhaps more so than with the Tour D'Afrique, I am cautious of my ability to finish. Having read Eric's and Gerald's (excellent) books on the Tour D'Afrique, I am reminded of the exceptional challenges we faced and how the wrong encounter with a pedestrian or a tropical disease could lead to the tour ending prematurely.

Either way, I'll try my best to keep up with Phil whilst enjoying a large amount of bread and cheese, as vegetarians do in Europe :-).

Finally, this trip presents another challenge - we're carrying our own load. This means no laptop. I'm also forgoing a dedicated camera and MP3 player - with the intention of using my Nexus 4 (plus a Bluetooth keyboard which I am currently using) to replace all three of these gadgets. Let's see how that works out. (Who wants to bet that it will become unusably broken within the first week?)

Our route:

I'm a little bit terrified of the world at the moment but, at the same, quietly optimistic.
The last eighteen months have been tough, I've been in and out of hospital, personal relationships came to an unfortunate (but, I suppose, inevitable) end and my career plan was derailed (temporarily). The hopelessly ambitious robot who runs my mind decided to take a brief holiday but as my life slowly sorts itself out, has returned to coerce the rest of me into moving forward.

One thing I've really missed, and this seems to happen whenever I'm back in London for any extended period of time - is cycling. Real cycling. A loose definition of real cycling might involve what we did each weekend in Cambridge - pounding the mild inclines and declines of Thetford Forest weekend after weekend in the quest to gain a mild advantage at the next Sports series race. A tighter definition might be something like the Tour D'Afrique. There's nothing quite like cycling over buttery smooth roads in the Sudanese desert, or soaring (metaphorically of course) towards the Tanzanian border over 'rolling' hills.

When I'm sitting in front of two screens with dry eyes, struggling to stave off the boredom of fixing another damned bug created by someone else, I think of these days. Even more at times like this when Doctor's orders are to stay away from my bike and just three years ago I was ploughing on through a corrugated and sandy Sudanese national park.

The fact that I probably couldn't do what I did three years ago now is what scares me. I've just turned 25 - and walking on the ice with my arm in a sling a few weeks ago was a nervewracking experience (and damned painful when I did eventually slip).

Perhaps I'm just getting old and boring.

Still, my knee's better now (I can run without searing pain!) and my shoulder feels better than it has since 2004. I was often scared of mountain biking after past hiatuses - so this should be no different. After watching Premium Rush this evening, I can't wait to get back on my bike. Graduate school applications should hopefully do well - my usual habit of meticulously overanalysing the process is helping - and I'll be starting a new, albeit very different, adventure in six months time.

So bring on May, sunshine and that joyous feeling of rolling freedom.

Over the last two years, I've developed a strong liking for matcha after first discovering it at the Canary Wharf branch of EAT. (In 2011 I set myself the goal of trying every variation of every warm drink in popular London coffee shops.)

Matcha, if you've not heard of it before, is a finely ground green powder made from green tea leaves. In Japan it is something of a delicacy and is normally served as part of an elaborate tea ceremony. In the west, it is commonly mixed with warm milk to produce a 'matcha latte'. It is relatively expensive because production of matcha is very slow, about 30 grams per hour according to Wikipedia.

Matcha varies in quality - the most expensive and highest grades have a much more intense flavour than cheaper variants. I've been experimenting with different sources of matcha, including from eBay (not good), from a variety of shops in San Francisco (very good) and from a variety of shops in London's Chinatown. The best I've found is from the Japan Centre in London.

It can be made into a variety of drinks, I normally either mix it into a protein shake or with milk (and a spoonful of Milo to sweeten slightly). It also makes a great baking ingredient and to date I've made a matcha trifle (rather like tiramisu), matcha, pistachio and white chocolate brownies and matcha rusks.

Fuck Yeah, Matcha! is a particularly favourite Tumblr of mine - they showcase beautiful photos of matcha based food and drink.

Matcha is also great for sufferers of thyroid disease like myself because it has a much lower fluoride content than tea and coffee. It also has a much longer half life - similar to green tea, so there are no unpleasant headaches in store. My favourite description of matcha's effects comes from Breakaway Matcha:

"The caffeine hit of an espresso can be a bit like having an express train screaming through the middle of your body: a deep, powerful, jittery roar. I find the effects of matcha to be just as stimulating but in a more delicate, refined way, as if a thousand butterflies have descended on my body, beating their wings until I'm lifted, gently but resolutely, a few inches off the ground. (Seriously.)"


My latest project has been to try and catalogue all the places that serve matcha in London. The map below is publicly editable - click here to add to it.

View Matcha! in a larger map

Olympics!
(View in high res)

A sneaky photo of the city I call home.
(View in high res)