Tour planning and the start of the race season

Things just seem to get busier and busier and this time of year is particularly mental.  Start of the race season is just over a week away and there is so much to do.  Still to get my new race bike, licence, kit and all the other stuff I need for racing.  Although its exciting to be starting a new season with a new team the pre season nerves are just the same as ever, and the mixture of feeling some pressure to do well mixed, with uncertainty about what kind of form I'm in is still not something I like much.  Once the first race is out of the way I'm sure things will all be a lot cooler.

So the new bike is apparently in the shop being built and will (hopefully) be ready to be collected on Thursday night.  Exciting getting a new bike, but I'll have no time to ride it prior to the first race at Gifford, so hopefully it'll be the right size and set up about right!  I'd hoped to get the bike a bit earlier, but things didn't really work out.  This weekend we're off to Switzerland to see Tom and Nat for 6 days which will be good.  6 days with no bike will be strange, especially so close to the start of the racing.  Hopefully my legs will be fresh and rearing to go after the break.

Other thing that is taking a bit of thought is my forthcoming Grand Tour of the West of Scotland.  This is going to be a 7 day cycle tour, taking in the Western Isles and hopefully a significant chunk of the rest of the west coast.  Last weekend I fitted a Tubus front rack to my Giant TCX.  I'd been a bit worried this might be difficult because the forks arent really designed for a rack, but with the use of a few cable ties I got it really secure and hopefully it'll do the job in May.  I've also been doing a bit of route planning and working out what kit I'll need.  Overall it's quite a lot to organise - more than I'd realised, particularly as I'm planning on camping, so the amount of kit required to be self sufficient seems to be so much greater!  I guess I can blog more on this later.