Like Simon Usborne and his Windsor triathlon (hats off, Simon) I've got my own challenge looming with the Etape du Tour, the amateurs' stage of the Tour de France, which takes place in the Pyrenees on Sunday 6 July.

I've tackled four Etapes, but completed only three. Last year I was one of a rumoured 40 per cent who failed to finish the particularly brutal stage that was Foix to Loudenvielle, also in the Pyrenees, so I go into the the 2008 event with what feels like unfinished business.

Having ridden both the Etape Caledonia and the Chiltern Hundred sportive in the past month, it was time last week for another really big training ride, and I found it courtesy of the long-distance cycling organisation Audax and the quaintly named 'Wednesday Wander', perhaps more accurately described as a 213km slog from Ruislip in west London out to Chipping Norton and back. Not as hilly as the Chiltern Hundred, but far from flat, and the wind seemed to be in your face the whole way round.

The combination of midweek and a dodgy weather forecast reduced the starting field to a mere seven, so it was even more important than usual to stay with others for as long as possible. Thanks then to the mighty Steve, a Land's End to John O'Groats veteran, who towed me round the first 140km or so, at which point I could no longer keep up. But I got home safely, good endurance miles in my legs, and from now to the big day I'll be concentrating on hill work.

So - I might not have been commuting, but if a 213km ride isn't getting into the spirit of National Bike Week then I don't know what it is. Meanwhile, for worthier thoughts on NBW, check out my colleague James Daley's Cyclotherapy column.