On a nice morning in May 1996 I grabbed my bicycle and, with the intention of spending a whole day on it, rode it to Belgium and back – clocking up 256 kilometres. I did that on a decent but fairly average Altra bicycle. In my possession now is a blisteringly fast Koga Miyata Traveller. It's expensive, red, it's got 27 gears, and it's all light-weight and durable.. And I can honestly claim to now be the fastest cyclist in town. I haven't been challenged in years. Even mopeds can't usually match my acceleration and a top speed of 45 km/h over city streets and cycle paths. So today I thought I might as well try to set a new distance record. I didn't like cycling through Belgium much back then (too dangerous), so why not ride to the North Sea and back (300 kilometres), to the North (300), to the Ruhrgebiet in Germany (275), to Breda (250), to Maastricht (300) or Antwerp (350)? Why not indeed! Because it rained, that's why. And I can't drag myself out of bed.