My journey started with a quick blast through the Bath traffic. I had forgotten the exact time of the train that I had to catch. When I found out what it was, I had 19 minutes to drive 3 miles across town, get changed, load my panniers onto my bike and cycle the mile into the station. I made it with 30 seconds to spare. I slumped in the guards van and caught my breath.

I took the train to Slough and rode along the A4 to Heathrow airport. Its not the lovliest bit of Britain, but the traffic wasn't too bad. After an uneventful flight to Marseille, I was met by Daniel Baty. We drove across town, dropped off my luggage, had a quick tour of the CNRS laboratories, and went for a delicious meal in the centre of the city.

On the Friday morning, I reassembled my bike (a Trek 520 tourer), loaded up the panniers and headed off across the Col de la Ginestre (365m) to the small port of Cassis. The weather was perfect with cloudless skies, warm sunshine and a gentle breeze. It was to stay the same for the whole of my trip. A couple of days after I get back to Britain, Marseille is deluged with two inches of rain in a single night! I booked a bed at a youth hostel about 100km to the north, wrote some postcards on the beach, had a play in the waves and stocked up on some food, which meant that it was almost noon by the time that I left.

Near the top of the climb, my trip computer decides I need a bit of encouragement. It reboots itself and comes back reading kilometres. About this time, I realise that it is getting a bit late and I'm going to have to take the direct route to the youth hostel at Fontaine de Vaucluse if I'm going to make it. The descent to le Pujol is fun, but its a little bumpy to be able to go too fast.

Its the evening rush hour when I pass through Aix en Provence, which might have nice parts, but I didn't see them. I rode on the main roads for the ease of navigating in the dark. I still get a little lost, especially trying to take the D543 through the village of Eguilles. Once I get to Cadanet, I have the choice of a direct, hilly route through some picturesque, but dark, Provence villages, or the main road to Cavillon. This is a bit longer but follows a valley an should be flatter. My legs felt a bit weak so I chose the latter. By now my computer had given up completely, but I make good time. By the time I reach the first signpost to Fontaine de Vaucluse, I'm starting to wilt and the time is approaching 11pm, when the hostel shuts up for the night. I make it with ten minutes to spare - exhausted, thirsty and hungry. Sleep isn't a problem! The total distance for the day was about 170km.

The Fontaine de Vaucluse youth hostel is simple with just the right number of guests - enough for chatting through the evening - not so many that you couldn't get into the kitchen to cook.

In the evening, I'm still a little apprehensive about climbing Mont Ventoux. Its about three times bigger than the Col de l'Espigoulier, starting at 360m in Malaucene and rising to 1909m at the summit in 21km. Its unusual in that the road goes right to the summit of the mountain. I tell myself that if I wimp out halfway up, I can always freewheel home.

I ride out at 9am the next day through Carpentras and Malaucene. Its fairly uneventful apart from passing though the pungent smoke from a bonfire of lavender.

After Malaucene, there is a marker every kilometre or two which has the altitude. The bottom of the hill is a fairly steady 6-8% climb. Surviving the first 10-12% stretch gives me confidence. It turns "will I make it?" into "when will I make it?"

I stop after the first quarter of the climb for a breather and a bite to eat. When I start, I feel absolutely awful for the first few minutes, really struggling to go a very moderate pace. I guess that I've diverted some of my circulation from my legs to digesting the bread. I now know why people say that you should eat little and often!

I reach the summit two and a half hours after the start of the climb, very pleased with myself. I was only passed by one other cyclist and that was in the last fifty yards as I waited for a driver to decide where to park. After ten minutes at the top, I changed into some warmer clothes and set off for the descent.

I went down by the route through Bedoin to Carpentras as was used in the Tour de France this year. There seemed to be a lot more people climbing in that direction. I reckon it was probably better in the direction that I went, although I had to read all the names painted on the road upside-down. The road had been resurfaced for the TdF which was more of a help going down than coming up. I can't say that I was looking at too many of the views on the descent, but it seemed to me that they weren't as nice as those on the road from Malaucene. The wind wasn't very strong when I was there, so it didn't matter that the route that I took for the climb was more exposed.

The descent was steep enough at the start to make me keep the brakes on for the first few minutes. Now my forearms are hurting more than my legs were on the climb. After a while, the grade eases and I can keep my speed in check by sitting up before the corners. I got a little lost on the way back so I end up riding by moonlight across a 350m col after 120km on the day.

I crested one hill and then freewheeled down into a valley. I could hear a stream rushing past alongside the road and was just a little surprised to see that the water was flowing in the opposite direction! There was a natural dam at the end of the valley so the river had rerouted around to the next one.

Once I got into Marseille, it took me over an hour to thread my way around to my hotel after a 110km ride. The TV had continuous adverts on one channel, a studio discussion on another and dubbed US series on each of the remaining three channels.

Tuesday was a day of work after which I caught the 6pm flight back to Heathrow. I reassembled my bike and took the shuttle bus out of the airport complex. Within the first 50 yards, I came up to a roundabout, noticed a puddle in the middle of the lane and slowed to wait for a gap in the traffic. It was then that I found that it was a puddle of oil and I was dumped unceremoniously onto the tarmac. I got straight up onto the traffic island in time to see a double decker bus pull up just behind my bike. Once the bus had stopped, I recovered my bike and gave it a once over. Luckily the only damage was to my pride and the handlebar tape.

I rode to Slough, got a train to Reading and waited for a connection to Bath. They were running 15 minutes late so they decided to avoid Bath and head straight for Bristol. They claimed that there would be a bus service from Swindon. British Rail hadn't been able to run their trains properly, so I didn't fancy trusting them to run a bus service that would take my bike. Instead I stayed on the train into Bristol and rode the 25km back into Bath at about 1am. This brought the overall trip distance to 440km (275 miles).