Pau, Pyrenees, Tuesday 7.30am.

The waiting is over.

The Goat has overslept and still has his shoes on.

This time however he is complaining that he has got the worst hangover he has ever had before the start of a ride.

Clearly this is down to poor training methods as I feel fine in spite of a fine tally last night of international beers including 3 Pelforths, 4 Amstels, 4 Superbocks, 2 glasses of red wine and 4 Murphys.

Naverrenx, Lunchtime.

We are in a café that advertises Le Sandwich but doesn't have any.

In fact it doesn't have any food at all and le Patron simply advises everyone to eat somewhere else which seems to be in keeping with how they do things round here - last night a bloke who looked like D'Artignan insisted on buying us beers from the bar opposite the one we were in resulting in the rather strange experience of drinking from two bars at once.

But we are on the road again.

Predictably, the Goat's indoor training regime has left him short of a few of the basic bike handling skills and techniques like braking properly and cycling on the correct side of the road.

This latter defect was evidenced when I had to restrain him from verballing some unfortunate French motorist who had just done an emergency stop to avoid him.

I pointed out to him that the Europeans tend to drive on the right hand side of the road as the Fenchman threw up his hands and shouted, "Zut alors! Vous est une imbecile!"

Now call me stupid but I have allowed Martin to look after the expenses to give him something to do and he has come up with a new paperless system that would make most MPs proud.

He keeps the figures in his head and redacts them at will. I have suggested that he stands in the next election as the Redaction Party candidate for Hitchin South.

Meanwhile an audit is required on the euros I am having to fork out. Naverrenx, Lunchtime - another café.

This one serves food which seems to be something of a novelty in the Basque Country.

Col d'Osquich 507 metres, Café Bista.

The Goat was in turbo mode on this climb as we burned out a pannierless French cyclist who thought he was going to take us out close to the summit.

The Turbo Goat even took me by surprise and I am ashamed to say that I was dropped temporarily as he went for the polka-dot jersey.

St Jean Pied de Port, 8pm 110km.

Avid Goat followers will be pleased to know that he cracked big time on the second climb of the day, the Col de Galima and only just managed to limp into St Jean Pied de Port.

I have come up with a cunning method of getting the Goat to speed up over short distances.

Earlier in the day a barking hound gave chase to us along the road causing a burst of speed from the Goat that would have taken Mark Cavendish by surprise.

An hour or so later whilst I was sitting on his back wheel I delivered a quick "Woof-woof!" and watched as he switched into overdrive and disappeared over the next hill.

A few of you have said you are fed up with me having a go at the Goat all the time.

"Anyone who can cycle across Spain has got to be pretty fit," says Mrs Brown from Northampton though I suspect this is Martin's mum!

Mrs Brown is quite right, of course, and it is true that he has come a long way since our Lejog (Land's End / John O'Groats) days where he was floored on day two by the collection of molehills that makes up Dartmoor. He is much stronger than he was then.

Unfortunately his bike isn't and it is this, coupled with the fact that he lives in a geographical vacuum that let's him down.

To be fair he says I have a lot of faults and in particular he is fond of complaining that I haven't cleaned the cleats on my bike shoes since I stepped in a pile of dog turd, coincidentally also on day two of Lejog, and that is the reason that he doesn't hold onto my back wheel too close.

This is a c**p excuse (if you'll pardon the pun) as I bought new shoes last year.

Someone I haven't had a pop at yet is Gareth Francis, our Audit & Assurance partner (must ask him what that means one day).

This is possibly because, like me he is a bit of an athlete.

OK, he plays golf, but at least he goes for a long walk before he has a drink - Byett and Sulley just head straight for the bar! Speaking of which, I am in need of some further rehydration myself.