BBC Sport's Andy Nicolson and Paul Redgrove, and IT colleague Jon Cook, are attempting to get fit enough to ride l'Etape du Tour - an amateur mountain stage of the Tour de France in the Pyrenees this summer.

Read their last diary entry.

Here, Andy recounts their experience of riding the 81-mile, closed-road Etape Caledonia in Highland Perthshire.

After eight hours of driving, prolonged Highland rainfall, comedy shopping moments, Saturday night spent watching GI Jane on the caravan TV and Jon caught in the crossfire between Paul’s cheerful nagging and my best grumpy-old-man act, the big day finally dawned.

The ‘Cally’ presented two milestones for the nascent Team BBC (Big Blokes on Cycles?): a yardstick for l’Etape training progress, and the first outing as a trio.

To mark the occasion, the weather god smiled, bestowing the day with bright sun and windless, clean, crisp Highland air. Though to say it was a bit parky cycling into Pitlochry at half past six was an understatement. Chilblains on the fingers was closer to the truth.

But, as would become apparent, though the deities had given with one hand, they were to take away with the other; the god of team-work was clearly not at work on such a beautiful day. I reckon he was the bloke we saw in the waders enjoying a day’s fishing in the River Garry.

The town was almost deserted at a quarter to seven. Apart from the barriers lining the start, and small groups of cyclists huddling for warmth in the patches of early sun on the western side of the main road, there was little to suggest that the UK’s only closed-road cycling event was about to begin.

However, as the 7 o’clock start sounded its Pied Piper tune in the minds of the participants, from every side-street riders came tumbling until the town centre was alive with a vivid mass of lycra, helmets, race numbers and sunglasses, accompanied by the melodic mechanics of slow-turning wheels, and the clack-clack of pedal clips on tarmac.

Having been given different start times, Team BBC opted to set off last to depart together. But despite having discussed team ‘tactics’ the day before – with much emphasis on staying together – the start was pretty much the end, as far as riding as a team was concerned.

Clearly I’m going to have to give serious thought to bringing the politics of the hard-left to amateur cycling – engineer a disagreement over policy detail and use it as an excuse to form a breakaway faction. The Cyclist Workers Party, perhaps. Or just Team Andy.

But back to the Cally. The mutineers dropped me within the first couple of miles, so I soon resolved to settle into my own groove and focus on getting myself round the glorious course.

And nowhere was it more glorious than where the road curves around the eastern end of Loch Rannoch; with clear skies and not a breath of wind, the view stretched the entire length of the mill-pond serene loch to the distant, snow-capped peaks of the Black Corries and on to Glen Coe. I could easily retire to exactly that spot.

At the 45-mile mark came the (roughly) 600ft climb around Schiehallion, which proved to have been more of a struggle in my imagination than in reality – in fact, I’d nearly go so far as to say I enjoyed it!

After the joy of the long descent, reaching speeds of around 40mph, the unthinkable happened – at the second feed station at 65 miles, the team reunited and began to ride together. Unfurl the banners, stop the press, sound the trumpets, to herald success! There is hope after all.

Or there is when the team’s ‘Fletcher Christian’ sees the five-hour mark as an achievable target and needs a train to get him home in time…

Anyway, enough of my sunny disposition.

For just over 10 miles we rode like the wind (well, maybe a breeze), passing all before us in the pursuit of the five-hour mark. And that was perhaps the highlight of the day – riding ‘on the rivet’, pulling each other along with our own clumsy version of the ‘through and off', weaving snake-like cross and forth the road to take the shortest lines… feeling like ‘proper’ cyclists… feeling like a team. Great fun.

Which is the whole point, right?

You’ve read the book, now watch the film here on the BBC or down with the street on YouTube.

Did you ride the Cally, and if so, how did it go for you?

Do you have any advice for improving our team-work? Should the team ride at the pace of its slowest member or should he resign himself to being dropped?

And what do you think could be the cause of the pain in the outer sides of both of my calves – cleat settings on the pedals?