Last day - it's not a big programme, sprint series, team time trial and the closing 180 lap chase. By six day standards that's not a long chase, around 38 K - at Copenhagen they have 300 lappers on a 250 track - but here, it's heavy duty for the small teams. Franco reckons that Kris and I should have dinner in the track centre, tonight - well, it sounded good to me.

Grenoble Six Day 2011... Bed was at 02:00 am so I didn't have too much problem getting up at 07:45 to do some 'real world' stuff. The only trouble with that is I know I won't feel nearly as frisky come 02:30 am. I was meant to have an interview with Luke Roberts today, he was meant to get word about what's happening team-wise for 2012.

It's a glorious day in Grenoble, warm, calm, sunny - not a day to be stuck in a stuffy stadium. But that's the runner's place in the way of things - scrambled eggs on fresh baguettes for breakfast eased the pain. The 35 minute chase was a better show tonight and the French guys didn't get pummelled quite so savagely.

Grenoble Six Days 2011... One day, I'd like to come here and sit at one of the big tables with friends and family, watch the cabaret, and the racing, chat, eat and drink too much. It's good value at 63 euros per head: that gets you in, allows you to attack the beautiful buffet and provides you a bottle of wine, mineral water and a coffee as you watch the racing and the cabaret - one day...

It takes a few days to find the rhythm of a six-day - usually for me it's the sixth day. My feet stop hurting and I get a proper sleep. Last night I slept ok 'til around 06:00 am but after that it was disjointed, the sound of the traffic and the drone of the refrigeration units on the restaurant supply tucks saw to that - not to mention the bizarre dreams.

'The track door will open at 09:30,' we were told, but this is the Grenoble Six Days 2011 - in France, and you have to give or take 45 minutes - and sure enough, we got in around 10:15. Bring the last of the gear down from the camper, set up the track cabins, go to the shops for supplies, help the guys with their bikes, go to the shops for razors so Franco can shave his legs, help with the dinner, do the washing up and then slip out quietly when the riders all descend upon our cabin for their pre-race meeting.

It's a grey morning in Grenoble; we can't unload until 11:00 am and then we have to drive up to Lyon and collect Jesper and Marc off the plane. In the stadium office they have great old black and white photos of the stadium under construction; it really is a gem of a building, if you like modern architecture.

Up at 04:30, the plan was to get the bus from Porty at 09:00 - however, and to cut a long story short, the van is abandoned in a western suburb of Edinburgh and a cab was flagged down to get me to the airport on time. The flight was undramatic - thank God - and there was Kris in the airport bus park, with the camper. It's seems to be an unwritten law that you have to arrive in a different country from where the race is; so the rendez-vous was in Geneva, Switzerland.

Braveheart rider Andy Fenn took an excellent bronze medal in the World U23 Road Race Championship 2011 on a windy but dry day in the northern suburbs of Copenhagen. The French team proved best motivated and organised with a dazzling one-two. Let's hope that Arnaud Demare doesn't go the way of so many French amateur and U23 champions in the past - big hype, big contract then a gradual slide in to obscurity.

No races today, time to catch up with some old friends, the gossip and write up the Worlds Elite rr preview and fit in an interview - I have to justify my existence. We're about 20 K from the city of Copenhagen in Naerum, which is right on the course. It takes two trains to get to central Copenhagen, but they run frequently and bang on time. Our meeting this morning was with Dane, Jimmy Hansen.

'Time trials are boring!' say the road men. But run it through the middle of one of Europe's great cities, with the best 'chrono men' on the planet jousting for a rainbow jersey through dense crowds and it's far from boring - spectacular! We got to the World Road Championships 2011 course early to see what we could see.

World Road Championships 2011 and it was wearing on for midnight when we pulled in to the truck stop in the north of The Netherlands; hundreds of artics lined up, many with refrigeration units chugging away on the cab roofs - how do the drivers sleep? You have to think it would be more environmentally friendly to haul all that freight by train? Anyway, 'Green Ed' what a thought that is.

Food poisoning; it's no fun. Vik and I were meant to fly to the Beauvais last Wednesday, take in the Championship of Flanders, the GP Isbergues, a handful of kermises then meet up with Hamish Haynes, Dan Patten, James Spragg - 'our boys,' no chance. I was so weak I couldn't leave the house - on a positive note, my North Face jacket fits me again.

We're in the Dröme Department, and it may be a notional Tour de France Rest Day, but all that really means is that there's no racing today - despite what Ned Boulting might tell you about spending time in launderettes, almost everyone still has lots to do. For example, the riders - for whom the rest day is most important, still have to attend press conferences, talk to daft journalists and answer "f****ing stupid questions"(copyright Mark Cavendish), the team mechanics take advantage of the extra time to prep the time trial bikes for next Saturday's chrono, and so on.

Le Tour de France 2011 and We couldn't get out of Andorra quickly enough. Before 08:00 we got the lift down from the 5th floor of the hotel, to be greeted by great plumes of cigarette smoke belching out of the breakfast area. Last night's determination to "make a fuss about the lack of advertised weefee" evaporated, as we just wanted to put distance between us and this horrid place as fast as possible.

Andorra, Pyrénées. Everything about it seems wrong. For a start, it's an independent tax haven/principality sitting at the top of a Pyrenean mountain, an hour's drive over sweeping twisty hairpinned roads from the nearest town. Some pals said to me that when they went to Andorra for skiing, they thought it was OK. Perhaps the snow covered all the cracks, but I'm not sure how the inhabitants' attitudes could be masked; almost - no, everyone - we met was unpleasant, in attitude and manner.

A day of two parts. Figuring today's stage would maybe see good racing, but not GC changing action, we decided to head over to Lourdes for another wee shot of the Village Depart, get a bit of breakfast, chase soundbites from the folk on the race and watch the depart. Walking into the Village we got talking to a young American - bet you're singing that now - who was on assignment from the Wall Street Journal...

Looking for a nice meal in Lourdes with great service? That's too bad, you'll struggle to find it! We were lucky to come across the only half-civil waiter in the town after landing in the third restaurant of the night, after being variously ignored by staff and stared at at by local idiots in the first two places we tried. Today's plan: head up to the start at Cugnaux and get a Village Depart breakfast, then drive on race route until the famous climb of the Tourmalet, where we pitched up around 3km from the top.

It was a very warm evening yesterday, and we wandered back round to the hotel last night after our dinner in the middle of a typical Pyrenean thunderstorm - huge bolts of lightning searing across the sky and claps of thunder which lingered and reverberated for what seemed like 20 seconds. In the space of 5 minutes, the roads were flooded. We went to sleep in our "pod" room to the sound of pouring rain, and woke up to the same - only worse. It wasn't a nice day to be outside, let alone reporting on, or riding, a bike race.

Yesterday we arrived in Rodez as planned, picked up the hire car without any bother, and got ourselves, eventually, after getting lost a couple of times, to the hotel - one of these typical French 'pod' rooms, but it's okay with it's bunk beds and little shower room / toilet. A drive up to the Permanence, aka the Press Headquarters, to pick up our race accreditation, and we'd be all set for a pretty cruisy Rest Day. Only, the Permanence happened to be over two hours drive away, and once there, we found that only Ed's 'creds' were ready - mine hadn't been "approved by Julia" (the head ASO cred issuer).