In 2002 and 2019 I cycled the length of Great Britain. Over the past few weeks I have been reliving some of the most memorable moments of those tours – in my kitchen, on my Wattbike Atom smart training bike.

It was inspired by an email from Wattbike about a series of rides on the Rouvy indoor training app. I’d tried Rouvy very briefly last autumn but this seemed like a good reason to give it another go. There was a competition to win Wattbike goodiies but that was less of an incentive – I never win these contests.

Rouvy has taken sections of seven stages of the Babble Ride Across Britain Land’s End to John O’Groats ride (LEJOG), which takes place this September. I’d ridden two of these routes in my 2002 LEJOG, and four on my 2019 one.

The first ride was across Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, which I remember as a very tough ride as a horribly undertrained rider in 2002. I remember the respite of a lunch stop in a village cafe in Minions – and the moment I saw that very cafe on the Rouvy app was the experience that made me a Rouvy fan.