Today's weather had a lesson, and it was: cycling in severe winds is a bad idea.

I got on the road before 9, the wind wasn't that strong and it was basically a tailwind so it's hard to say. Almost no traffic. Spectacular sky, barren scenery. I could do this all day.

Until the road went from north-east to north-west-north, and the wind picked up. This was a bit of a known quantity: the route is mostly north and a bit east, so I was expecting the westerly to be mostly useful and only occasionally a problem. This was expected.

It's not a headwind but an increasingly severe sidewind. The problem is that gusts push the front wheel right; if it does that twice in a row and you haven't recovered in between you're into the gravel and have to put all the brakes on because with this sidewind the bike wants to go diagonally right which means into the loose gravel and then down the bank.

And then when the bike stops, the wind tries to blow it over. So there's a lot of ways for things to go annoyingly or painfully wrong.

Today was all about the Patagonian wind. It was unusually strong - so strong there's a warning. The really strong stuff should be coming out tonight and tomorrow morning, so I was hoping to avoid the worst of it. Maybe I did, and I should be grateful for what little I experienced? I can't go that far.

Today's trip started with a 2h18m, 42km ride to the ferry. I left before 9, and was hoping to get on the 1130 departure. There was a strong westerly (not the first time I've told this story, I know) and my pace was pretty directly related to how much I was pointing west. North? Can't go fullspeed, but can get a good speed. West? Nope, find the right gear and be at peace with slow progress.

At 1108 I passed a sign saying 8km to go. That's half an hour at a respectable pace, so the 1130 is missed, might as well stop pushing and save energy. I ended up arriving just before 12, but in my defence that part of the route is pretty much west!

But a ferry was arriving! For a moment it looked like the timing was perfect. But it loaded up three trucks from a side road and departed immediately, without taking anyone from the queue.

The Patagonian weather experience continues today!

The forecast was: 1-5, low chance of rain, light wind from the west. Sounds reasonable - since it's above zero, there should be no ice or snow or sleet or hail or anything.

(You know where this is going. And it's good.)

And unlike yesterday, the forecast was right! There was a light dusting of overnight snow, but it melted through the day because it was not too cold, the sun was out, but best of all: there was almost no wind. Maybe this isn't unusual but it's the first time in my time here when there haven't been strong winds.

As well as being snow-free and wind-free it was also drama-free. The only actual dramatic tension that happened was late afternoon when I thought I'd get a photo of the long straight road, figured I should get the picture from the centerline since there was no traffic. I was setting up the shot when I saw a truck in the distance so I retreated to the roadside ... and then realized I'd dropped my glove. Would the truck driver squash it, or straddle it?

I think I've had the full Patagonia weather experience today.

The forecast was: 1-5 degrees, good chance of rain, constant 30km/h wind from the west. Sounds reasonable - since it's above zero, there should be no ice or snow or sleet or hail or anything.

(You know where this is going. And it's not good.)

Did I mention the wind? I'm going to. The forecast predicted a westerly, and that's pretty standard for Patagonia; it's strong and as far as I can see it's almost continuous. There's no trees around here, and that's probably a big part of the reason why. The only grass is brown and scrubby and there's patches of bare earth. This wind is part of the enviroment.

Today's westerly should mean I get a side wind for most of the day, I'll only be heading directly into it at the end.

But that isn't how it happened.

Today looked like a nice, undemanding ride: 6 hours duration, temperatures 0-6, light wind from the southwest. Started with a good breakfast with croissants (!) and ended up getting on the bike a bit late, at 10am.

The town of Tolhuin has some pretty good hills and the workout meant before long I didn't need the fleece. The forecast also warned about a high UV index so while getting the fleece stashed I also got sunscreened. And after a few disagreements about the route I got on the main road and headed north.

And it was happily boring. There was ice on the ponds but no snow, there was no headwind, the road wasn't too steep. A whole day like this would be great.

The most exciting thing was a warning roadsign with a llama.

But then it got bad.

The internet said the temperature range for Ushuaia in October is 5-15, so I did not have a good moment when I checked the weather forecast last night and found it was -4 to +4 degrees. Yesterday was a lovely sunny day, a bit cold, but I'd be happy to cycle in it. This morning there had been snow overnight - normally great news, but not today - there was a full canopy of dark snow-filled clouds outside, and light snowfall which normally would be charming but now was foreboding. The forecast didn't have snow, and it didn't think it was snowing now. If it's too optimistic about the snow, what else might be worse than predicted? It's not a good morning.

The sun would occasionally break through and it was lovely and hopeful, and then it'd go behind a cloud and the world turned back into a grey snowy tundra into which only experienced, well-equipped teams should dare go. Should I stay in Ushuaia another day? Well, the forecast for Sunday is about the same so this line of thinking might mean I stay here for a week.

Departure day today! The flight is at 2030 and I have the day off so it should be a leisurely day.

But it somehow ended up being continuously busy. Finding a good place for the AirTag. Backing up and cleaning off the memory cards. Buying and activating South American eSim cards. Checking all the gear to ensure I haven't forgotten anything. Then dividing it up into the pannier that’ll be with me in the cabin (so can’t have any bike tools or liquids) and the pannier that goes into the hold (which can’t have electronics or batteries).

The only real drama was the bikebox.

Counting the weeks is starting to look a little shortsighted, but it's nearly time so I'm not changing now.

I didn't know the exact dates when I started, but I do now: on Thursday 26 I'm flying Amsterdam-Buenos Aires. Then there's three hours at the airport before getting a flight to Ushuaia, and because I can't book the bikebox in advance I need to get that arranged in person, possibly in Spanish. The flight arrives about Friday midday (local time). I need to go to wherever I'm staying and assemble the bike and take a test ride, and I'm not sure which order to do that in.

This weekend is the dress rehearsal, an overnight ride to go through all the motions with all the gear and check that it all works. It'd be good if the ride could include some proper hills - so it's a good opportunity to ride the Dutch Mountain Trail, if only for the lolz. (That's a real thing: 100km long, 1600m climbing. It's a route at the far corner of the Netherlands right next to France and Germany; it scrapes along the borders to pick up all the hills possible. )

But it's going to take a couple of hours to get the gear ready...

The big news of the week is that my handlebar camera broke during the weekend ride. Nothing stupid, it was securely clipped into place. I went over a speed bump, just the same as many others along the trip, and heard the clatter as it hit the road and tumbled. Hauled in the brakes, pulled over, then circled back to check the damage ... it was not pretty. There was some superficial damage to the body but the lens was cracked in three places and the ring holding it in place had been smeared out of shape - signs of a very hard hit.

I've changed the route quite a bit: I'm planning a long section through Chile.

The route I posted originally was the default route from Ushuaia to Lima, with some tweaks to the start and end because they’re tricky areas, with only a few towns. The problem was when I went back and started looking at the middle part. It's a straight line up through Argentina, and it turned out that instead of being a nice simple flat run with regular towns, it was going to be a lot of long and careful steps from small town to small town. Also tricky.

Fortunately, there's two amazingly awesome options which I totally didn't know about until I went Googling: Ruta 40 and Carretera Austral.

The washing machine has been worked unusually hard this week. It's the final and hardest week of the 4-week cycle, and every day except Friday had something scheduled.

The big one was the Wednesday fitness test. The dilemma is: push hard to get a good high number, and need to push equally hard in every class from now on? Or underperform?

I've been looking for some new shorts. The pair I wore for the European Divide were great! But they got ripped in Sweden and there's been a few rounds of repairs and repeat ripping. Also the padding has now had nearly 10,000km of use. So it's time to find a replacement.

Unfortunately, this has been more complicated than it should be.

Mixed results this week. Failed electronics. Failing timelapses. And the cat threw up.

This week is all about timelapse ride videos and shady websites. And steel teeth. 

The US training camp continues, so let's talk about training. In Washington DC.

Training continues, while on holiday in New York. Which is having a heatwave.

A very productive week, clearly indicating that everything is being efficiently worked on.

The European Divide finished up over a year ago ...