THE impressive news. I’ve just completed the 40-mile course that I will be tackling on Sunday, July 5.

The less-than-impressive news? My wife was driving the car and I was in the passenger seat taking notes.

The one thing that strikes you about the Dorset Macmillan Ride is that whoever mapped out the course clearly loves the county because it’s a really stunning ride through villages and countryside that you probably won’t see through a car window due to the narrowness of the roads.

In fact, the trip took fully two hours in the motor, such were the problems created by the low sun and the fear of some boy racer coming the other way on the one-track roads.

Strangely enough, we encountered some extremely thoughtful and friendly drivers along the way and I sincerely hope that any negotiating these narrow highways a week on Sunday will be similarly benevolent.

The route is actually not as scary as I imagined, although a hill leading to Lytchett Matravers a few miles from the finish line – a point in the ride where I anticipate I will be accompanied by a medical team with an oxygen tent – looks buttock-clenchingly tortuous.

“You can always get off your bike and walk,” said my wife, who is clearly unaware that wearing padded Lycra shorts and fingerless riding gloves on a very slick road bike from Primera automatically negates any such possibility.

All I can hope is that there are enough people around urging each other on to the summit.

It’s either that or the company Huskies… JUST as I finish my training on the flat along the Prom, it all kicks off again with a cyclist colliding with a young girl at Branksome Chine.

What this cycling lark has taught me over the past weeks more than anything is that without a clear commitment to cycling zones and lanes, if you’re riding a bike, you’ll never achieve the moral high ground from those people who see us as either a danger or an irritation.

Yes, there is an idiot minority who exercise what they see as a divine right to travel at speed where there are pedestrians, just as there’s an idiot minority of drivers whose ability to see cyclists – let alone give them space – simply beggars belief.

But where one faction has right of way against another with far more capacity to create physical injury, some alternative has to be sought.

The speed limit of 10 mph is unworkable, especially when you compare an empty prom on a cloudy evening with one in the middle of a sunny day.

But it IS all about common sense and being aware that the most unpredictable users, especially children and pets, are going to prove a challenge.

Mind you, there can’t be too many cyclists who have mastered the art of riding a bike AND firmly heading a football back onto the beach whence it came at some speed…