Training for the trip of a lifetime..yet another challenge

On May 8th I fly out of Australia for an Italian cycling holiday which will take me from Palermo in Sicily to Lake Como in the Dolomiti.  In between those two locations I will be suffering many days of 100+km cycling up and down longer and steeper slopes of a vicious nature, through rain hail and perhaps in the northern end..even snow. I will also be camping. 

The cycling part is a task I've not had any experience of at all, camping I'm very used to, although not recently.

Last Monday I rode the track for an hour to create a world best for my age grade, now its Saturday and I've finally managed to get on the bike again and done the first of my build up rides, which was a 2 hour ride  with no hard hills.  Luckily this weekend is a long one with a public holiday on Monday, so tomorrow's ride will be longer and a bit more hilly and Monday's will be harder still.  After that I will be riding into work most days.

More anon as training and plans kick into high gear.