Well, what a welcome return to the Deloitte Ride Across Britain. When I crossed the line in Land's End last year I didn't think I'd ever be back, but there I was checking in to base camp ready to ride again.

This year it's slightly different though as unfortunately I won't be riding the whole event, as I was away with the GB team racing at the World Cup in Segovia, Spain. With the racing finished, Darren Kenny, David Stone, Helen Scott, Terry Byrne, Jon-Allan Butterworth and I travelled to Glasgow to join the Deloitte RAB riders for the four stages down to Bath.

The initial hurdle I was going to face on day four was going to be, what am I going to ride on?

An odd question considering my office is my bike, however, on the trip back from Spain, mine, David's and Darren's bike didn't make it with us and would be on the next flight to Glasgow. So with an early morning trip to the airport, team coach Chris Furber picked our bikes up. By the time we'd built the bikes and everything was ready everyone had left the start so we packed the bikes into the team van and headed to the first pit stop at Happendon Service station, where we met up with Jon-Allan, Helen and Terry who all had their bikes as they hadn't been in Spain with us. By then, all the other riders from the Deloitte RAB had already ridden 33 miles and were filling up water bottles and taking in essential food for the remainder of the day.

Once we were rolling on the road, our group, all riding in full GB colours, certainly looked impressive and we turned many heads as we passed riders all along the route to Carlisle Racecourse. From the friendly hellos to the keenest riders jumping on the back of the GB train just to say they rode with us, even if for some it was only for a few hundred metres, it was a great atmosphere and as we continued the sun decided to come out. Actually I was caught out and ended the ride with a sun burnt face and panda eyes from where my sunglasses had blocked the sun, not an attractive look!

One of the highlights of the day was as we crossed the border from Scotland to England, mainly because as soon as we crossed this border the road surface markedly improved, turning from a rough bumpy surface to a glass like finish in comparison, much appreciated as it didn't feel as hard to ride fast.

The route down to Carlisle was a relatively flat stage without any hard points, considering this was day four for the 500 or so riders, I can imagine this was a welcome relief. There were some jovial comments about our speed and the fact you could tell it was our first day!

The finish to the stage was enjoyable with all GB riders upping the pace, in the process we picked up quite a few other riders who seemed to enjoy the high speed blast into the finish, and shook our hands as we crossed the line and thanked us for the tow.

Once we'd finished it was a quick coffee sat in the sun with the team before heading to the hotel to chill in preparation for stage five.

I'm really enjoying being back on the Deloitte Ride Across Britain. Having seen such a positive impact to my times from taking part last year I was really eager to come back and use the ride as part of my preparation for London 2012. To meet so many people who are fundraising for ParalympicsGB is fantastic and the total that has been raised will make a huge difference to the preparations of the British Paralympic team for London 2012.

Happy cycling!

Jody Cundy was born with a deformed foot which was amputated when he was three-years-old. He represented Britain three times in swimming at the Paralympic Games from 1996 to 2004, winning three gold and two bronze medals. He then switched to cycling in 2006, before winning gold at Beijing 2008 to become one of only a handful of athletes that have become Paralympic champions in two different sports. Visit his website here and follow him on twitter.