I’ve been riding on the Rouvy for almost a year now, and I love it. If you’re unfamiliar with the training platform, it’s basically a glorified exercise bike hooked up to a monitor. As you pedal, the scenery changes, simulating a ride through a real life cycling route. The resistance reflects the gradient in front of you, and you can challenge yourself to ride anything from a flat spin in the Everglades to a big mountain stage on the Tour de France. When I was training for our Paris-Nice ride, I used it almost daily, and once a week took on an Alpine col to get used to riding hard gradients for hours at a time. The big sell of Rouvy is the realism and the ability to jump on the bike and ride almost anywhere in the world from the comfort of your own home.

You can also take part in Challenges, which link together rides on the same theme and give you rewards when you complete them. These are good fun and extend the experience to be a bit like a mini-tour; I recently did a seven-stage ride across Wales, for example, and when the cycling World Championships took place in Rwanda last year there was a brilliant series of Rouvy routes there. I particularly enjoy the regular Ride Around the World, which over the last month or two has taken me to the Azores, Sicily and Lanzarote as part of the 12-stage European Islands series. I haven’t been to the Azores, but I have great affinity with both Sicily and Lanzarote – particularly, as a geologist, for their volcanoes.

The final stage of the European Islands series was a spectacular ride across the Timanfaya National Park in Lanzarote, and I had hoped that the series was going to end there. It was a road I had actually ridden before, in real life, in 2013. I think it was my first ride abroad, my only ever ride on a carbon-frame bike, and probably still my most breathtaking ride.

In January 2013 I was still employed in the family hotel business, and with January being our quietest month we usually took holidays then. Our eldest son Freddie was, then, our only son; he was just over a year old and Alex wouldn’t along for another couple of years. I was studying my geology degree then and Lanzarote was a good way to combine learning and family time. After a few days in Fuerteventura, we took the ferry over to Lanzarote, hired a car and started exploring.

I was very much in my element. We explored more or less the whole island and found volcanics at the heart of everything; from Cesar Manrique’s astonishing home built in lava tubes in Tahíche to the crisp salty wines made from volcanic soil and ocean. But the most incredible part was Timanfaya’s miles after mile of bleak beauty. This landscape consists largely of ominously-dark lumps of basalt from the 18th and 19th century volcanic eruptions on the island, and where the rock catches the light just right it turns shades or red, yellow and purple. It appears to be otherworldly, almost inhospitable. How could you grow anything here? How can you tame a landscape where the rocks beneath your feet are boot-searingly sharp and jagged? At the visitor centre, you can take a bus tour around the cinder cones formed during the last eruption – no walking allowed – and order a roast chicken that has been cooked simply by dropping it on a chain into a hole where the rock is oven-hot just ten metres below the surface. I loved it.

We happened on a bike shop in Puerto del Carmen, and a plan began to form in my mind. Perhaps I could hire a bike for a day, go out an do a morning ride and be back by midday? And so, for the first time, I conducted a ritual familiar to every cyclist with a family who don’t share his or her passion: the pre-dawn rise, stumble around for socks, quick breakfast and out of the door quietly to make the most of the precious little time I’d been allotted.

I was out of the apartment for 7.30am, and in midwinter it was still dark I rode my carbon-fibre bike on the pavement and up the hill out of Puerto del Carmen, and remember stopping to watch the sun rise behind the distant cloud on the horizon. and then it was on to Timanfaya.

It was a long time ago, and I don’t remember the detail. I had just an iPod for photos and didn’t have any way to record on the new Strava app I’d just started using, so I don’t even have many nucleation points for memories to coalesce around. I remember that the ride flattened out from the top of PdC and took a straight route across the basalt to Timanfaya, then curled up a few short climbs, and with the sun behind me the rocky hills were so beautifully lit. It was strikingly silent. And then I came to what looked like a col, the road swung right, and the volcanic plain lay strewn out beautifully below me. Another turn to the left and I was descending, and I remember the surge of adrenaline as I rode hard down the slope towards these incredible volcanic peaks that were being breathtakingly lit by the morning sun. I had never felt that rush before. As the road flattened I put myself into what I imagined was a time trial position and pumped my legs as hard as I could until, approaching the visitor centre, I stopped for a selfie by one of the ‘El Diablo’ devils that serve as the mascot of the national park. I only took half a dozen photos on the whole ride, and barely saw a car until the midmorning tourist buses started passing. By then, I was well on my way back to the apartment, and by midday normal family service had resumed and we were on the beach.

Riding the route on Rouvy was incredible and filled in so many of the gaps for me. It is a fantastic road and I loved being able to look ahead and anticipate the climbs. I even called the boys in to watch when the most spectacular bits were coming up. And do you know what – I even saw a few of those roadside diablos. Thank you Rouvy, for an excellent challenge, a fantastic route and for bringing back some memories of a great day out and an even more wonderful holiday.