Apologies...

Sorry it has taken me so long to update on here about my trip. I will begin now...but will backdate the posts so you know what's what. :-)

Paris!

We only had a few hours in Paris as we all had a bit of a lie in and then had to be ready to get the Eurostar home at 2pm. We spent the morning having a walk around the city (all amazed that our legs were still functioning) and took in some of the sights.

We got back to London at around 4.30pm and collected our bikes from Skyline and went our separate ways, all feeling a lot better off for what we had all just achieved, and all with ideas of the next challenge slowly forming in our minds.

4 days, 300 miles...We made it!

Le Tour Eiffel
After cycling down the Champs Elysees, we came around to the Eiffel Tower. We did a few victory laps of the roundabout before stopping and being greeted by the friends and family of cyclists who had traveled over to meet the group.

We were barely off our bikes before the tears started rolling. The emotional and physical strain of the past 4 days all poured out as soon as we had reached our destination. I'll be honest, I started crying as soon as people started cheering us on the Champs Elysees. I think the sense of achievement and the realisation that we had all really just cycled from London to Paris also hit people. People around the Eiffel Tower were coming over and asking 'Have you really done that?!' pointing to our t-shirts. Yes, I really have just cycled to Paris! The sense of pride was amazing. I have been fundraising for the last 9 months and training hard for the last 6 so it was amazing to have finally achieved the goal.

We all had a good old cry, a glass of champagne and a big pat on the back. It was a truly amazing experience and I feel so lucky to have shared it with so many amazing people. They made every day enjoyable and even the hard parts didn't seem that hard when we tackled them all together.

I managed to raise just over £2,500 for Link Community Development, which will make a huge difference to their projects in Africa. As a group, the London to Paris cyclists raised in excess of £140,000 for our chosen charities.

Celebration
After taking our pictures at the Eiffel Tower, we cycled to our hotels and packed our bikes into the van (to be taken back to London) before heading to the bar for a well earned celebratory beer!

 We then got changed into our glad rags - what a relief to finally put on clothes that were neither luminous nor made of lycra - and headed to the restaurant for the celebration meal. It was a great opportunity to get to socialise with everyone that had been on the ride. Because everyone was riding at a different pace, there were some people that I hadn't seen throughout the whole ride as they were either behind or so far in front that I never even got a glimpse of their back tyre!

It was great to be able to toast our achievement as a group, given that we had all achieved the goal together. It's also nice to be a part of a group of people who have all shared a unique experience. It was definitely one of the best things I have ever done and I don;t think I'll forget the feeling of being cheered riding into Paris for a very long time.

Day 4 - Beauvais to Paris

8am start

Today we had the choice of when to start. There were less miles to ride but again we were riding to a deadline as we all had to be a the lunch spot (just outside Paris) by 1pm. We decided to get out fairly early so that we weren't rushing and had time to stop and enjoy the scenery.

Water stop! 268 miles done!

Today was the hardest day. The route was physically perhaps not as tough as the other days but 3 days of constant cycling had definitely started to take it's toll on my body. The first few miles were a definite struggle but I seemed to get into the swing of it for about an hour and made it to the water stop in good time and with the rest of the group.

After we left the water stop, I seemed to totally hit the wall. I slowed down quite a lot as I just didn't seem to have any energy. I seemed to keep losing most of my group so there were large parts of the morning where I couldn't even see any other riders. This was the toughest day mentally too as I was determined to get there with my group but my body just didn't seem to want to co-operate with me. Towards the water stop, there were some roads that on the first day would have seemed to barely incline but by the last day seemed like mountains to my weary legs.

Photo ops and Cafe stops

As I said before, we had a lot more time today to take it easy and take in some of the scenery so we took a few impromptu stops. Coming to one of these stops, in a cafe, Tracy and I were a bit further behind the others and got stuck behind a bus until it stopped and we could overtake. Coming up to the cafe, a police car stopped and an officer waved at us so I waved back and shouted bonjour, commenting how friendly the police were in France. She then got out of the car and crossed the road before starting to tell us off (I assume she was telling us off, she looked mad but I can't speak French well enough to be sure). We said that we were English and she just threw her hands up and walked back to the car. So, we may or may not have committed a crime/traffic violation but we can't be sure ;-)

Lunch!

What a relief to make it to the lunch stop today and re-unite with my group! I think if it had been any further away that I might not have made it...I was definitely running on empty for the last few miles. When I got there, there were bikes and bodies scattered all over the grass - reassuring me that I was not the only one finding the last day tough! I had a nice hearty, carb-loaded lunch and felt almost instantly better. Plus, knowing we were only a few miles away from the end destination made it so much better.

Entering Paris

After lunch, we cycled a few miles alongside the river Seine to a park on the outskirts of Central Paris where we all re-assembled as a group. We were given our blue 'I cycled London to Paris' t-shirts to change into so that we all looked the same. 

We then cycled in convoy, all 122 of us, behind the Skyline van. As we were cycling up towards the Arc De Triomphe, one of the vans pulled alongside and started to belt out 'The eye of the tiger'. It was quite a surreal experience. Once we got to the top of the road, we all managed to survive the dreaded roundabout and get a fantastic view. 

We then cycled all together down the Champs Elysees. There had been a rugby game on that finished around the same time with Toulouse winning so all the fans were in high spirits. Paris is busy anyway, but with the added rugby supporters, there were hundreds of people there as we cycled past. A lot of people had lined the streets to see what all the commotion was (I'd imagine that 100+ people cycling down the Champs Elysees is not something you see every day) and they all started to cheer and applause as we went past. The feeling is so hard to describe unless you were there, but it was one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced. The rugby fans were running into the street and patting people on the back and throwing high fives. We hadn't known what to expect when we arrived in Paris but I don't think anyone was expecting the welcome that we got. 

Day 3 - Abbeville to Beauvais

8.30am - Briefing and set off!
Another amazing breakfast to get us ready for our day. I slept very poorly the night before, only getting a few hours, so was feeling pretty wiped out before we started. Everyone on the ride was so much fun and so enthusiastic that I didn't really think too much about feeling tired or achey.

The route

Today's route was one of the most scenic of the whole trip, lovely winding roads and picturesque churches everywhere. I suffered my first physcial injury of the trip when some twigs grabbed hold of my ankle and had a good old claw. Luckily, 2 days of cycling had turned me into quite the athlete, so I struggled on regardless of the pain ;-) In keeping with the previous days, there were a lot of hills but we had all started to become pretty pro at them by this time and (even though we stopped a few times) no one actually got off and pushed.

Lunch stop
Between the water stop and lunch, we had become separated again - with the faster group members speeding off into the distance so myself, Tracy and Matt all cycled together for the second leg of the day, keeping to pretty much the same pace. We took a lot more stops today, as again there was less distance to cover and was far more relaxed. There was also more of an opportunity to take pictures as the scenery was a lot better. We stopped for lunch but also made a fair few unscheduled stops.

One of the stops towards the end, a few miles before the hotel was instigated by the blue team. A group of rugby players who had stopped at a pub and called out to everypne passing to make them stop too. There were around 45 people there when we arrived, all rehydrating with a pint. The pub owner looked like he had never seen so many people in his pub before (and probably hadn't). He was so excited that he came out and took videos of everyone.  

The Campanile Hotel

When we got to the hotel, everyone was in really high spirits and not showing any effects of having cycled for 3 days. The trip was such good fun and everyone was laughing so much that any pain or tiredness was secondary to everything else.

Day 2 - Calais to Abbeville

8.30am - Briefing
We set off a little bit later today as we had less distance to cover. The lie in was truly amazing! As was the continental breakfast...crepes and pastries, possibly a little bit of fruit thrown in there, are a great way to fuel for a long day's riding. At the briefing we were given the low down for the day and took time to take a few group photos before setting off.

11am(ish) - First water stop

The terrain was quite hilly - with one huge hill leading up to the first water stop. We learned very quickly on Day 1 that an 'undulation' (in skyline terms) actually means 'the biggest hills you've ever seen, let alone ridden up). There were a fair few of these on day 2, like day 1. The riding was a lot more scenic and a lot more chilled out than day 1 as we weren't on a deadline so it meant that we could take it easy and all have a chat as we cycled which made a huge difference.

Lunch!
Between the water stop and lunch, the group of 10 that we had started out with had all got separated so I rode most of the morning with Tracy. Towards the lunch stop there were a few hills so we managed to catch everyone up and re-unite as a group. The lunch stop was at a lakeside picnic area which was very nice. We stopped for around 30 minutes or so to re-fuel before heading off again in a group. The weather, like the previous day, was dry and sunny. We were lucky as I think rain definitely would have made it a completely different (miserable) experience.

Abbeville!
At the hotel, we all had our evening meal together of "chicken" (I swear the bones were too long to have come from a chicken - the subject of much debate) and chips before having a a few well earned drinks at the bar.

Day 1 - London to Dover

5.30am - Breakfast!
I woke up early, looking forward to a nice heartly athlete's breakfast...So I, along with everyone else, was a little bit disappointed with the luke-warm lumpy porridge and runny scrambled eggs on offer. Disappointed, but not suprised, given the standard of the hotel.

Breakfast was a good opportunity to see everyone together for the first time and make introductions. I found that I was not the only one riding alone so that made me feel a lot better. After breakfast, we headed off to briefing in the near by carpark.

6am - Briefing
The first casualty of the trip occured around 6am and was a poor bike that was runover in the car park. There were 122 cyclists and bikes, plus support vans and crew dotted around but even despite all this...some idiot still decided to race through the middle of everyone and smash a bike! Luckily, the crew managed to change the saddle (which was bent and completely unuseable) so the guy could carry on with the ride.

After the briefing, we were given tags for our bikes and sett off on our merry way out of Crystal Palace.

12pm - Lunch stop - somewhere in Kent

We made quite good progress to the lunch stop, at around 55 miles, so I was suprised when we got there that we only had around 30 miles to go. I cycled most of the way with Graham, Lizzy and Sarah as we seemed to keep the same pace. At the start everyone was together but it only took around 30 minutes for the whole group so be so widely spaced that we didn't see some people until lunch.

4.46pm - Dover!! (Only 1 minute late!)

When we arrived in Dover, we met in a carpark and waited for the whole group to re-assemble before cycling in convoy around to the ferry port. We were at around 86 miles by the time we arrived and the stopping to wait was when I think the tiredness hit everyone. When we got onto the ferry, we had dinner and then everyone just found a place to sit/lie down to rest their legs.

9.30pm (ish) - Calais!

We landed in Calais and then had a few miles left to cycle to our hotels. Everyone was incredibley tired but we all made it. We stayed in the Holiday in at Coquelles which was world's apart from The Lodge. It was probably the comfiest bed I have ever slept in! My head barely hit the pillow before I was fast asleep! The day was hard but getting to the hotel felt like such an amazing achievement for everyone that the pain was definitely worth it!