What do we do now?

Reading my posts to date, there seems to have been an undue emphasis on boredom.  This isn’t accurate. I’ve enjoyed the preparation and the actual event far more than I thought I would. What’s made it most fun has been the people I cycled with.

 

Alex and Diane work with me and didn’t need any persuasion to do this trip. We were all fundraising for the Primary Immunodeficiency Association. Paul lives locally and comes out for a beer now and again. When all around were saying that cycling to Paris was a fine idea, why don’t we all do it, Paul said we were nuts. But a few weeks later, sober, he signed up and we trained together sometimes. We picked up Sarah on our way out of London and didn’t manage to shake her off. 

 

We made it

 

 

Thanks to everyone who donated money so generously to the PiA. I hope this has given you some flavour of the experience. Nothing, however, can give you a sense of the raw, naked fear associated with going around the Arc de Triomphe on a bike during Saturday afernoon traffic. If I upgraded the blog I could post the video, and you’d hear the screams.

Signing off

aarn

We made it

velostupid

Excellent news – there are species of roadkill in France that I’ve not seen in England. We even passed one that had too many legs to be just one animal. Perhaps one was trying to persuade his friend to come back into the verge when they were tragically mown down. Or they may have been playing 3-legged chicken (it’s the extreme version of the school sports day favourite).

As I explained, the mind wanders.

Cycling in France is a novel experience. When was the last time a car driver stopped on a roundabout, where he has right of way, to let you on? The road surfaces are generally pristine, with the exception of occasional villages which disdain tarmacadam for a more traditional road covering. Having your arse tenderised cycling on cobblestones is interesting for about 5 meters, and painful from there on.

The villages north of Arras cast a silent shadow over the lighthearted banter of cycling. Maybe it was because we were tired after 7 hours in the saddle. In contrast to the places we’d cycled through up to now, most of the houses and village buildings were of recent construction, some had older lower levels of stone, and the clearly older buildings wore the pock-marks of battle.

A rare find - open for coffee

Another French myth blown wide open. Not every village has a Cafe-Tabac to facilitate refreshment en route. In fact we cycled for many hours without passing a single one. Rounding a corner and seeing this sight was a cheering moment.

Be Not Afraid

I’ve found a new respect for anyone who cycles in London. Truely it is grim. We set out from Blackheath Common at 7am when most sensible folk are, if not in, at least within tumbling distance of bed. On planet London all is active and deadly. We dodged potholes, waved apologetically to drivers, and I slipstreamed a bus for the first time since cycling to school. Picking out the orange arrows that will lead us to Paris is quite an art. Usually clearly visible on crucial junctions, they have occasionally been covered by posters for DJ Fragglerock’s big party groove or somesuch.

Once beyond the M25 the new issue of hills arises. There are dulations and then undulations. And then there are the downs. Ironic name of course, because the most notable feature from a cycling point of view are the ups. Winding gravelly roads, blessedly cool under tunnels of trees, get steeper round each bend, until you finally reach the summit w

here the sign says ‘Wye Down’. Why indeed? I’d rather stay up. I can see quite clearly that there are lots of other ‘downs’ still to come, and that I’m going to have to go down and then climb up again. So why down? Fill in the dip, for goodness sake.

I need a new tune implant. Everywhere I cycle my cerebral CD player (or mental MP3 player, take your pick) plays ‘Be not afraid’ from Mendelssohn’s Elijah. I played it sometimes to rehearse the bass vocal part while doing training cycles, but now it has become hard-wired, on autoreplay with no opportunity to delete. Any suggestions for tracks to displace it are welcome; various catchier numbers have tried and failed.

End of a long day, so bored that I took a picture of my own shadow

Training - picturesque but sometimes boring

A bicycle is a ridiculously efficient means of non-motorised travel. It must be, because I can cycle distances that I couldn’t walk or run without feeling very unwell. Now what if you trained a horse to ride a bike? Some sort of tandem-like arrangement I suppose. Put a cart behind it, and you wouldn’t be worried about fossil fuels running out anymore.

It’s strange how your mind wanders when you’re cycling long distances. Training is finished now, so I can say it; it’s really boring. The novelty of seeing parts of the countryside that you don’t see when driving soon wears off. Even the excitement of seeing exotic species of roadkill is transient. There’s only so much fauna that ventures across the road in Warwickshire. Saw some villages I’d not known of before (Repton looks like it used to be important) and learned to fear others (terrified of Tamworth – do not attempt to cycle through it without a native guide).

All this in preparation for a sponsored cycle ride from London to Paris. We set off tomorrow, and I’m looking forward to it. If I can work it out, I’ll post some photos on this. Please do check in over the next few days. The weather forecast is excellent.