Londres-Paris - fin

Well.  That's that, then.  520km in three days, over some of the biggest hills in Southern England and Northern France, through torrential thunderstorms and 30-degree heat and finally an emotion-charged ride into Paris and the Eiffel Tower, roads closed, gendarmes blowing whistles and holding back traffic, motorbikes with their horns and lights blazing. A long, frequently painful, always challenging and occasionally ecstatic experience.  Three days later, random memories are probably all I can manage. 

• The sheer, grinding slog of dragging bike and body up the long final hill into Dover on Day 1  - after 170k in the saddle on a blisteringly hot day, it seemed like the final straw.  Until logistical issues delayed us getting to our French hotel until hours after our due arrival
• The remarkable restorative powers of one glass of red wine,  one hot shower and two dinners
• British motorists shouting abuse at the outrageous affront of cyclists getting in the way and delaying their progress on THEIR roads -- French motorists smiling and cheering, French people coming out of their houses to cheer the peloton on.
• The sheer exhilarating joy of flying through French towns at 40+kph in something approaching a racing peloton, with the brilliant motorbike outriders brushing your elbows as you take the bends.
• The camaraderie that shared suffering on the road quickly generates, among a group of widely differing backgrounds, skills, experience and nationalities
• The tears at the Eiffel Tower from some of our team, strong, tough blokes riding in memory of a friend lost to leukaemia
• The torrential, relentless rain that appeared seemingly from nowhere on Day 2, coating everything with a fine mixture of what the early US pros called Flemish Toothpaste - rainwater, agrochemicals and cowdung.  The wrong day to wear white shorts
• Learning a whole new language -- Australian pro.  Examples:   "Rolling" - bloody hilly.  "A bit lumpy" - really bloody hilly.  "A sporting challenge" - absolutely f****ing vertical.
• The enduring mystery of why triathletes can't hold a bloody wheel.  Don't they want to make things easier for themselves?
• The number of people who could tell you their exact wattage, power output and heart-rate but had never heard of picking  flints from their tyres after rainstorms.  So many punctures which could have been avoided. 
• 520k and not a single puncture or mechanical issue, apart from one set of knackered brake blocks.  Thank you, messrs Casati, Mavic, Campagnolo and Schwalbe.
• With ten kilometres to go, our team dropped to the back of the 300-strong peloton and tightened into a high-speed rolling pack of green jerseys. There is nothing, repeat nothing, in  cycling to match riding in tight formation with your team-mates through the traffic-free streets of Paris and seeing the Eiffel Tower loom unexectedly into view.
  
• As I swung my foot over my bike at the end of the third day, I made a solemn promise never to do anything so stupidly demanding on a bike again.  Now, I can't wait to sign up for 2010.

Londres-Paris

Two days to go before the start of the London-Paris -- only one day, really, because sign-on is tomorrow afternoon.

Now it's so close, I realise how much of an unknown quantity the next few days are going to be.   The first day is nearly 180km over 1500 metres of climbing -- further and nastier than I've ever ridden before.  And the following two days, although slightly flatter, are also 170k apiece.  

I'm hoping that the drafting of the pack and the rolling road closures will mean we can keep the optimistically high average speed targets set by the organisers.

A final e-mail from them urged everyone to get their bikes serviced before the ride -- tacit acknowledgment of how few people now service their own.   I tweaked the Casati at the weekend and, on the day after, had a traditional crisis of confidence on a 60kph descent.

"When I pulled the cable through on the front brake, did I actually screw in the holding bolt fully -- or just set it finger-tight, planning to finish it off later?"

But getting someone else to service it would only bring other worries -- "What if  that monkey in the shop didn't actually tighten the bolts when he replaced the brake blocks etc.?"

And there's a pleasure in getting your bike ready for a big event.  If it moves, grease it. If it doesn't, polish it.   Ten minutes with a cone spanner to get that final bit of play out of the rear Mavic.  And two rolls of fresh white bar tape.

Hey, we're going to Paris.  Wish us luck.

Good Day Out

I love the continuity of riding bikes -- the way that, no matter how fancy or sophisticated your equipment, you still have to use your legs to turn the wheels on the roads and the hills don't get any less steep.  

And many of the roads where you train have felt the treads of a million previous riders, especially in the South of England,  where cycle-friendly tarmac is at a premium.

120k yesterday on a route that would have been familiar to my father and his clubmates in the 1930's.  Richmond Park, Kingston, the Esher Road,  Cobham, Ockham, Leith Hill, Pitts Hill, Ranmore Common, Shere, Ewhurst, Whitedown, Abinger Hammer, Box Hill -- a roll-call of Sunday club runs, time trials and tea-stops.

And when things get really tough,  you can put aside your energy drinks, gels and recovery bars -- and just revel in a pot of English tea and a toasted teacake.

The Devil's Work

There was a point about five minutes into the Hot Chillee Devil Take the Hindmost at Donnington Park when I suddenly remembered why I hadn't actually raced a bike in nearly a quarter of a century.  It's bloody hard and unpleasant.  And frustrating.

The familiar despair settled on me when I got shot out the back of the 4th Cats after less than a lap of the 2.5 mile Grand Prix circuit and realised I was on my own.   Into a vicious headwind, with a long, merciless hill which left you knackered and boiling just before the finish line and the picnicking spectators.

The organisers had, with a rather literal turn of mind, booked an actual Beelzebub lookalike, complete with satanic girlfriend, to hop out and pull stragglers off the back of the pack but, with a cruelty worthy of Old Nick himself, they weren't actually going to start until an hour into the race so there was to be no salvation there.

I kept hoping that Julie the Commissaire might take pity and force me to retire on the grounds of being too old and fat to carry on but, cruelly, she just swept past every couple of laps -- leaning out the sunroof and cheerily shouting encouragement.

So on and on I went - on the hottest day in the UK this year, until the Devil finally wagged his fingers and allowed me to make way for the serious racers.

Why?  Because we raised some money and awareness for the Geoff Thomas Foundation -- a leukaemia charity that I passionately believe in. (If you enjoy this blog, please feel free to sponsor me on my ride to Paris by clicking here).

Because, nearly 70 years ago my father raced at Donnington Park in one of the rare pre-war massed start bike races, and it seemed a fitting way of honouring his memory.

And because I got to meet and talk to two of my all time cycling heroes - Stephen Roche and Graeme Obree, who both turned out to be as friendly, modest and charming as you could want your heroes to be.

Graeme spoke movingly and intelligently at a Question and Answer session about the sensitive subjects of depression and doping, especially when he said that drug cheats' worst crime was robbing the fans of the magic of a great performance, untainted by suspicion.

And I spent a whole warm-up lap cycling alongside, and chatting to, one of the greatest bike racers of all time -- surreally, every time I looked over , there he was - Tour De France and Giro winner, World Champion, a little larger and greyer than in his prime but still unmistakably a class act.  

For that alone, the pain was worth it.

Bambi rules

So, even in 21st Century London - deer take priority.  Hundreds of the things -- including swarms of tiny young ones -- decided to stage a mass migration in Richmond Park this afternoon, leaving motorists and cyclists no choice but to sit and relax for a bit.

All except for one nutcase driver.  Less than a minute after this photo was taken, he came up the outside of the line of cars you can see stretching off into the distance -- going at least twice the park's 20mph speed limit.  Narrowly avoiding a couple of deer, and deaf to the waving and shouting of other drivers - he swerved back on to the right side of the road and disappeared.

What possesses people to act like that?

Quotes of the week

Two that stood out this week.

The first, in a deadpan, resigned voice - came from the last rider in a group of eight or so roadies in Richmond Park midweek.

"Ok, lads.  If you haven't noticed, that is actually us being passed by a full-suspension mountain bike."

Second, from my clever and sensible 17-year-old daughter.

"Dad, when will you accept you are NOT French.  Even though you shave your legs and ride a bike, it does not make you French...."

All in the legs

To FA Headquarters last week, for the second time -- and the last, given that they're moving to new premises before next season.

The launch of the Geoff Thomas Foundation team for London to Paris, including a couple of sporting celebrities, some policemen inspired to ride by sick colleagues and, lurking somewhere at the back, me.

A great night, which I spent looking at people in a slightly bemused way, sure I recognised them but unfamiliar with seeing them without cycling kit, helmets or a distinctive bike.  The L2P "ride captains" include a number of strikingly attractive women, completely unrecognisable on the night in dresses and make-up rather than the familiar kit and wraparound shades.  But then, I completely failed to recognise the large, bald man who stood next to me for much of the evening as Magnus Backstedt, until I saw captioned pictures of him the next day.

Good conversation with an older gent whose name I don't remember. In his seventies, but still a keen rider who accompanied Geoff on a couple of stages at the end of his 2007 Tour de France attempt.  He was short and wiry and evidently extremely fit.

He reckoned he was doing about 100 miles a week in training at the moment -- but all on hills.  I said I wasn't "built" for hills, which drew a quizzical look.  Six feet tall, more than thirteen stone, I explained.

He looked at me scornfully for a few seconds before  slapping his thighs and saying "Well, it's all about the legs, really, isn't it?"

He's right of course, and on this morning's shortish training ride I determined to pass as many people as possible on the hills.  Didn't do too badly, either -- although my heart felt as though it was going to come out through my ears at one point.

White Assos shorts, incidentally, are worth at least 5 extra kph on your average speed.  The cruel insults of other riders are just jealousy.