The London to Paris cycle ride, part four

A thump on the window. Le Campanile's version of a wakeup call. I'd actually woken a little earlier, feeling remarkably good, certainly better than I deserved to. And, contrary to expectations, not particularly sore: In fact, I seemed to be floating slightly, with a faint grin on my face. We were all up earlier than any of the other days, simply because we had a rendezvous with Paris at 2.30. I found I couldn't eat much - too early to eat, or maybe too excited, I don't know. It was a somewhat perfunctory affair, a croisant and a coffee, then I packed my daysack and main pack for the last time, keeping the former as light as possible for the last leg. The morning was cool, with mist hanging around the tree tops opposite the hotel, but it boded heat - you just knew that when the sun got going, it would turn into a hot one. We threw our bags into the support van, saddled up, and, from me -
'ALLONS-Y!'
We pedalled onto the road again, the whole pack of us. The atmosphere was one of excitement and anticipation, of knowledge of a job nearly done. We turned a corner, then another, and then whoosh! into the mist and the forests and the hills. Riding through fog is always a strange and exhilarating experience - the movement into the unknown, the way the opaque curtain closes behind you, the sense of being held in a bubble, the way  it emphasises that, as you ride, there is only you and the now and the road.
And what a road! A sheer joy of tarmac: with the exception of our voices and the odd car, we moved on in near silence, a ghost peleton, a glimmer of brief rushing colours passing through the fog. As we came out of Compiegne, I also saw, for the first time ever, a red squirrel. Sadly, little Squirrel Nutkin had not heeded his own road safety advice.
It was splattered across the road.

ENGLISH ROADKILL vs FRENCH ROADKILL
There can be little doubt that roadkill in the United Kingdom exhibits a far greater range of wildlife than it does in the French Republic. Upon the roads of the Green and Pleasant Land, one may observe Hedgehogs, frogs, toads, rabbits, pigeons, squirrels, pheasants, peasants, grouse, ptarmigans (in the north), quail, sheep, muntjac and other varieties of deer, even the odd wallaby. France, however, displays a far greater amount of roadkill. rare is it to go 200 metres along a main road without encountering a flattened rat, or exploded mouse. If one wishes to enjoy sheer roadkill headcount, then France is the country for you.

The roads were fairly hilly, but by and large not excessively so. Well, that's how it seemed at first. We went into dips, then rose again, occasionally climbing up out of the fog into a brief view of a small island above a sea of white, before dipping again. But then, we hit a hill. A big bugger. It went on and on, and then on a bit more. And then a bit extra. Finally, we got to the top. The road was clear of mist, although it still lay in the fields to either side. The sky was suddenly properly visible, the kind of blue that turns gradually paler as the day passes. Turning on to a side road, we waited for others to catch up. A couple of minutes passed. Ross appeared, struggling with a very spongy tyre. Following him was Sabrina, clearly having problems.
'You Ok?'
'No!', she smiled, nearly crying at the same time. She'd done something to one of her legs, and was obviously in quite a lot of pain. We stopped for a breather, and she hobbled off her bike, nearly collapsing. Kris, Glen's trainer, had a look at her leg, and tried giving it a massage. It had already started swelling.
'I felt it go as I came up the hill', she gasped.'I just started off too cold'.
While Kris looked after her, I tried helping out Ross and his back tyre, which had suddenly gone flat. He tried reinflating it with his pump, but it was a screw-in type, and kept on taking the valve out. We tried with three different pumps, with mine eventually getting a bit of air successfully into it. Someone else had also developed a flat. It seemed as if, on the final day, whatever could go wrong, would go wrong. The support vehicle turned up, and Marco got to work with inner tubes and pumps. Suddenly, from out of the mist, there was a tremendous roar, the sound of what I thought was a  jet fighter flying low and very, very near.
'Jesus! That plane's close!'
'It's not a plane', replied someone, 'that's the Eurostar - the line's just down in that valley'.
Never heard a train sound like that. I felt my legs were getting cold, so rather than run the risk of them cramping up, I decided to ride on to the water stop, which was only a couple of kilometres ahead, and located in what should have been on the stereotypes bingo list - a lovely, honey-coloured chateau:

what - no bananas?

across the road, over the field, electricty pylons poked their heads through the mist, and down a misty lane with sunlight lancing, a man on an old-fashioned bicycle went by.
He wasn't playing an accordion though.

honest, that's a bloke on a bike without an accordion.

the road on which we stopped was Rue Jean-Paul Satre, which almost counts for the sneering existentialist philosopher in a black roll-neck sweater listening to jazz stereotype.
The rest of my pack came in a few minutes after me, and once they'd had their fill, and Sabrina had been checked over again, the nurse asked her if she'd be ok.
'I've come this bloody far, I'm finishing this!' Good for her.
We carried on into a brighter day, and as we headed towards Paris, we came on older roads, and an older type of road surface: cobbles, or CCCCCOOOOOOBBBBBBLLLLLEEEESSS AAAAAGGGHHH, as all the people on road bikes called them. My cunning plan to use a heavy mountain bike was finally coming to fruition, I kidded myself. It was only in the villages we passed that we encountered this - in between, there was still the baby-smooth EU-subsidised, Tour de France-attracting tarmac. We glided down one hill, across a plain and towards another ridge, on which a ruined turret jutted from the tree tops, looking in sunlight like a ragged face staring towards us. Another uphill, a sudden bout of cobbles, the sound of Sabrina going 'Oooowww!' as she went over them, a brief stop at the top, and then we were in the Oise Valley - the Oise, which debouches into the Seine. We were almost on the final leg.
 We rode through a village with more traffic than we had been used to, and there on a corner was -
man with baguette under his arm exiting a boulangerie!
we cheered, much to the bemusement of people watching us go by.
Lunch. At ten o'clock. Did we care? Hell no - there was apple pie, more pasta of various hues, a final melange of options from the previous few days, and 80's music: What more could you ask for from a saturday in France with the sun rising? The nurse gave Sabrina an injection to help with her swollen leg, and within half and hour she was feeling a lot better - well, she could actually walk, for one thing. Lorraine, who had taken the tumble the day before, was sore and riding slow, but still in one piece. In fact, everyone was bubbly and ready for the very last section.

would you like some pie with your cream, Ross?

We thanked the field catering team (Extreme Catering, for those who want to know), and got into the saddle.
And promptly got almost lost. Well, actually, we were in the right direction, but Dave suddenly said,
'Hang on, this must be wrong - we're doubling back on ourselves'.
We looked at our maps, tried to work out what was going on, then went back down the hill, went down a side road, saw that was wrong, saw another group of riders, then decided to follow them. And that was the last example of signage anxiety of the trip. Carrying on up a hill, I ended up ahead of the others, and decided to stop and put on some sun cream - by now, it was seriously hot. The rest of the group came up the hill, and on we went - down one road, through another surrounded by older houses, down a hill, up the other side and then, a couple of kilometres later -
Pylon after pylon, marching across the countryside, all aimed in the same direction. Planes coming in to land, or lifting up into the sky from some as yet unseen airstrip. Glints of glass, roads to the left, to our right, ahead, all with a single destination - the towers and buildings on the horizon, so close -
'PARIS!'
we whooped and cheered, and seemed to get more life into our legs. We were almost there, it seemed. Team Rouge (me, Kev, Sabrina, Dave, Glen, and Ross ) ploughed on. And on.
In fact, there were quite a few more miles to cover. The Banlieus of Paris approached. We went down one downhill, and in front of us were the skyscrapers of the financial district and suddenly, between two buildings, gone in a flash, the Eiffel Tower. Not everyone got downhill in one piece. We passed Dulcie, being helped by the support vehicle, who'd come off in a pothole, bashing her knee.
On went the banlieus, and the traffic became heavier while the roads became narrower. It was time to switch to city-style cycling, slower and more defensive, and after the freedom and speed of the last few days, immensely frustrating. Paris exuded heat: It clung to us, a clammy shirt of humidity, and left us sapped and increasingly thirsty. The traffic meant that it became difficult to overtake or move ahead easily. At one stage, we were forced to crawl behind a guy driving a mobility shopper down the road, who I suspected was thoroughly enjoying reducing our speed. Finally, the Seine appeared, and we moved along its banks, frustrated by the traffic lights - but where was our stop? We still had kilometres of avoiding pedestrians, cars, and parked vans that abruptly pulled out, earning at least two a thump on the side from me.
'Where the bloody hell are we bloody stopping?' I yelled, annoyed.
'There!' said another guy just in front of me, pointing at Marco, who was waving frantically in the middle of the road. At last, the park!
'Well done guys, you're here! Get in the park and have an ice cream.'
I didn't even mind spending three quid on a Cornetto.

Paris! And this, unbelievably, is a public toilet.

Team Rouge!

So, we all got drinks and ice creams and changed into our MacMillan Tshirts, and suddenly no-one really knew what to say. It's always the same when you reach a target or achieve something: there's a moment of anti-climax, of doubt, of 'well, what next?' We stood or sat, relaxing, and actually there wasn't a need to say a thing. We had ridden three hundred miles in four days, and you don't do that too often.
But we hadn't quite finished yet. There was still the small matter of another ride in formation to do, and do THIS:


Holy Shit! We rode round the Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs Elysee! It doesn't get much better than that.
Well, actually, it did.
We headed towards the Eiffel Tower, the support vehicle ahead of us, holding us together as a pack. As we approached the Champs du Mars, it slowed right down at some traffic lights, then suddenly roared off as they turned red. We had to wait, and it dawned on us that we had to do a sprint finish. We lined up, poised on the  pedals, waiting for the lights to change. One of the Discover Adventure team was ahead of us, waving a flag and beckoning, and the the lights changed, and BOOM! we cranked it as hard as we could, and there ahead of us was a roundabout and friends and relatives all screaming and cheering and waving flags,  and Marco was shouting 'keep going round, keep going round!', so we did, everyone whooping and laughing.
Fortunately, there were several little blokes running round with buckets of beer, and by God, they tasted good. The beer that is, not the little blokes. All that was left was the photos and greeting families - and for Laura to fall over on her bike because she couldn't get her cleats out in time. It was time for a last pedal - down to our hotel, The Pullman Rive Gauche, which was definitely a notch better than the other hotels we'd stayed in. I went to get my key and find out who my roommate was for that night - turned out it was Ross once again, but:
'My girlfriend's got a room. No offense, but I think I'd rather spend the night with her', he said, grinning.
Bonus!
I had a couple of glasses of champagne that had  been laid on, and checked on my bike, which was in the stack that were being loaded onto a lorry for transportation back to St. Pancras.
'You did well on that', said one of the Discover Adventure guys. ' When I first saw it, I thought, nah, he'll never make it.'
'It's not that big a monster!'
'That is a Claud Butler. I reckon that's one of the heaviest bikes ever to complete this challenge. However, I've seen someone try to do this on a shopper bike.'
Feeling terribly chuffed with myself, I went up to my room on the fifteenth floor, one I could enjoy in glorious solitude, with views across Paris and the Parc des Princes. I poured myself a beer and treated myself to a long, hot, shower, a great big grin spread over my face.
And that's where it ends, nearly. The victory dinner was socially pleasant, but the food was, beyond doubt, a disaster. If I thought the grub at Arras was bad, it hadn't come remotely close to what awaited me here. It was :

shame on you Pullman Rive Gauche! Shame

THEY SERVED ME CAT FOOD.
Well, it was some kind of potted lamb meat, served on a bed of couscous. It's really hard to bugger up couscous, but by God they'd done it. And the lamb - it really did taste as bad as it looks in the photo. However, it was more than made up for by the party in the bar across the road, which went on to past three in the morning, survived a sudden torrential thunderstorm, and saw at least one broken table.
All that was left was a couple of hours walking round a sunday Paris. I ended up in the Tuileries with Kev, admiring the gardens and statues, then headed back by metro to the hotel. And finally, coming up the exit tunnel, there he was:
An accordion player.
Accompanied by a tuba player.
Playing a rendition of The Birdie Song!
What an adventure. What a great five days.
To everyone who made this possible, thank you. To everyone who participated, you're all brilliant. To Sabrina, Kev, Glen, Dave, Ross, and Kris, thank you for making the whole thing so enjoyable.
And would I do this again?
ALLONS-Y!

The London to Paris cycle ride, part three

Day Three: Arras to Compiegne
Ahh, I love the smell of Ralgex in the mornings...
The early morning air hung heavy with the aroma of embrocations and unguents, along with the post-storm smell of the earth. We were getting ready  to set off again, and I stared blearily up the road.
I hadn't had a decent night's sleep. Strawberry lager, proper lager, Chartreuse and Gin and Tonic were not entirely conducive to nestling gently into the arms of Morpheus. However, I would probably have managed more if it hadn't been for the fact that my room mate was a heavy snorer - or, to be perfectly honest, a heavier snorer than me. He sawed away from about half three to about five, and I finally managed to get a little sleep before the wake up call at 6.10. God, my legs hurt. I stretched one leg out of the bed, reached for the ibuprofen and tried to find a cool spot on the pillow.
'Stretching your legs?' asked my room mate.
'No, hangover'.
Well, it could have been worse. I could have had Glen's Chartreuse and Cognac hangover.
Once again, Sabrina, Kev and I rode out into the day, and once again, it was a cool start, but now promising to get warm sooner rather than later. And my God, it hurt to start off. Ow.Ow.Ow.Ow., went my legs as they pedalled around, but after a few kilometres they got into their stride, and on we went. Glen was somewhere to the back, and we were joined by Dave and Ross as we cycled. The land undulated, the vistas opened up, and suddenly we were in a landscape of tranquil bucolic charm, a scene entirely unrecognisable to someone who'd stood there some 95 years ago.
The valleys that had been fought over, inch by bloody inch, by imperial forces during the First World War. The sky remained grey and the mood among us remained quiet, sombre even, as though this was a place that should be either flitted through with the minimum of fuss and attention seeking, or should be processed through at a funereal pace. Here and there, as we turned a corner, along with the small roadside chapels, there would be a cemetery, neatly tended, its gravestones serried and white, inscribed with the names of boys who'd been sent off to die a long time ago. The whole landscape, despite its sleepy charm, seemed to me to carry a terrible song of sadness. Every building, every stand of trees, every little hillock, every stump, each single little thing had been fought over and had witnessed mechanised, industrialised mass death. We spoke almost quietly, discussing what we were seeing, what we remembered of WW1, what we knew of these wars. I described my Great-Uncle Charlie, who had been in the first push over the top at the Somme Offensive, who got shot and spent three days in the mud before being taken prisoner. I talked about Karen having served in Iraq, and Ross mentioned a friend of his who was in the SBS, and who had been in both Iraq and Afghanistan.On we went, the land climbed, the smooth road unrolled underneath us, more wind turbines appeared, and suddenly we were in the Somme Valley, and approaching our first stop of the day, at the Thiepval Memorial.

I don't want to say much at this juncture - if you've been there, you'll know exactly how it feels. If you haven't, go. The number of names of people who haven't even been found is staggering. I found it deeply upsetting. One of the other cyclists sat quietly in one corner of the monument, red-eyed. We walked quietly around the monument and its superbly-tended grounds, visited the information centre, then getting our fill of bananas and oaty snacks. After nearly an hour there, we saddled up again and climbed upwards, and the sun came out, and seemingly, all of a sudden, this:

look at that view! Not Glen, the green stuff behind him.

look at that view! Not the green stuff, my complete absence of beer gut!

that's what we're heading to - next stop, downhiiiillll!

...and the day just exploded into a joyous one of cycling. I was still aching a bit, but the road and the weather and the company worked together to make it everything not just endurable but utterly enjoyable. We were far more relaxed, I think, and this made it far easier to ride. The land remained ridiculously pretty, and on one stretch I noticed a 2CV shooting along a poplar-lined road. I should also point out that I had spotted not one, but several, discarded packs of Gauloises, so I was doing quite well with my stereotypes bingo. The pace, while still vigorous, was distinctly more chilled out, and people rode sometimes ahead, sometimes behind. I found myself riding by myself for a while, totally absorbed into the Flow - not the flow, but the one with the capital: the same place you find yourself when writing after a certain amount of time, that point of almost effortless effort where there is only the Now, the Here, where you feel you can continue for mile after mile, hour after hour. My legs smoothly pedalled the bike with seemingly the minimum of work, the road held the tyres in a kiss of kilometres, and the landscape flowed from beautiful moment to beautiful moment. By now,  our mini-peloton consisted of me, Sabrina, Kev, Dave, Ross, Glen and Carol, the indefatigable 73-year-old. She's quite a fascinating person, not because of doing such an event, but because she is one of those rare humans who can lob a simple question and then you end up compelled to speak without even noticing it - she's a natural listener, a person with a touch of the Jane Marple about her. We'd asked her earlier about why she was doing this.
'well, I decided to do all those things that I'd never done once I reached 60, and keep looking for challenges. I've forgotten how many marathons I've done, now'.
She'd certainly done well in this ride - she was by no means at the back of the pack.
Lunch was in some kind of picnic layby. As well as our group, a family were trying to have lunch on a picnic bench nearby. Glen accosted them, sat down, started chatting and got fed. The rest of us made do with a lunch comprising some of the stars of the previous couple of days' lunches, plus a chicken curry pasta that tasted almost exactly like a pot noodle, with the same effect - you feel a little bit grubby and shameful eating it, but you end up wanting more, a bit like illicit Office Nookie. All this, and 80's music.
While we were stretching, eating, relaxing and finding convenient bushes, the question of what to wear came up. Not this:

reminds me of wrestling on World of Sport....

but rather, when cycling, do you wear pants or Go Commando? I won't mention who brought it up, because I'm being possibly unusually tactful, but she was clearly suffering from Tight Pants Syndrome.
'I tried both ways over my training - Commando is definitely the way to go', I said.
'Really? It's been really painful today'.
'Imagine what it's like having some meat and two veg down there'
'That's right', said Dave. 'Get 'em off, let the air circulate'
I should also point out that the lunch break was where I would apply:

BUM BUTTER
also known as Udderly Smooth, an embrocation originally designed to be applied to cows' udders to prevent sores and injuries, Bum Butter is not actually made out of either bums or butter. That would be perverse. Instead, it is a paraffin and glycol based compound that, when applied, brings to mind the 1970's pop song 'Slip Sliding Away...'

 - that is, I would apply it if I could find a secluded spot, which fortunately I did on this occasion. We didn't hang around too long on this occasion, and before long we were once again on our way. The Tight Pants Person wafted along with a look of bliss on her face.
'Oh my God! That feels so much better! Wow!'
On we went, and things started to get a little silly. Another knot of riders, lead by Laura, stormed past us, laughing noisily. In Laura's case, actually laughing like the Wicked Witch of the West. We carried on at our own pace, through a few villages and up a couple of hills, then down some wonderful downhills. We came towards some huge golden fields, hay baled in tall towers, and we noticed four figures in one of them.
'Why are there so many scarecrows in one field?' I asked.
As we got closer, it became clear - Laura and her group had stopped and were posing in the field, arms outstretched and heads lolling. From a distance, it would have been easy to fool, except that they were heaving with laughter.  The ride continued, but there was now no sense of tiredness - we talked easily and the miles melted away. A few miles before the last water stop, we cycled over a little bridge with a picturesque duck pond to one side and a stream issuing out of the other. We stopped so that some of the group could take pictures.
'God, that water looks really nice', said Glen.
A minute later, he was wading bare chested down the stream, splashing along. and trying to catch fish in his hands.
The next water stop came in due course, next to probably the prettiest of the places where we took a break.

what do you mean, the bananas have almost run out?

There was even a bloke with a fishing pole and a fag dangling from the side of his mouth.
By this time of day, it was pretty hot, so we made sure to drink and replenish and set off at a relatively leisurely pace for the rest of the journey. By now, everything undulated, rather than climb in bloody big spikes, but somehow we stilll managed to get these wonderful downhill sections. Laura & co whizzed past us again, and again laughing like drains, so we were wondering what they were planning up ahead. We climbed a bit, then a  bit more, then reached a plateau looking down into a village and the prospect of a good downhill, and then
THUMP
Lorraine, who had a constant supply of drugs and Lanacane, took a tumble. She'd come too close to the side of the road, hit a pothole, and ended up arse over tit on a grassy verge. She'd been remarkably lucky - the way she'd fallen could have resulted in a broken neck, and a little further on would have seen her fall down a 30-metre slope. Several of us stopped and made sure she was OK.She was deeply shaken, and her bike, while not exactly buggered, wasn't entirely damage-free, but after the support van had arrived with the nurse she rallied. Actually, she rallied when some slender, muscular olive-skinned bloke in jodphurs came riding past on a horse. He slowed down as he reached us, then when Glen (who had caught up with us) said to him 'wou;d you like to help her?', he gave an almost imperceptible shrug, then galloped off across the fields.
Once the nurse arrived, we carried on. A couple of miles down the road, we found Laura and co, lolling on a haystack
'We've been here ages! what happened?'
apparently, they were going to do some kind of display for us, but instead they just got bums full of straw. Oops.
Compiegne was visible from their field, and it wasn't long before we entered the town. We cycled past the centre and headed towards the outskirts. Because of problems with hotels, we were split into two groups, with the majority heading towards Le Campanile for the night. It came nto sight, and didn't look too bad - a kindof Travelodge-type thing. I found out that I was sharing a room with Dave. I also found out that they were charging lots for a large lager. Anyway. Several people had already arrived when we got there, and had scouted out the local supermarkets for bargain beers, and were lolling on the front lawn with cans.Sabrina went off in one direction with Pat, who was visibly fuming about something being fucked up, to a local petrol station. I went in the other direction, following someone else's advice, going past all these wonderful boarded up villas, or places guarded by snarling dogs, then, as I was about to turn into a road with an offy, what do I see in the evening sunlight?
Two blokes playing boules while smoking gauloises and complimenting each other.
Parfait!


I came back, had beer, showered, and went to dinner. Tonight's dinner wasn't as bad as the dinner in Arras, pretty much in the same way that the bombing of Dresden wasn't quite as bad as the bombing of Hiroshima. It consisted of something that was recognisably pork, though from which bit fo the animal was impossible to guess. It even had a few sad and lonely slice of some kind of pickle shoved apologetically underneath.
Fortunately, there was plenty of booze on supply, despite the fact that we needed to get up even earlier the next morning. Kriss (Glen's personal trainer, no less!) helped massage Gemma, and I played the Elephant on a Moped Trick on Laura, although I was laughing so hard I buggered up the punchline.

All in all, it was a wonderful day of cycliing. I got to bed at late o'clock, wondering about the final 55 or so miles to Paris that lay ahead.