Cycling Endurance Challenge - Done! Woot!

[Vickyloo]

Soooo, I set off from Montchevrier in Central France on Saturday 4th August and cycled for 6 and a half days to Barry in South Wales, where we arrived on Friday 10th. In total, we cycled 687 miles. Woot woot! I'm really pleased with this accomplishment. A couple of people asked me to do a bit of a write up about it, so here goes.

One drunken night back in December, my father and I egged each other on to do a big challenge ride - from his house in France to my house in Wales. Neither of us trained particularly well and the fact that we completed the challenge is testament to our determination and pig-headed stubbornness as opposed to strength and athletic ability! We did it completely unsupported, carrying all our luggage on our 60-odd year old Pashley tandem. The tandem and the luggage weighed approximately 100kg.

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DAY 1 - Montchevrier to Blois, 98 miles

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We set off early on the first day, full of excited beans and a lot more energy than I have had since! However, disaster struck at just 20 miles! Our back wheel completely fell apart, with 11 spokes breaking (moral of the story - give your bike a thorough service before setting off on an adventure like this!). We believe that one may have been a little damaged before we set off and the rest fell apart as the pressure increased.

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Anyway, it is lucky that we were close enough to my father's house to still know where all the sports shops were! We walked the half a mile or so to Decathlon (our saviour) and arrived there just as they were opening. The conversation with the mechanic there went something like this (albeit in French, of course):

My dad: "Can you repair this wheel?"

Mechanic: "No, it is too old. They don't make spokes like that any more."

My dad: "Okay, have you got a replacement wheel?"

Mechanic: "Yes, but it will be 2 inches smaller in diameter - that is the closest we have"

My dad: "That's okay, it'll have to do. We don't have any choice" (followed by odd looks from the mechanic of course)

Mechanic: "Also, you will lose one of your back breaks because this wheel is for a normal bike, not a tandem" (a tandem has 2 brakes on the back, as well as 1 on the front)

My dad: "That's okay. We don't have any choice" (more odd looks)

Mechanic: "Also, because the wheel is smaller, the remaining back break won't reach properly and will drag on the tyre a little."

My dad: "That's okay. We don't have any choice" (a slight, disbelieving guffaw from the mechanic).

So, we set off again with a wheel that was too small, only one (and a half) breaks and 100 euros poorer. The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful, except that I got sun-burned so bad that I couldn't sleep on my back for the next few nights and was dizzy with the effects of the sun. We arrived in Blois in the early evening and found (after much searching) a cheap, religious hostel that was not particularly nice but decent enough for our purposes and was cheap. In this hostel, we learned that we should carry our own soap.

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Day 2 - Blois to Dreux, 101 miles

Day 2 was actually the day that I found the easiest. I was still full of energy and the negative effects of the sun had pretty much worn off. Also, my backside had either adjusted itself to the seat accordingly or simply gone completely numb. Either way, I wasn't complaining. (Of course, being unprepared as I was, I hadn't invested in any padded cycling shorts so I was mighty pleased to discover this sudden lack of debilitating discomfort).

We stopped for breakfast in the unpronounceable village of Oucques (I speak reasonably good French and I still haven't a clue). The Pain au Chocolate that I wolfed down was delicious but I couldn't help that vague craving in the back of my mind for good old bacon and eggs.

The only true disaster that we had on day 2 had to do with that pesky half-break on the back wheel. Going down a mighty steep hill, I could have sworn my father shouted for my to pull it (he insists he didn't and my hearing is renowned for being poor), so I pulled as hard as I could. It, of course, ripped a hole in the tyre and we spent much of the rest of the day repairing 5 punctures and patching up the tyre with electric tape and bits of ripped up map. It worked surprisingly well.

The highlight of day 2 for me was cycling through the beautifully historic town of Nogent le Roi. It was like going through a living museum of some sort. I would definitely like to go there for a long weekend some time.

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We arrived in Dreux at about 7 and spent almost an hour going around the town looking for somewhere to stay. Eventually, we asked someone in broken French. The reply we got was (an hear this in your best cockney accent if you will):

"Yeah mate, dahn to the rahnd-abaht and turn right. Bargain, only 23 eurahs a night" (or at least something along those lines). It was after following his instructions that we discovered the joy that is Premier Classe - cheap, cheerful and best of all - a shower in the room (small things, I know). We had even bought some soap by this point.

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Day 3 - Dreux to Formerie, 102 miles

We were actually intending to get a little further, to Abbeville this day but day 3 was extremely hard - probably our hardest. We had mapped this day to be our furthest day but it turned out to be up and down mountains all day and we couldn't do much more than we did. We didn't get to Formerie until gone 10pm and our thighs were in shreds. We felt good though - we smashed every mountain that we had come across. To make matters worse, we had got lost in the morning, adding God-knows how many miles onto the journey and had only gone 30 miles by 1pm! We stopped for lunch in Vernon (right in the bottom of a valley) and bought a better map (it turns out that planning your route and solely using Google maps directions isn't the best of plans).

We got close to Formerie at a reasonable hour and decided to push on to Aumale (having already given up on the idea of getting to Abbeville) but we took a wrong turn and ended up in Songeons, 12km in the wrong direction! We both almost cried - it was getting late, we were off track, completely spent and we couldn't find anywhere to stay in Songeons. So we sucked it up and cycled back to Formerie (up and down some more hills). Our saviour was a little bar (whose name I can't recall) with rooms to let, at a decent price. The beds were soooo comfortable and the staff we so friendly that we ambled our way downstairs for a quick beer. I had one (about a half pint) and, as expected, was feeling a little squiffy so collapsed into bed and slept soundly until morning.

Day 4 - Formerie to Calais, 120 miles

We stopped not long after taking off in Aumale and replaced our damaged tyre (and agreed that the back break was for absolute emergencies only. We had gone from three breaks to one in a matter of days).

Jumping back on the bike (or rather, clambering awkwardly and painfully), we cycled through fields upon fields of sunflowers

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and peed behind every bush and water tower you can imagine (something I was expecting but I suppose it makes sense - I was drinking a good 8-10 litres of water a day), eventually getting to Blangy for breakfast (or rather, elevensies). We both went for the burger and chips - American style. An odd breakfast really, especially when a basket arrived, containing a French stick stuffed with ripped up bits of burger and some fries. Where the 'American style' came into it, I'm not so sure but it was tasty and gave us enough energy to carry on and up the hill out of the town (the lady in the cafe, when we asked for direction, blew air out of her mouth, shook her hand and declared 'bon courage' when telling us about the 'big, big hill'. My my. Big it certainly was. My father was convinced he was going to have a heart attack at one point and the blazing heat certainly didn't help our energy levels. But we got to the top without getting off and pushing and felt like we could conquer the world.

A little later, we stopped in a city called Montreuil, trying to find somewhere to eat (all closed, unfortunately so we bought sandwiches from the supermarket) but what I found amusing was that most of the restaurants had a 'Welsh menu', including Welsh lamb, Welsh rarebit (called 'Welsh Simple') and other Welsh dishes. Obviously Montreuil is popular among the Welsh!

By the time that we got to Boulogne, the ride was getting hard. The heat was over-whelming and the landscape was getting hillier. We took the 'Calais par la cote' route which was extremely hard, up and down through the dunes in semi-darkness. To make matters worse, the chain kept jumping off and we lost our easiest gear, leaving us to power up those hills with even less help. We were completely shattered and looking for a place to stop but all the hotels were full. We pushed on to Calais and arrived at gone 11. Another Premier Classe shined down on us near the ferry port though and cheap and cheerful, we jumped at the chance for a hot shower and bed!

[Vickyloo]

Day 5 - Calais to London, 90 miles

By day 5, I had pretty much given up taking photographs and my ever-so-wonderful journal idea had gone completely down the drain. The days and events in my head are starting to meld together here and the British leg of our trip is rather blurred. Exhaustion was setting in and my mind was going fuzzy as my body was struggling to keep up. We left Calais early in the morning (although we might as well have had an extra hour in bed because we ended up waiting for the ferry!) and arrived in Dover at about 9:30. Immediately, there is a big hill coming out Dover onto the A2, which turns out to be a busier road than we were expecting, with cars and lorries zooming past as though we had accidentally wandered onto the motorway. We pushed on though.

We stopped at a burger van in a lay-by and had a cup of tea and a coke. Sat there chatting to the couple we were running it, we told them what we were doing and why. They were impressed and gave us £5 sponsorship money for the British Heart Foundation - more than we had given them for the tea and coke!

We got into Central London at about 11, completely exhausted. We knew weren't going to find anywhere to stay in London during the olympics (we had intended on getting to Reading on day 5) so we called upon some old friends, Dave and Philamena in the White Lion pub on Central Street (well worth a visit if you are in the are). They very kindly put us up for the night and gave us a fantastic donation towards the heart foundation too. Big thanks to Dave and Phil! My knees were in agony, I had hurt my ankle, I was dizzy after catching the sun again and I had burned the tops of my ears. My dad, although exhausted, seemed to be fairing much better than me that night.

Day 6 - London to Old Sodbury, 120 miles

The morning of day 6 was fantastic! The land had pretty much flattened out, meaning that we could speed along at a good pace. We had done 70 miles by 2 pm, we were feeling good and full of energy (a sudden burst from some hidden supply I can only presume). However, the sun was hitting us hard and we needed some sustenance so we stopped in a lovely country pub for lunch. Delicious it was too but it seemed to put an end to our good morning.

Not long after we left the pub, we got a puncture. Nothing serious of course. Until we tried to pump the repairing tyre back up, only to discover that the pump had decided to give up on life, leaving us to mourn its death on a hot and busy road. We started the slow trek into Hungerford, passing two cyclists - both who insisted they didn't have a pump on them, although I'm inclined to think that they simply didn't want to stop (they both had luggage). Luckily, a fantastic good Samaritan stopped his car and offered my dad a lift into town to buy a new pump, whilst I waited with the bike on the side of the road. They were gone for almost half an hour, in which time I peed in a stingy nettle bush (ouch) and dosed by the side of a tree.

We finally got back on the road and stopped a few hours later for tea in Chippenham. Feeling full of energy and positivity (derived from somewhere that I never knew existed), we got this half cocked notion that we would cycle through the night and arrive home in the early hours of the morning. We had already done about 100 miles by now. You can see where this is going can't you?

It got dark and we were going through English country lanes, no idea where we were going and feeling completely exhausted. I was starting to hallucinate a little - seeing things that weren't there and mixing things up as my body craved for rest and I was getting confused and disorientated - probably a mix of cycling in the dark, possibly dehydration (although I was drinking an awful lot), exhaustion and sun. We stopped at the next place we found, in Sodbury. An old country hotel that was expensive but beautiful, relaxing and well worth the money. But they were full! I could have cried right there and then in front of the receptionist. She called her manager and the manager told us that there was a room but it was out of service due to a leak in the ceiling. We could have it, she said, at half price including breakfast. Of course, we snapped it up - we would have been happy to sleep on the floor in the corridor I think! She even let me use the phone in reception (there was no pay phone) to telephone my partner and let him know where I was. It was a luxurious night and breakfast was delicious. We felt refreshed the next day, especially when we realised how close to home we were.

Day 7 - Old Sodbury to Barry, 57 miles

Cycling over the Severn Bridge was definitely the highlight here for me. When you zoom over it in a car, you don't really appreciate the beauty of the bridge itself or the view over it. I really wish I had had the energy to take photographs but I just want to get home to bed.

The landscape was reasonably flat all the way home, which was pleasant but by this time, even slight incline were beginning to feel like a hard slog and would drop our speed right down. Our muscles were fatigued and our will was waning. We didn't give up though, not once and I can't think of anything that would have made us give up - barring breaking a bone or hospitalisation.

We got home just past lunch time to find a local journalist here to take our photograph and here our story. Hopefully, that will help us raise a bit more money for the British Heart Foundation (we've raised about £400 so far)

Yesterday, I slept for almost 18 hours and today, I feel like I could do with some more sleep! Amazingly, my legs aren't aching as much as I thought they would, although walking up the stairs is a lot harder and my knees are still sore. My fingers have done numb too and my hands are bruised. All in all though, I feel much better than I was expecting to.

It hasn't really sunk in until today just what an achievement it has been. I've been looking at maps online and am amazed at just what we did.

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It just goes to show that you can do anything if you put your mind to it.

[andygates]

Woohoo! Nicely ridden!

[Vickyloo]

Cheers dude

[fixie4life90]

Awesome! I love riding my bike especially my fixed gear, riding in SF is definitely amazing, if your ever in there u should give it a try

[Sloth the Enduring]

Wow. That's an amazing ride.

[ellisd012]

Sweet ride and a sweet story! Congrats!

[shortstuff]

Wow, great story