What a blast - London to Paris by Cycle Day 1 Part 1

Last time I wrote, I was close to succumbing to a flu like virus that might have kept me from completing my challenge of cycling from London to Paris.  Today I'm very pleased to say that it didn't and that I managed the entire 485 kilometres without suffering mechanical, physical or mental failure in the entire time I was on the road.

At the end of the journey, sitting in my hotel room in Paris, I felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment like I've ever felt before.  Not even passing my final year of secondary school gave me such a feeling of satisfaction.  I've raised over £1,100 for the Alzheimer's society and am really pleased with that too.

The night before leaving I had about five hours of restless, sweat soaked lying on my bed that might be called sleep but felt more like one of those dreams where you're trapped in a sauna.

Without seeing the sun, I crawled out of bed at 5am, finished packing my bag, twice in the end as I swapped to a larger back pack, and put my bike into the back of the car.  As my wife drove me to the starting point at Blackheath I felt oddly relaxed as the SatNav assured us we'd arrive in plenty of time but nervous about who and what I would find when I arrived.

At Blackheath the sun was starting to come up and I saw the first of many "Discover Adventure" sails surrounded by cyclists, a welcome sight in the days to come.  Check in was pretty simple, swap your name for an envelope containing tags for your bike and bags, a quick check that you were in possession of your passport and then standing around in the biting wind waiting for the first briefing from Jo, the Discover tour lead.

My wife left just before we set off and didn't get home for two hours, which shows just how rubbish traffic in inner London can be.  That left me standing with a bunch of strangers in a strange part of London, accompanied by the biting wind of the early morning.

We were then taken through the various health and safety elements of cycling on the road and given instructions to follow the orange arrows as they marked out the route.  The first water stop was, we were told, a mere 20 miles, or 32 kilometres, away in the little village of Harvel with a few small hills, or "undulations" as we came to know them, on the way there.  How hard could this be?

Starting was a nightmare; a set of temporary lights meant you had 20 cyclists at a time trying to squeeze through the contra-flow and upsetting the gentile London motorists.  Once that was out of way, we were heading east into the rising sun and trying to spot our orange triangles.  Up Shooters Hill was mostly stop start at the various lights, and with the narrow roads not conducive to getting up a good head of steam, we traveled in single file towards the edge of London.  First fall of the day happened when one of the group forget to unclip when stationary.  No harm done, just bruised ego!  But it was stop-start all the way to the edge of London.

My first experience of being lost made me realise that spotting the orange triangles was one of the most important activities to perform on the trip.  Somehow a group of us managed to miss a turn heading out of London and went clockwise around the A207 near Crayford when we should have taken a right and used a different route.  Didn't work out badly though, we caught up with the rest of the group shortly after and luckily found ourselves back on the main route.

Once we cleared the M25 the traffic thinned out, as did my companions, and at this point I realised that hills were more problematic than I had supposed.  The basic issue with hills is that they tend to go upwards, and when you're on a bicycle this requires you to peddle or you fall off.  So far, so good, but I found that I just couldn't get over about 12km/h on any given incline and this didn't improve in the next four days.

Being mindful of not getting lost, and largely being on my own, I kept an eye out for arrows and successfully managed to get to the first water stop in Kent.  This was a lovely village green with a couple of trees and the Discover Adventure flag by the way side.

The next 30 miles to lunch all passed by in a blur.  Apart from some excitement before lunch where a hare appeared on the road.  One of the group started chasing the hare, which took off at about 35 km/h along the road in front of us.  Eventually a car overtook us and almost took out the hare which, after a few unsuccessful attempts, managed to find a haven on the other side of a fence.

Eventually we reached the very charming village of Charing in Kent and the orange arrows pointed us right towards a 15th century barn and Bishopric and a church hall for our lunch stop.

Good to get some decent grub and nice to sit out in some sunshine rather than the rain of Blighty these last few weeks.  Others started to arrive in dribs and drabs and by the time I was ready to go most of the people had arrived.  I wasn't too keen to be on my own, so I tailed along behind a couple of guys who looked like they knew what to do.  Matt and Alex, mates from Derby who trained in the Pennines, introduced themselves and I basically tailed along on their wake for the rest of the day.

As we headed further south into Kent, the hills became bigger and more challenging.  Particularly interesting was going on very step incline only to find a digger taking up the whole of the lane heading towards us.  This was the only time I stopped on a hill as Matt, Alex and myself had to carry our bikes around its enormous wheels and then start peddling uphill again.  The Kent lanes were quite small and narrow and dark.  We were going down one hill and all of us were wondering what would happen if a car appeared from the other direction; on cue a large Land Rover appeared at the bottom.   We were traveling slowly enough to be able to avoid it, but that was quite scary.  Alex picked up a puncture and that slowed us down a bit before continuing up the hills and on to the next water stop.

At the van, Mark from DA was wondering if anyone had brought a decent chain tool with them as he was busy trying to repair a chain which he'd fixed earlier but the pin had snapped not long after the owner had ridden off with it.  I hadn't brought mine; even though my bike maintenance manual had suggest taking it with me.  The unknown recipient of this chain was going to get it back in somewhat dodgy condition.

Next up - Water stop 2 to Dover and onto Calais.