Saturday morning and we're going to Paris. No rosy fingered Dawn to greet us but instead it was cloudy, gray weather and the need to put on glare filters instead of the regular sun glasses from previous days. Breakfast at the Ibis more than made up for dinner the night before. Lots of lovely fresh croissants and a tremendously tasty potato frittata along with plenty of fresh orange juice; plenty to fill up on, even though we were only travelling about 95km or so for the day. A good nights sleep had me feeling much better too.
It was quite exciting to think that by around 2pm we'd be in Paris waiting to take our bow at the Arc de Triomphe before heading to the Eiffel Tower. Bag packed and into the waiting DA van, bike checked out and ready to go. Plenty more water this time, plus plenty of gel packs in reserve to get me through the day if needed. One of the bikes was being worked on by the DA team and upon return to its owner, he complained that the motor didn't seem to be working. Everyone seemed to be in high spirits at the thought of finishing our adventure that day.
Following the orange arrows, it was far quicker getting out of Compiegne and onto a bicycle path that ran alongside one of the main roads through the Foret dominalie de Compiegne heading in the direction of Lacroix St. Ouen. That was a gentle warm up to get us going. Lacroix St Ouen was very quiet, some traffic lights to slow us down, and then to St Vaast and up a hill of about 150 metres spread over 2km with me sputtering on 1 and 2 (i.e. the lowest ratio gears before you start breaking your chain) at about 11km/h. I will do this trip again, and when I do I'll have spent plenty of time climbing hills in order to take on these undulations. Especially after Matt and Alex steamed past me with Matt calling out "down and give me 20"! Sometimes it felt like I couldn't even cycle over a railway bridge.
The first water stop appeared suddenly at a much shorter distance than I had expected. We were next to the Golf du Raray - lovely French Chateau with a proper golf course. The group was quite large as we hadn't spread out too much by this time. It was nice to meet up with the others after being separated in Compiegne and there was a real buzz that this was our final day and Paris was just down the road.
Off again and Karen and I travelled through some very nice, not too hilly, countryside following the D100 south. At one point, and I think this was near Montepiloy, we crossed some cobbles (spoke breaking territory here for the heavier boned) and I was admiring the beauty of the village and stopped to take a photo. As I was putting the camera away I hear Rachel calling out "You OK Tony?". "I'm fine I replied" in my happy little world, as I was just about to clip myself back in to start following the path. "You know you missed an arrow back there?" "Ah, thank you very, very much!!" I humbly replied as without this warning who knows where I would have ended up. I think I still own Rachel a beer!
Now, fortunately back on the right path thanks to Rachel and continuing on to the lunch stop we caught up with the Uni Boys in a largish bunch as we cycled through a couple of larger towns that even had people outside in the daylight. In one town there was a boy of about 10 using an electric scooter to travel back from a shopping errand. I began to seriously contemplate offering him a swap of my bike for the scooter as it looked so easy to be bobbing along the pavement on it. A little later and we passed through another town with cobbles; in hindsight I probably should have walked my bike over them but luckily I navigated them unscathed. On the other side of the cobbles, Alex had popped a spoke and was waiting for the DA van to come and collect.
Coming up to lunch and we saw a sign labelled "Survilliers"; I suddenly realised with great excitement that we weren't all that far from Paris. On our summer journey, we'd stayed at the Survilliers St Witz Novotel for a night when going to Paris and I knew we didn't have much further to travel. Lunch was in a car park by the local indoor swimming pool. Not much protection from a biting wind that had sprung up and lots more grey blankets to keep everyone warm. However with smiling faces everywhere and an energetic buzz about the lunchtime chat you could tell we weren't far from our goal.
Second last big briefing from Jo. We had to be at the Parc Monceau by 2pm or we'd miss the chance to do our lap of honor in Paris. Mark from DA was la voiture balai, tagging along at the back and sweeping up any stragglers into his van that might miss the cut off time.
This last leg into Paris was the most enjoyable one for me. Just out of Survilliers we had a little climb and then a dip into a village, another climb out and then, and I'm guessing here because I really lost track of time and space at this point, about an hour on a fairly exposed ridge and then a cycle path beside an N road where Matt, Alex, Karen, Martin (from the Uni Crew), Ian, myself and maybe a 6th person (possibly Nathan, maybe Olivia but again, no idea who as I was just lost in the moment), spent the time cycling in formation, rotating the front rider, tailing each other like a proper group of cyclists and, for a bunch of pure amateurs, basically belting along at around 30 km/h into a pretty stiff wind. It was really disappointing to hit the outer reaches of Paris and be back in a big city with lots of traffic and slow progress. Karen's chain came off and it took a few minutes to get it sorted and we ended chasing hard until we caught up with Matt and Alex again. Then Alex came to a rapid halt; I thought he needed a rest for his foot but he'd popped an intercostal muscle in his back and was in great pain. I gave him a quick massage of his shoulder to help ease the pain (it's a really nasty place because you can't reach it yourself) and to get him back on the bike. The four of us plus John the Builder (who'd caught up at this point) continued to navigate the outer suburbs of Paris.
We eventually reached the Seine and followed, in what seemed like a very big circle, to eventually find an orange arrow to the left and after a little bit more cycling we found ourselves at Le Garcon de Cafe for a well earned cup of tea, water and beers with Matt, Alex, Barry, John, Karen and myself. We spent about half an hour relaxing, and Barry very kindly paid for our drinks. Back on our bikes and we passed a large contingent of our group sitting in a bar enjoying the sunshine. We eventually found our way to the Parc Monceau, parked up our bikes and waited around for instructions from Jo. Lots of time for photos, chit chat and the odd ice-cream, but the simmering excitement of being so close to the end was palpable.
Finally, the final briefing, well almost, from Jo about how we needed to travel as a bunch and stick together to stop the Parisian traffic from cutting us off and we were off on our bikes being book-ended by the two DA vans. For me, it seemed to take ages to get to the Arc de Triomphe, but it was quite a sight to travel round it on bicycle and then onto the Champs Elysses with lots of cycle bells ringing. Past the offices of HSBC (which felt quite odd as I was there only a couple of weeks earlier), and then some major excitement as some idiot driver of a people mover decided to open a door in front of Em. Fortunately he missed but it was very tempting to punch him as I went past.
Right off the Champs Elysses and another circular trip to get round to the front of the Eiffel tower and then past the tower, left and left, round the fountain and we were there!!!! Lots of excited friends and family to great the various people in the group and then time for hundreds of photos, group photos, more screaming ( mostly Em's friends) some annoying gorilla suited people, but more than anything, the feeling of accomplishment at finishing the challenge. I felt elated for being there.
At the end, Cat, Em, Nathan, Karen and I headed for our hotel at the Pullman Rive Gauche. Em said she needed to stop for a post card. Which was a lie. She was actually getting cards as it was Karen's birthday, which was a really nice touch. We pedalled very slowly for our hotel; I honestly didn't want to stop cycling but knew we'd completed this trip. We met up with Dr John and managed to find the DA van at the back of the hotel and left behind some bikes that had served us faithfully, some more than others, through four days of our journey. I hadn't suffered any mechanical failures and, despite my man-flu, had not suffered any physical problems that stopped me from finishing the ride. Jenny from DA was there to had out room keys and we had a quick drink of champagne before finding our backs and staggering off to our rooms. Mine did smell a bit weird, but I was too tired to really care.
After a shower, it felt quite strange to be wearing proper clothes and know that tomorrow I'd be on the Eurostart back home. Downstairs and the bar was just getting warmed up. The hotel prices were ridiculously expensive, even by Paris standards. I didn't feel like drinking, so instead I managed to get some really good photos of the people we'd travelled with over the last four days. I couldn't care less that Australia had managed to lose to Ireland in the rugby, I was just happy to be in the bar.
Dinner was in the banquet hall at the back of the hotel. More photos and lots of smiles all round when we found our medals for completing the journey. The food was pretty good, although there seemed to be some confusion again about how many vegetarians they had to serve. Old John gave a very good speech thanking the DA team for their efforts. It was quite entertaining, though borderline as you never knew quite where some of his insinuations were going. Jo gave a speech and what turned out to be the final briefing, along with the direction from the DA crew to head for the pizzeria over the road for cheaper beer and the chance to party all night.
In the pizzeria, Karen had the Uni Crew sing a very good basso-tenor "Happy Birthday" and the place was filled with the DA crew and Alzheimer's cyclists, all having a brilliant time. I spoke to many of the people I'd travelled with in the pizzeria, and it was a fitting end to a colossal four days where people cycled their hearts out for a great cause but were there for each other when needed. For me, before I had started the journey and was stood on Blackheath with a bunch of random strangers, I thought it would be like any other tour with a large group where you follow the chosen route and at the end don't speak to each other ever again. This felt more like a pilgrimage with an outcome of great joy; I met some fantastic people along the way who made it possible to simply love the time I had on the road with them; without these people, the experience would have been a long cycle with those unknown strangers.
1 comment:
Well done ye!
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