The last 40 miles –
take 2
Continuing on my own journey was difficult. The scenery in France had been so stunning
that the temptation to keep riding with the group was massive and the sense of
leaving a team I have been a part of is not something that ever sits well with
me. Perhaps it helped therefore that there was no real time for long goodbyes
and after shedding unnecessary kit into the van (the temperate was now in the
mid 20s as opposed to low single digits I had started in) and checking I had the
fundamental things with me like my passport and credit card I set off in an
alternative direction.
 |
| Yet another stunning village |
Fortunately for me, my colleague Allan Campbell had agreed to join me for
the last forty miles into Paris and proved invaluable immediately by pointing
out that the route I had planned on taking into Paris was actually the A13. The A13 is a main route highway which eventually becomes an N road equivalent to
a British motorway. At least I could
have pleaded genuine ignorance but that may not have been much use to me by the
time it became a real issue. You live
and learn.
 |
| Allan acting as a tour guide |
Instead of dicing with death on a major arterial route,
Allan planned a route along the Versailles ridge riding in the areas that he is
used to riding in which proved to be far less frantic. In fact it proved to be absolutely stunning
and Allan’s company and commentary on the scenery were a very welcome
distraction as the pain in my legs began to increase with every pedal
stroke. Particularly in my right knee
that had started twinging about 5km before meeting up with Allan but was now becoming
a dull ache as the effects of the weekend really began to take their toll. I even got to see the tip of the Palais de
Versailles which I now understand was built in a deliberately low area as the
king had decreed that no other building was to be within sight. I think that is called obeying the letter of
the law if not the spirit but you have to applaud the ingenuity.
And so an admission, after a reasonable climb up onto the
ridge which runs along the south west side of Paris, the pain in my knee was
becoming a real nuisance. For the first
time since I started, I began to really wonder whether I could make it to the
end and was beginning to feel quite relieved at traffic signals turning red
where I could pour my water over the knee to try and provide some respite from
the heat. I took an energy sweet to try
and stock up depleted reserves and found it had a surprising effect.
I know professional cyclists often have a lot of caffeine in
the final drinks bottle that they get…and that Geraint Thomas famously rode
most of the Tour de France with a broken pelvis using Espresso coffee and a
famous brand headache drug to dull the immense pain he must have been in but I
had never known why. As the lights
turned green I pushed away, clipping into the pedals and trying to establish a
smooth, relaxed pedal stroke to ease the pain in my knee. Within a few minutes the pain had gone and we
motored along the road into Paris at a great pace. I even remember thinking maybe I had been
pedaling awkwardly for some reason and I had corrected the problem but I was
to find out later that was certainly not true.
The only logical explanation I can come up with is the caffeine in the
energy sweet which is quite scary as I am a firm believer if you are in pain
there is a reason and you should listen….just after I got to Paris.
Familiar friends
I saw a sign ahead of me that typically I would dread as a
road user. “Bus Lane” (the French to
English translation is free of charge).
“Fantastic!” exclaimed Allan “we can use this!” and so we
did through most of the town on the outskirts of Paris, the towns had nearly a
full bus lane in that, being Sunday afternoon, was deserted as the volume of
buses on the roads was reduced. This
really topped off the route as Allan and I could ride side by side and chat in
relative safely as we approached one of the world’s major cities. Even better, after having ridden along the
ridge, the only way into Paris was downhill and down quite a serious hill at
that and it was as we rolled down this hill an old friend came into sight.
 |
| Le Tour Eiffel |
Having worked in Paris for a fair amount of my career, I have quite a few photos of Gustav’s creation but this one is an
instant favourite. The end was in
sight. All we had to do now was navigate
the streets of Paris itself which I didn’t know is only actually within the
confines of “Le Périphérique”. Le Péripérique is the ring road that runs
around Paris. In a similar way to the
M25 in London it bears resemblances to either a car park or scenes from the
Wacky Races cartoons (ask your parents for most people) depending upon the time
of day you hit it but here it was just ahead of me and I had never been more
pleased to see it. Normally, when I am
on it I try to close my eyes and rely upon the taxi driver successfully
delivering me to my destination.
Setting the Champs Élysée as our destination on my bike
computer, we carried on…5km left to go and I would achieve some ambitions in
that distance which now was less than 1% of the entire weekends journey.
The first ambition was to ride on a cobbled road. There are a number of bike races in the
springtime in Northern France where we had ridden on where people take a
sadistic pleasure in adding cobbles into the route. Now, the first pass we had at these were
actually relatively smooth but still under your grip the bike bounced and
lurched a bit making contact with your palms in an irregular fashion which was just plain painful even before you even think about other contact points with a bicycle.
 |
| Whoever thought riding over cobbles was a good idea |
The bus lanes continued to be our friend allowing us to make a
steady reasonably traffic free progress into the finish and with around three
km to go Allan asked me if I recognised the building ahead of us. It took me
while to realise that we were approaching the Trocadéro where I had
walked across almost daily in the summer of 2013 as our office was on the side
I was currently riding and my hotel on the other side. Approaching it from a different angle meant I just did not recognise it.
The roundabout there is hectic with a mix of
cars on a through route, buses dropping off tourists for a fantastic view of Le
Tour’ Eiffel and the odd random cyclist wondering how exactly to get across
what seems to be seven lanes of traffic but we navigated around onto Avenue
Kleber and the Arc de Triomphe which sits at the top of the Champs Élysée as a
tribute to war veterans was in view.
 |
| The Arc De Triomphe is in site |
If I thought the Trocadéro roundabout was manic, navigating
l’Etoille that surrounds the Arc de Triomphe was another experience altogether as
the cars filtered around it like a swarm of bees around a honey pot. I know there are rules for how people get
around here but it is the epitome of organised chaos from my perspective. Fortunately we only had two exits to get past
and as you give way to all cars on your right (learning!) once the effects of
the traffic lights 50 meters away took hold we could sprint towards our exit
reasonably unhindered and there I was on the Champs Élysée… another ambition achieved.
 |
| Made it |
To ride the road that Le Tour
finishes on every year and that I have made my long suffering family stand by
for hours the last few summers to see the spectacle. With the traffic lights, fatigue, lemming
like pedestrians and emotion at having completed my personal challenge, Roy Jérémy's record on the downhill section of this road at around 42mph was never
going to be in too much of a threat and so it proved as I came up just 41 mph
short.
 |
| Just 41 mph slower than the Strava record..but I did stop for a drink or two |
As I said above, being in a team is very important to
me. Having finished this ride over 500km
away from home there were no family there to greet me or share in my enjoyment
but the team I have worked in on and off for around 8 years were. In addition to Allan who had ridden with me,
Julie, Mickael and Gary had all made the journey on the Sunday afternoon to
meet me and I know others wanted to but had plans that they quite rightly put
first. It all just reminded me how proud
I am to be a part of this team.
 |
| Team mates |
Mission accomplished
After a brief visit to the office to complete the actual mission of cycling to work, I rolled down the final 500 meters to the hotel where a very surprised receptionist had to deal with a person trying to check in with only their cycling kit. She was a bit more relieved when I asked to retrieve my rucksack that I had stored there last week.
"I am through accepting limits, cos someone says they're so. Somethings I cannot change. but till I try I'll never know" - Elpheba the witch - Wicked
If I wanted a final reminder of what I had done this for, as I was stopped in the small town of Magny en Vexin in Northern France, I heard that a good friend had received the all clear from cancer last week. Until that point, I didn’t even know they had cancer.
As I sat in my hotel room on the Sunday night
a wave of exhaustion overtook me meaning that I struggled to find the
motivation to go and eat despite knowing full well I had a lot of calories to
replace. The team I was part of is going
on for another 600 miles, in less than six days and it wouldn’t be right if I
didn’t thank all of them for letting me tag along on their excellent adventure
and acknowledge just what a challenge they have taken on. It is massive.
I always knew that yesterday was pushing my limits in
terms of endurance. I expected I would
not get much sleep on the Ferry and to then cycle nearly 120 miles was a
daunting task. As it turns out, with my knee
being as sore as it is, maybe it was beyond my limits but I had to
finish, the personal reasons that had influenced me to do this in the
first place made not doing so impossible.
The pain in my knee will
fade in a few days time, the charities we are raising funds for assist people
who have to go through far worse physical and, worse still, emotional pain on a
daily basis for prolonged periods of time that make my aches fade to nothing in
comparison.
 |
| Until next time... |
No comments:
Post a Comment