The 14th of July, a cloudy morning both in England and in France. We arrived in Calais at lunch time and headed inland to a small town called Desres. Before we had gone fifty yards I got my feet stuck in the pedals and fell off sideways in front of a ferry full of people, Ed got his front wheel jammed through a gap in the boarding plank of the ferry and damaged his spokes and John was so slow getting all of his stuff together he nearly got the ferry back to England. We then headed into Calais to try and find the only road out in the right direction that was small enough for us to cycle on. This road took us just under and hour to find, due to some language barriers, and then it started to rain.
That start pretty well set the tone of the trip although map reading and our French improved the weather worsened and we ended up getting wet eight out of the ten days. To make things even harder I had come back Majorca the week before with a nasty cold which soon spread to John and Ed and stayed with us all to Montpellier.
The first few days cycling were relatively slow due to us not being 100% fit and strong south-westerly winds and driving rain acting against us. However, when we rounded Paris on the fourth day we found our stride and although the rain continued the wind faded and became more of a westerly so did not hold us back. We picked up the pace and started doing around 80 mile days all the way to Clermont Ferrand which we reached on the eighth day. We were now in the south and flat roads became a thing of the past. We would cycle at around 6mph uphill for hours and then go down the otherside at over 30mph in minutes, Ed Hills got the top speed of the trip with 46.8mph.
On the ninth day we met a South-African guy pushing a wheelbarrow up a hill in the rain who told us it would take us another week to get to Montpellier as it was all up and down across valleys. This was the worst news we had heard all trip. However, the next morning we woke up early and cycled hard all day and managed to do 80 miles of which less than ten were on flat roads. That evening we looked at the map and realised we were about 110 miles away from Montpellier and as we would be coming out of the mountains, overall we would be going downhill. We therefore decide to go for it and were on the bikes by 7.30 the next morning. By 4.00 that afternoon we were out of the mountains and about 35 miles from montpellier, we were exaused but kept going and we reached Montpellier around 7.00 that evening. It was a strange feeling getting there because we were more happy that we wouldn't have to cycle the next day than that we had actually completed the trip.
Overall we cycled 720 miles in ten and a half days. Our longest day was the last coming in at 112 miles and collectively we have raised over £5,000 for our charities. Thanks again to everyone for donating so generously, I had an unforgetable, once in a life-time trip and the money raised will make a big difference to many people in the UK.
If you would like to have a look at some more photos from the trip the link is
http://www.flickr.com/photos/olesengl/
Regards,
George
