London to Paris Bike Ride by brian
Friday, July 06 2007
For most people on Islay brian palmer from the Ileach Newspaper passing by on his bike is as normal as an Oystercatcher feeding on the shores of Loch Indaal. You only miss them when they are NOT there, which was the case last week for brian, not the Oystercatchers though. Brian decided some time ago to join the London to Paris Cycle Tour, which is a charity ride for the benefit of international children's charities. He managed to do a lot of training hours on Islay and finished the race in style and good health, raising a good amount of money in the process. Well done brian and congratulations! What follows next is his report.
Although you may think that we simply sit in an office pressing keyboards and staring at pixels, the Editor and myself are secretly active people. Carl spent the weekend rowing and I spent three days cycling from Hampton Court Palace Golf Club in London to Versailles, just outside Paris (apart from the wet bit). Setting off on a very nice Eddy Merckx carbon bike (loaned by the UK distributor) the first stage took us all the way to Portsmouth to board the Brittany Ferries boat for an overnight sailing to St Malo. We had breakfast in a very nice hotel just 3km from the ferry port and then it was another 205km with not only a tailwind, but a phalanx of motorcycles, a lead car and full technical support. All we had to do was pedal. Suffice it to say that the French attitude towards cyclists is considerably more favourable than that of the average London motorist.
Around 200 bicycles were stored in Alencon’s Fire Station overnight before we left on Saturday morning to cycle 209km to Versailles. The London-Paris Ride consists of three groups, effectively slow, medium and fast and I had elected for the slow group since Islay mitigates against the experience of cycling in a large group, but around 15km from Versailles, all three groups amalgamated and we cycled en-masse along closed roads, into the outskirts of the country’s capital city.
All the training you may have seen me do over the past few months paid off very well as I comfortably pedalled a total of just under 600km in three days with no ill effects. Since the purpose of the ride, apart from the obvious enjoyment factor, was to raise money for three international children’s charities, so I’d like to thank all those who sponsored me, including Sir John Mactaggart, Stormcats Lagavulin, Ardbeg Distillery and to Jock McKerrel who came to see me off in London. There’s always room for more in the coffers, so if anyone would like to sponsor retrospectively, I’m sure you know where to find me.
More info on the washingmachinepost, brian's personal cycling pages
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