LONDON TO PARIS DAY 1 London to Dover

The 4 of us doing the ride rendezvous-ed over the course of the evening, and shared the inevitable Italian meal (carbs and beer).  The roll call besides myself was Stuart (riding for Save The Children, working at Lloyds), Andy (also Save The Children, Lloyds) and Dylan (riding for Help For Heroes, works for Computacenter). We'd previously agreed to a 7.30 am photocall at Lloyds' head office on the morning of Friday 2nd, so that meant an alarm call at 6 am. The £15.65 continental breakfast at the Novotel was ignored in favour of a backstreet caff (a less than healthy fried egg and beans on toast). We ate outside, a waitress taking the first of many team pics.  It was a lovely morning, and choosing that option rather than the hotel for breakfast I think helped calm the nerves somewhat. Which was just as well as the first part of the journey was going to prove pretty stressful riding.

The photocall at the Gresham Street HQ of Lloyds marked the start of a few inglorious episodes for Stuart.

First, he managed to fall off his bike directly under the Lloyds sign that is always shown when there's a news item on the organisation.  Not sure how he did it, but there was no real damage done, other than to his dignity. Second, and no more than 10 minutes later, crossing the busy Bank junction he passed an amber light (it really was, not red he claims) without realising how far it was across to the other side, and consequently garnered a whole load of abuse from a motorcycle courier and a lorry driver for delaying them by, well, it must have been nearly as much as 2 seconds. Third, having carefully plotted a route down Borough High Street, we found it was then closed, meaning we had to walk with our bikes down crowded pavements for half a mile. It was now nearly 2 hours since we'd gathered at the hotel reception, and we were still in central London.

The rest of the route out of London was fairly straightforward however.  The roads are really rubbish though - traffic lights every 50 metres and 10 potholes inbetween each set of lights.  Busy, but straightforward. Bermondsey, New Cross, Blackheath, Welling, Dartford, south to the A20 was the chosen path, and a hell of a lot easier than navigating into Paris would turn out to be. But that's a blog for a different day.

There's not too much to recount about the actual ride itself. Neither Maidstone nor Ashford were entirely without incident as far as staying on the right road was concerned, but we prefer to put that down to the fact that signs for the A20 disappeared temporarily in each, rather than any failings on the part of Stuart's navigation and route planning. Greggs (the bakers) did good business in Ashford as far as luncheon arrangements were concerned for some of the party (though Stuart preferred M&S, putting in another sterling performance by having to call Dylan from the till to get him to take Stuart's wallet).

Stopping briefly just before Hythe for a photo-op (and why wouldn't you when the place is called Pedlinge; ok it's probably pronounced with 'j' sound at the end rather than a 'g', but a judicious hand over the 'e' on the sign took care of that problem), we ran along the coast to Folkestone. Till then it had been a sunny and pleasant day, but the fog was rolling in mightily, and visibility became practically zero for a while (slightly bizarre on a summer's afternoon, but I guess it's a regular occurrence around the coasts). Much cooler too.

The single most testing, (i.e. steepest), climb of the entire ride was encountered between Folkestone and Dover, and a proper legwarmer it was too, necessitating a bit of shank's pony for 3 of us, but not for superhuman Stuart.

Now, the entrance to the port, queuing up on our bikes alongside the cars, lorries and motorbikes, and then riding up the ramps actually on to the ferry itself had been the single part of the journey Stuart had been looking forward to the most.  He'd seen plenty of other cyclists at other ports do it, and frankly, been very jealous. A car is very practical, functional and sensible, but it doesn't imply free-spiritedness, or some sense of being an adventurer, a pioneer even, someone not bound by convention. To Stuart, if no-one else, it just looks so damn cool. In the event, he was pretty disappointed. Dover itself is a pretty grotty place these days, the port reflects that, check-in was in a grim shed where the truckers present their paperwork, and the ride onto the boat didn't have an audience. Perhaps tiredness had kicked in, but none of us felt it was any kind of triumphant or exciting moment.

On board it wasn't a lot better. Spoiled by Brittany Ferries on the more Westerly crossings to France, which run excellent, clean, comfortable ferries that feel like the seafaring equivalent of travelling business class. P&O to Calais is more like Easyjet. They're not as bad as Ryanair though, and to be fair, the vast quantities of fish & chips and lasgne we consumed in the restaurant were perfectly palatable. Suprisingly affordable too.

I was a bit worried about the final bit of navigation for the day, the - as it turned out - 10 km to the hotel in Coquelles. It was dark, we were tired, we weren't quite sure which part of the vast ferry terminal we were exiting, so orienting ourselves wasn't easy, but to Stuart's very pleasant surprise we made it to the hotel without a single wrong turn. Better than that, the air was warm, the roads were smooth, we rode well as a group, and the bit of Calais we saw looked surprisingly salubrious. The mood felt almost ecstatic by the time we arrived at our luxurious garrison for the night - the Formule 1 hotel at Coquelles. More on Formule 1 later. Anyway, that was Day 1 done - the longest, hardest (hmm, maybe - see the later notes on the Road of the Seven Valleys!), and most particulate-inhaling of the four, but then, you didn't expect anything else when it was a day spent on British roads did you?