April 2017. Just over a year after our successful JOGLE trip I phoned up Josh
“Hey Josh, do you fancy doing London to Paris and back on the May Bank Holiday?”
“Which one?”
“The late one”
“Let me just check… Yeah I’m free, lets do it”
A couple of weeks passed, route was planned, sun cream was bought, Josh sourced a bike and we were ready to go.
On Saturday the 27th of May I headed in to London to meet Josh at Paddington Station. With little more than than the route on my phone, food in the backpack and a smile on our faces we headed to the start point, Buckingham Palace.
Fortunately for us, Josh lived and worked in London so this part of the trip was easy, a leisurely 2 and a half mile cycle to the start point to get the legs warmed up and ready to embark on the trip.
However, Josh had clearly decided that we needed a longer warm up as he took us on a 3 mile detour in the wrong direction to Shepards Bush…
Upon arrival at Buckingham Palace it was great to see the hundreds of people that were there to see us off. They may have just been there to try and get a glimpse of the queen but that was just a bonus. The real main even was seeing 2 grossly unprepared cyclists setting off on a trip just for the fun of it.
It was a hot day. Several layers of Suncream had to be applied before we set off. Progress was slow. Traffic was bad and we were slipping behind schedule.
Once out of the city the roads opened up and the surroundings of buildings was replaced with trees and fields, this was bliss.
All good things must come to an end.
Part of the efforts to minimise the distance meant that the route took us onto the A23. Safe to say we stuck to the hard shoulder but this did not stop us being beeped at every few minutes.
Eventually with a sigh of relief, we reached Brighton. What a beautiful place. We headed through the centre straight to the coast and then followed it down to Newhaven.
When we reached the port Josh dropped the bombshell that he wouldn’t be able to make it to Paris. His knees were in so much pain that he would take the ferry over to France and wait for me to go to Paris and back and he’d join me for the return trip to London.
I was devastated, I told him to sleep on it and decide in the morning.
What followed was one of the worst nights sleep I have had in a long time. I struggle to sleep on planes but this was worse.
The seats were comfortable-ish but I think that they forgot to turn off the lights as this was how it was the entire night.
The ferry set off at 11pm and arrived at 6am (France time) so even if we’d managed to sleep the entire trip, it wouldn’t have been the best prep for the day ahead of us.
Josh decided that even after the luxurious nights sleep we had, that was enough to repair his knee to an extent that it should hold up the rest of the trip.
It was a good thing he did, having departed from the boat the first few hours watching the sun come up over the fields were breathtaking. The mist and the dew over lakes was something to behold and made the poor nights sleep worth it.
The miles flew by through the morning and we were making good progress and were ahead of target which would make the return leg slightly easier.
Having gone through a fair amount of our food and water we were on the look out for somewhere to restock. Not many places seemed open. This wasn’t the end of the world, it was still early-ish morning on a Sunday, we were sure they’d open soon enough.
Eventually we found somewhere that was open so we stockpiled for the rest of the day but with the temperature creeping higher and most shops still closed, we began to get concerned.
Reaching the outskirts of Paris gave us mixed reactions. On the one hand it meant that we were almost halfway through out trip and ahead of schedule, on the other, we had to get through to the city centre in one piece then find our way back out again.
The breaks were becoming more regular to try and cool us down and reapply suncream. The heat was taking its toll on us and our pace was slowing down.
Whilst going through Paris, what seemed like a normal road started to go downhill, literally. It turned into a full on dual carriageway tunnel under the River Seine. Cars were flying past us and without a hard shoulder, this was step too far.
We made a beeline for an emergency exit and were greeted with a set of stairs. Several flights of stairs carrying our bikes over our shoulders whilst wearing cleats was tough but by far the safer option.
We ended up somewhere in the financial district of Paris. For the first time we could properly see the Eiffel Tower, the end point of this leg and the halfway point of the whole trip. This spurred us on so we looked at the map then headed straight there still ahead of schedule.
Disaster struck. The brand new ‘puncture proof’ tyres on Josh’s bike had the impossible, a puncture. Having left me to my own devices when I got a puncture on JOGLE and time in the bank, I did the honourable thing and let him struggle away.
Back on the road in the heat, questions were running through both of our heads. Could we make it back to Dieppe in time, would we run out of food, with the shops all closed would it be safe, was it safe to continue riding in this heat, what do we do if we miss the ferry back?
We arrived at the finish point and breathed a sigh of relief, we had reached it in 22 hours and were over the moon.
After a few obligatory photos we set off in search of a cafe to discuss what we were going to do next.
Cycling London to Paris in 22 hours was something to be proud of in itself and with the heat, the lack of open shops and our dehydration levels we made the decision to finish the trip there.
There were still some hurdles to overcome though, as we were in Paris, it made sense to do a bit of sight seeing (maybe this is why people just cycle there rather than there and back…). This meant we would have to secure accommodation for the night and transport back the next day.
Fortunately I had a number of hotel points so managed to get us a nice hotel not too far away so we headed there for a shower washing off all the sun cream and sweat. We soon realised that we didn’t have any ‘normal’ clothes, just the spare set of kit we had.
We set off for dinner by the Notre Dame and found a nice little restaurant down a back alley. This was when I realised how bad my ‘tan lines’ were…
The next day we went for a tour round the city, we went to the Louvre Museum, Notre Dame and Sacre-Coeur to name a few places.
We had to get back to the UK for work the next day so the previous night we had seen that there were busses that were a reasonable price back to London which allowed bikes on so this was fine.
Upon arrival at the bus terminal however, they informed us that they only allowed fold up bikes. This was not on their website.
The next logical step was hiring a car. The hire companies said that as we were under 25 it would cost an arm and a leg and they had restrictions that meant that we couldn’t take the car to the UK and were funny about us leaving it at Dieppe.
Flights were the next option however the airport was outside of the city, they were expensive and charged a kidney for bikes.
This left the Eurostar, it was great in terms of logistics but was quite expensive… They did however accept bikes and only charged one kidney between the 2 of us so with no other options, we took the hit.
We boarded the Eurostar and quickly arrived back in London. We went our separate ways back home. I headed back to work the next day tired tanned (burnt) and a cracking answer to the inevitable question ‘What did you get up to this Bank Holiday?’
It certainly was a trip with a few hiccups but it was truly fantastic, I wouldn’t have changed a thing.
My Belated Gap Year 