Le Coudray St Germer - Paris

Our first night of camping was in short - horrific. I woke up after a few hours of sleep to discover I was essentially lying in a puddle. The constant rain had caused the outer tent to stick to the inner tent and consequently a lot of rainwater had leaked into the tent. After a freezing cold and sleepless night, we woke in the morning to realise the full extent of the leak. The inner tent was practically flooded, our blanket and panniers and our sleeping clothes were all soaked too. And to make things better, it was still raining. We then had to spend over an hour trying to separate the soaking wet stuff from the drier stuff whilst inside our tiny tent.
Our mood was not good. We were shattered, cold, soaked and everything was aching. Nonetheless we made a swift but well behind schedule start. Soon however the wind and the increasingly heavy rain and hilly terrain took its toll and we really began to slow. Conditions were poor and we were in bad condition after the horrible night. As we pulled up around 35 miles later we were surprised to be met by a familiar face..more than 70 miles since we had last seen him. As the guy rolled up next to us, he proceeded to fall off his bike and we realised it was the same guy we had met way back in Dieppe. We rested and chatted for a while before setting off on a supposed shortcut. This shortcut actually ended up in us getting lost for an hour before finally finding our way back to the route. By this time it began to dawn on us that due to our late start and time lost due to conditions and losing our way, the number of hours left to go compared with the number of hours left in the day were not in our favour. Our tent was also soaked through making it uninhabitable and we had no plans or ideas of where else to stay in Paris. The prospect of wandering around Paris at night looking for somewhere to stay did not seem like a good idea.
However we ploughed on and eventually managed to reach the Seine. Not long after we bumped into that same guy again (making it the 5th time on the trip!) and after chatting about what was best for us to do next, we decided to stop for the night in a local hotel. This was a really difficult decision to make but in reality we didn't really have another option. We checked in and hung all the wet stuff out to dry in the hope that our tent would be habitable by the morning.

For the first time since we had arrived in France, we finally saw blue sky! We woke up to find a sunny morning and that our stuff had (mostly) dried. We set off on our final 25 miles a little bit more encouraged after the nightmare of the previous day. Cycling through pretty forests and making a short visit to Versaille (before we were promptly kicked out by a security guard) eventually led us up the steepest hill we have ever seen (yes, we walked up it) to the outskirts of Paris; Parc de St Cloud.
The Eiffel Tower was now in sight and after navigating across the busy roads over the Seine we found ourselves on the cycle race track around the Hippodrome on Rue de Longchamps. Winding down through the city we eventually arrived at the tower where we treated ourselves to a well deserved ice cream and relaxed on the grass, relieved that we had finally made it!

Dieppe - Le Coudray St Germer

As we queued for the 11.30pm ferry from Newhaven to Dieppe, a large number of cyclists began to join the line. We spoke to a few and discovered that we were far from the only ones who were planning this trip! There were large groups and individuals all attempting the same thing (though a few were trying to do it all in 24 hours!!) The main difference between us and them was they mostly seemed to have support vans and nice lightweight racing bikes as opposed to my pannier laden mountain bike!
After a four hour ferry crossing we arrived in a rather rainy Dieppe at about 4.30am and soon set off, slotting in behind a group of guys who sped off through the town (and we somehow managed to keep up!) As they stopped for directions we eagerly cycled on towards the Avenue Verte. Along the way we met a guy who had just casually decided the night before to cycle Dieppe to Paris and we had a little chat before he proceeded to fall off his bike. We continued on in the dark and onto the long tarmac strip of the Avenue and into the French countryside.
As the sun began to rise we began to take in the stunning countryside and the quaint little towns that the path intersected. We were soon overtaken by others who had been on the ferry with us including the guy who had fallen off his bike. Then it started to rain and we quickly became soaked and hastily shoved our clothes and tent into plastic bags in a small attempt to keep them dry. The rain and cold soon became too much and we sought shelter in a tiny cafe just off the avenue where a lady (whose breakfast i'm sure we interrupted) provided us with a wonderful hot chocolate to warm us up.
A while later the rain stopped but our problems had not. We came off the cycle path and onto a road and I instinctively cycled onto the left side. Jamie yelled 'RIGHT' at me and I swerved onto some gravel. Somehow I managed to get a puncture from this despite having mountain bike tires and my front wheel was soon completely flat by the time I had reached the top of the road. Although we knew how to repair a puncture (by we I mean Jamie has made one repair before) it would have taken us hours to get the wheel off alone! By some miracle a group of english cyclists came past and saw our evident trouble! Three of them spent the next 20 minutes or so repairing the puncture and we could not be more grateful to them for pretty much saving us from wasting hours trying to do it ourselves!
After a delicious lunch from a patisserie in Forges-Les-Eaux we set off again. The rest of the day pretty much blurred into one increasingly painful haze. The route became increasingly hilly and we really began to tire. Legs ached with every pedal and we literally felt empty and zapped of all energy. As you may imagine there were a few tears! After 14 hours or so since we began cycling we finally arrived at our campsite in Le Coudray St Germer.

Then the rain started...

Day 1 London to Newhaven

It was an early 5.30am start for us today as we caught the early train into London. After waiting about 2 hours to be allowed our bikes onto the trains, we arrived in Croydon. Immediately upon leaving the station, we got lost. We got so lost it probably took us about an hour and a half to actually get out! Two successive giant hills probably had a lot to do with this, the latter of which made Amy cry.
Our first moment of excitement was a bit of an odd one..cycling over the M25. It was something of a landmark meaning we were finally out of London! The second moment was realising we were finally in Sussex!
However cycling through sussex proved to be a rather trying experience. We constantly seemed to be going uphill and these hills were either pretty steep or stupidly long-although the majority of them seemed to be both! We seemed continually faced with hills that we'd never experienced before! Eventually we rolled (up a hill) into Lewes and then a long windy road down into Newhaven.

We're currently on the ferry looking forward to a very early 5amish start! Yay! There are lots of other cyclists on the ferry with us..majority of whom seem to be heading to paris. Some are doing it over a few days like us but a few are attempting to do the whole trip in 24hrs!
Just shows how popular a trip it is becoming!

All your support on justgiving/twitter/facebook is fantastic and is really keeping us going!
Thanks!

So we are off on friday!

So unbelievably, we are setting off to Paris this friday! It seems a long time from when we first decided to do this back in january! We will be setting off from Croydon on friday morning and hopefully arriving in Newhaven in the early evening! I am super excited to be going and looking forward to what will definitely be a memorable experience!!
We did cycle to Cambridge but I just forgot to write about it! We managed a decent 65 miles overall and there was no case of 'shaky leg' which used to plague us after our very first training rides once we got home. I think we can take that as a sign of improvement!
It will be interesting to see how carrying a load of stuff on the bike will effect our speed and hill climbing abilities but I'm hoping we will still be able to get up any big hills!

Just to say a huge thankyou to everyone who has sponsored us so far, we are at £350 which is amazing and will really encourage us to keep pedalling! Your money is going to a great cause and we will definitely get round to thanking all of you personally for your support! We hope to update this blog whilst on our ride so keep checking this page out to see how we are progressing!

Less than 3 weeks...!

So just less than 3 weeks till we set off! Our leaving date is the 23rd of August and we will hopefully be arriving in Paris on the 25th! After a bit of a palava in sorting out how exactly we were going to get home from Paris (Eurostar is not cheap) we have finally booked our ferry crossings and homeward trains. The train company have informed us that there won't be a problem with taking our bikes on the french trains but I have heard several stories which suggest otherwise! Let's just hope they do...

The next two weeks are going to have to be pretty training intense as I am not feeling fit enough at all. I have plans to do a few 30-40 mile trips and one big 70 odd miler to Cambridge and back at some point this week (hopefully in successive days!). If I can survive all that then I will be able to stop worrying. Though, I am finding it difficult to make myself go out on the bike. The terrain around here is pretty hilly which can make rides quite demoralizing as after tackling a few hills in succession it's easy to become knackered. Then I realise I've only managed to cycle 10 or 15 miles overall and although this has all been done at a reasonable pace, it is still a bit of a downer to be so tired after cycling so little! 

Please continue to show your support by reading/commenting on this blog, following our twitter or if you can, sponsoring us on our justgiving page at http://www.justgiving.com/AmyJamieLondonParis. For those of you who have already donated we are so grateful for your support and it really encourages us to keep going! It makes us feel that we won't be half killing ourselves in vain! (;

I will post an update on my cycling later this week!

We are still training...honest!

After a bit of an exam and holidaying hiatus we are back in the saddle with earnest. And a good thing to, since we plan to go in 6 weeks time!
We have really noticed an improvement in our cycling (especially now I've nearly learnt how to use my gears properly) and are finding climbs that would previously grind us to a halt are now far more manageable.
We concede that we aren't quite in the cycling elite yet but we are still averaging a pace that is more than enough to get us to Paris in one piece. Our session today took us around Bramfield and Tewin including a category 5 climb and was far more successful than our last time on this route!
We plan to be out on the bikes most days now even if just for a little bit to keep our fitness up. Next week we plan to cycle around 68 miles to Cambridge and back (with lunch inbetween!). This is about the distance we will be cycling per day on our trip so if we can do this then this should be a real confidence boost of our capabilities! Just hoping there aren't millions of hills to tackle!
If you want to be a bit nosy on our training then you can check out our MapmyRide profiles. I know there isn't much on them but that's only because we've only recently started using them and don't always remember to turn the app on when we cycle. We plan to use the app everytime we ride now so you can see just exactly what we are up to!
http://www.mapmyride.com/profile/30617896/
http://www.mapmyride.com/profile/JamieS1011/

I'm still looking for a ladies road bike if anyone knows of one for sale but if I can't find one then I think my little mountain bike might make it although it's not  ideal!
We are about to book the ferry and eurostar now that we actually know who is going (sadly has resulted in only the two of us) so it's all getting very real now!

Easter not quite as planned...

With two weeks off for Easter, we saw it as a perfect opportunity to get out cycling regularly and really make progress (in and amongst A Level revision, of course).  However, it hasn't quite worked out like that. The issue we forgot with Easter is the large quantity of chocolate that is given, and this, coupled with the traditionally poor English weather, left us out on the bike a lot less than we would have liked. Before today, the first time we made it out together, a sum total of three times. Not quite Paris standard!

This isn't to say that no exercise has been done, however, and this morning we set out on Amy's ambitious route to and through the Pelham's, and hopefully back again. With Michael joining us again, we hoped our group of three could survive the longest trip we had yet aimed for... and it was going well at first! Despite demoralisingly hilly terrain, and dubious navigation at points, we were making a steady pace and getting through the miles. The quiet countryside, with nice scenery, made it much more enjoyable than earlier distances down the river towpath!

Unfortunately, we then thought Michael was dead. On a long uphill section not too far from home he was suffering, but told us to go on and meet hime further on, rather than lose momentum on the hill. So we did, and we waited. And waited. And waited some more. And waited even more. Thankfully, just as we were considering going back to look for him, he made his way to us. Despite the suffering, we consider today a good day, though. Cycling further than we have done before, making 35 miles in one trip,

feeling vaguely comfortable throughout and without much training for a while, not too bad!