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Nice one! How was the weather?
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couldnt have been luckier. pissed down in greenwich while waiting for my mate but i was sheltered under a tree. had to hole up in my dads pub in bromley for an hour and a half because of biblical rain but the second we decided to leave the sun came out. france side nice and cool/overcast until paris when the sun came out!
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Thought I'd write a summary for anyone who is interested (more likely for me to look back at)....
UK leg from Greenwich to Newhaven was actually pretty nice. Don't remember any serious hills (handy as i was on 82GI). Pub stops were much needed and broke the journey up nicely (we had 3 pub stops and 1 for KFC in Newhaven). Seemed to notice that further away from London we got, the more space drivers seemed to give you when overtaking which was nice!
The most uncomfortable i was over the 27 hours was on the ferry. Awkward reclining seats (that reclined about 4 inches), they left the brightest lights known to man on all night so had to cover eyes to try and sleep, even after 4 pints and a couple of special cigarettes was still tough to get any sleep. If there's to be a next time i wouldnt bother with the recliners and go kip under a table in the bar area instead. At least they have sockets to charge phones/battery packs etc!
Off the boat after a terrible sleep and a whores wash in the sink and it seemed to be only a few minutes until we were on the Avenue Verte. Joined by someone who's GPS had broken and needed a guide which although not a problem to start with, she was a little faster than us and coupled with the extra MPH or 2 the pan flat 35 miles straight off the ferry meant my arris was very VERY tender. This was the only time i have ever really wished i had a road bike, no hills to get out of the saddle hurt! Once we hit Forges les Eaux our friend (didnt hear her name the first three times she told me so had to just nod after that) left us and headed off into the distance and left us to it. After that everything seemed to just fly by. Rolling "hills" which were beautiful and due to the time of day, mostly car free. The only thing I would really call a hill came after 75 miles just outside Chars and to be honest it was nothing too severe. On the way down the other side I got the first and only puncture of the trip. With a heavy filthy bike i changed the inner tube but with so much crap all over the bike when everything went back together it sounded like a bag of bolts getting smashed on the wall everytime i had to put any sort of pressure on the cranks to get up a hill which unfortunately put a bit of a downer on the last 35 or so miles. Stopped 18 miles outside Paris in a pub (and about the first place we had seen since breakfast that was open) to charge phones enough for pics etc once in Paris. The next 15 miles were tough, creeky bike, back streets and 1 million traffic lights started to take their toll and i was getting the ump! Then came the Arc de Triumphe, that was an experience, Im quite confident on the road so it was quite fun (managed to film it on the GoPro) but my mate didnt enjoy it quite so much. He said he thought he was going to die and had lost all colour in his face!
Got to the Eiffel Tower, navigated through the millions of tourists to realise we had 20 minutes til check in closed at Gare Du Nord. Queue a mental ride through Paris traffic to get to the station with seconds to get our bikes checked in (the bit where you do that is a good 476ish miles away) and get ourselves back to the check in desk! But we made it just in time to grab a can of Heineken to celebrate on the train with.
Unfortunately the train journey was not straightforward, someone in Lille threw themselves under the train which meant the train stopped, police had to come and investigate, new driver had to come out. Meant instead of getting to Kings X at 8:15pm, we got there at 3:30am Sunday morning. I think tiredness came into the stupid decision to cycle the 14 miles from Kings X to Welling but I fell through the door and into bed at 5am where i stayed until 3pm!God i have gone on ....
Here's the shortened version
Lovely bike ride, not too difficult but thoroughly enjoyed. If your Eurostar train ever stops, get in line for the food cart ASAP before literally every bit of food goes!
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Pics or it didn’t happen!
Well done to you for what sounds like a great trip.
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think it worked out to 180ish miles. to be honest it was quite a bit easier than i thought but i did do a fair bit of cycling in the months leading up to it.
saying that we had 1 puncture and nothing was open so we couldnt have stopped even if we wanted to. so under different circumstances it could easily have taken us an extra hour or two without us changing how fast we went. -
I'd love to do it next year when my knee is back to a better health as I'm only riding 64 GI and spinning like mad but happy to be back on the bike.
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Really cool. Thanks for sharing
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Just read this... great!
One question: A lot of blogs I've read talk about the Avenue Verte and the roads in the north being okay, but Paris being an absolute nightmare. I do most of my miles in rush hour London and I'm not a total idiot on the road: Is Paris particularly bad or is it just a case of riders not liking it as much as open roads with light traffic? : )
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I read that before i went too. I think its just the contrast of going from rolling hills with nice scenery to being dumped into Paris. It was more familiar to me anyway as I too do most of my miles through rush hour traffic in London and was certainly no worse than the usual commute. And we were in a real rush so having to pull some sketchy manoevres, didnt feel in any real danger at any point. Even the Arc De Triumphe wasnt too bad, if you are confident and assertive on the road its a doddle
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About
London to Paris in 24 hours on a Track Bike
Posted by
@Camel_toe
on eurostar home now. made it without too many issues. apart from us not adjusting time for being in france and having 10 minutes to get from the Eiffel tower to check in at gare du nord...someones had a long day drafting me for 10 hours bless him
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