London to Paris in 24 hours on a Track Bike

Setting off on Friday lunchtime with couple of pals from Greenwich Park with saddlebag of clean clothes and spare tubes, Frame bag full of sweets and cakes, and a chalk bag hanging off the TT bars with more sweets and fig rolls because well, I'm fat.

Been tinkering about with my bike trying to get it as comfy as possible and I think I've got it about right. Done just about the whole route on google street view to iron out some of the ridiculous detours away from the roads Google Maps sends you on. And I have planned many, many pit stops!

Hoping to get there in around 24(ish) hours

Not even sure why I am posting it here, just a bit excited and everyone I know is bored to death of hearing about it!

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Amazing! That saddle looks like it would kill my arse though

^this. Good luck though

What's the luggage/bottle holder combo on the back?

Where are you mounting your lights?

something i saw on the bikepacking thread. cheap ebay saddle bag with a cheap ebay double bottle holder bent round it. works really well to stop any movement whatsoever from the saddlebag

edit. The bottle holder fell off this morning. Seems after wedging a bike in the back of a car you need to check everything is still attached properly

regarding lights. they will go on the back of the saddlebag and on the front....oh shiz, didnt think about that with the nose bag on the tt bars

What is your route? I did it last month london-newhaven-dieppe-beauvais-paris. Stayed the night in beauvais on the way there are way back, doing it all in one go will be tough! Good luck!

As above I have done the London Newhaven-Dieppe-Paris route..

Over a few days however, ended up camping out in a Forest just on the outskirts of Paris, freezing cold in a Bivy.. Nice ride until you hit Paris proper.

Came back on Eurostar. I will do it again forsure..

Not so keen doing it in one go, but then i am soft.. I was also lucky with the wind which was a constant light tail wind, I meet someone a few weeks after getting back who did the same route the week previous and he had a block headwind from the moment he departed his house.. Fingers crossed it will be behind you..

Regards

Your saddle looks like it’s got damaged. That could shred bib shorts.

its just a foam cover on the saddle its all soft so nothing to catch my shorts on (famous last words)

Friday night
Greenwich-Newhaven .
Saturday morning
Off the ferry Dieppe-Forges Les Eaux-Gournay en Bray-Chars-Herblay-Paris.

Followed the route on street view as using Google maps to get to Broadstairs a while back ended up on gravel for far too long. Tried to keep it as straight and on tarmac as possible as i was tasked with planning and organising this whole thing for the three of us.

i did pretty much the same route a few weeks ago, in 24hrs, but on a road bike.
was great, the avenue vert is great, pan flat and straight. The only thing that i didn't like was whoever put that road there, for some reason felt the need to put a sign, every 2kms or so with the distance to paris. which gets tiresome to say the least.

take lots of sunblock! that last 60kms or so for us was in middle of the day bright sun on wide open roads with 0 shade, luckily we had spare, otherwise we wouldve gotten burnt to a crisp

good luck ,im sure itll be great

i did pretty much the same route a few weeks ago

can haz .gpx?

Check roadworks! Was in France a few weeks ago and loads of roads were being resurfaced. Some were traversable but others not so much. Especially fresh tarmac baked in the summer heat. Not so great.

Streetview player is your friend for route checking:

• http://www.brianfolts.com/driver/
  
  

Google Maps is ABSOLUTE SHIT for cycle routing. Do not use. It once tried to send me up a massive flight of stairs. (Down would be OK for those with rad BMX skills... but up?)

Strava is much better although it tends to send you along largish roads even when nicer lanes exist. Nothing beats using someone else's properly and lovingly researched route, though.

I did London -> Portsmouth, Caen -> Paris a couple of weeks ago, 3 days of riding. Certainly wouldn't recommend that route fixed! Some brutal climbs on that route, hit 35% at points.

Just a side note for anyone using Eurostar you are not allowed to transport a bike with luggage attached.

I had to remove all my bike packing bags and carry them on board. Also the staff at the terminal was miserable as sin bunch of job worth wankers.. Not good when you are tired having just completed the journey..

yeah have had to make some adjustments to some "roads" it was suggesting. been shafted by googlemaps before

also got a map on strava. and my satnav has a pretty decent cycle option

yeah i got seriously burnt on a recent ride from london-broadstairs which looked particularly fetching after wearing a cycling cap that protected 50% of my forehead while the rest was glowing

hah sure, here it is

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• London_to_paris_24hr.gpx

Oh fuck off rain

I am sure you're aware of this website but just in case - http://www.donaldhirsch.com/dieppeparis.html

I did this a while ago on lo-pro-no-brakes bike, and I think it's very much doable in 24hrs but you can be bored to death on avenue verte and riding in Paris is awful for my taste.

Good luck!

fully laden and weighing just shy of 4 tonnes at least the bikes ready to go

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Take pictures if you can, good luck!

Good Luck!