London2Paris.co.ukThe 2009 London to Paris Bike Ride

Next week is “Bike Week 2009″. “Bike Week is the biggest nationwide cycling event in the UK. A national celebration of cycling, Bike Week helps you get more out of life – by getting you on your bike and exploring your local community”.

There are load of cycle events happening all over the UK to celebrate Bike Week 2009 so take a look at the official website to find out something near you: http://www.bikeweek.org.uk.

Apple and I are planning to attend an event in London to get some on-road practice in, to help to keep us focused and motivated by cycling with lots of other people in formation.

Here’s some details of the one in London we’re gonna attend:

Event name:

Open Garden Squares Weekend Ride

Event date:

14th June 2009 – 10:00am – Approx 5:30pm.

Location:

Ride starts outside Marylebone station.

Distance:

Adult beginners /easy ride (Not sure on exact distances!)

Description

Use your bike to visit some of the 190+ London secret gardens specially opening to the public this weekend.

The ride is free but you will need an £8 ticket to visit the gardens. You can buy this on the day or in advance – see their website.

Participants may choose to leave or join the ride along the way.

More info on the London “Open Garden Squares Weekend Ride”

Montagu Square, London. An example of what you get to see on the way.

If anyone wants to take part in this event then let us know. You don’t need to register, you can just turn up on the day. We’re gonna take our bikes down on the train and then try enjoying a day on our bikes and a bit of sunshine too (we hope!!). Might see you there then.

It’s been real hard work in the last 4 weeks. Before deciding to attempt this challenge, I was far too lazy for too long – not doing much in terms of exercise and eating far too many ‘good things’ and through the winter I was very much turning into a couch potato.

So because of this I have started my training with a pretty bad level of general fitness. I have certainly paid this laziness in the last 4 weeks. Starting in week one with getting out of breath very quickly, feeling dizzy and sick and with legs that felt like jelly – and that was from just 30 minutes on the bike!!

Still, having this challenge to aim for has mean’t that I have had to push myself. I contacted a few people who already cycle long distances, visited a few online forums, read some books and from all this I set-up a training plan which you can see on The Training Page. This has now become a constant reminder of what I need to do, when I need to do it to get me to the point where I can achieve success and power myself from London to Paris by bicycle.

By the end of week one, I was pretty sure that I had gone mad agreeing to do this trip, but thankfully I pushed on with the training and I am now starting to feel the benefits of it.

Yes, I am exhausted after the weekly 2 hour cycles and my back-side hurts from being on the bike saddle but at least the legs are getting there and the dizziness gone. I have been quite surprised at how quickly the body gets back into regular exercise. The weekday cycles are enjoyable (when the weather is good) and I am now just concentrating on trying to keep up the pressure on myself, slowly increasing my average speed and trying to build up the strength in my legs. I’ve got a long way to go for sure, but I think I am on track and am looking forward to the big cycle trip itself so much that the training time I have had to put in is now starting to become a pleasant routine.

Here’s an interesting stat that I found whilst researching for the training plan:

In terms of intensity and endurance, comparing cycling and running is about 4:1. So a comparable cycling distance to running a marathon is about 100 miles.

Now, I’m not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. If that’s right, then that means in just 4 days cycling from London to Paris we would have done the equivalent of 2.5 marathons!!

Anyway, here is where I got the stat from, it’s a rather useful guide: An Amateur’s Quick Guide to Long-Distance Cycling

This has been the toughest week so far, long hours at work, recovering from the bank holiday and the seemingly endless amounts of alchohol and burgers that were consumed and the worst of all, chronic pains in my knee which I thought I had said good riddance too…

Still training in the gym, which I realize is not the best preperation for a trip of this proportions but I have no bike, and taking this into consideration I felt that this was better for me than just simply sitting at home and exercising my fore arm whilst honing my crisp eating skills, which are, quite formidable.

So far this week I have done a total of 1 hour 20 mins on the gym bike and done a grand total of about 21 miles which isn’t that bad, but when calculated into practicing on the road, this distance will be greatly reduced….

With regards to the team there are a few nicknames to be decided on, one of the names I would like to suggest for instance is Ed ‘The Cracken’ Moore…. this is a reference to his record breaking builders crack, which has continued to grow even though Ed himself has stopped, in the middle of this century it will be somewhere near his ears…

Another is Alan ‘8 meals’ Bull, this is due to his amazing ability to be lighter than your average 4 year old but still manages to eat the equivalent weight of a Killer Whale in food everyday..

Another is Scott ‘The God’ Metcalf, due to my intelligence, wit, and never ending pearls of wisdom which are revered throughout the western world, it would be the entire world but I don’t want to be arrogant and anyway half of the eastern part don’t speak my language so would not be able to understand me, so they would just have to be content with my intense good looks instead… I know some people would think this is arrogance but its not, its truthfulness, a huge difference..

There is also Apple ‘ The Apple’ Bull, a wonderful person with a wonderful personality who continues to take the mickey out of me to hide her love for me in front of her husband…

I’m signing off now, I’m salivating about what idiotic comments I’m going to write next week already..

I am pleased to confirm two new members of the London to Paris bike ride team. These two were crazy enough to agree to this challenge today, and my best wishes go out to you with the training!

• Luke O’Sullivan
• Dave Gillham

Welcome to the team guys and I look forward to trying to keep up with you both who I’m sure will fly through the 200 miles that’s between us and Paris.

So there have been lots of people saying how interested they are in completing the London to Paris bike ride in September. But as always with these highly challenging events, actually getting people to commit to doing it takes some time as there is lots to think about and consider and the reality of taking part in such a challenge can be quite overwhelming. Most will decide against doing it but there is always a few who are really up for it.

A few of us had the chance to meet up yesterday to chat a little about the trip and what equipment is needed and of course what training is needed.

So, in terms of “the team”, we now have the first 4 confirmed members and the date has been set for the London to Paris bike ride.

The team so far:

• Alan Bull
• Apple Bull
• Scott Metcalf
• Ed Moore

The date: Thursday 17th September 2009

Unfortunately, Darren Clarke was not able to confirm that he will take part in the bike ride. Although, if you do change your mind Darren, there is always room on the team for you mate!

I’m expecting a few more people to confirm over the next few days and shall post back then with details and will update The Team page shortly after!

If you’re reading this and are interested, then please let me know. The more people the better I say!

I have been asked a few times this week, “who’s crazy idea is it to cycle from London to Paris!”. So thought it might be an idea to add it to the blog.

I got an email in March (just before my holiday) from the British Heart Foundation inviting me to get a team together to complete the London to Paris bike ride in September 2009.

Whilst I really liked the idea, I didn’t think too much about it at first, but whilst on holiday Apple and I started to think about it more seriously and we both thought that it may be worth aiming for and was sure that we’d find some friends who would also be interested in taking part.

Unfortunately, after deciding that we’d find out more about it, I was told that the trip was fully booked as the numbers are limited. They have did have another new date planned because of the popularity of the trip, but it seemed too soon to train properly for (August).

So, instead of waiting till next year – and in that time probably manage to talk ourselves out of the idea – we tried looking for other organised cycle rides from London to Paris before autumn and it gets to cold and wet to want to even consider such a quest. Many of the ones I found were either too soon to train for, too expensive just to take part in or if an organised charity bike ride – the minimum sponsorship level seemed out of reach.

We didn’t want to just give up, I think it’s good to push yourself every now and then. Therefore, we started thinking that it might be an idea just to get some friends together and go it alone.

We might still end up joining and organised event if we can find one, but the plan for now anyway is to organize our own trip.

Now we’ve finally made the decision to go ahead and cycle from London to Paris in September 2009, I am finally – a whole week later – only just getting to grips with the idea. Now we’ve said yes, it all seems so real and there’s just seems so much to organise and do now.

As many of those looking to ‘join the team’ live in different areas I decided to use my web skills to create this blog for all of us to use. It took me quite a bit of time after work this week to get it all setup, but I’m sure it’ll be worth it in the long run. The idea is to create one central resource for all of us to keep in contact, and track our progress during training and the event itself.

Hopefully, the content we all add here may help others thinking about cycling from London to Paris in the future. It would be great for those who have already completed this route to get in touch and give us any handy tips and advice – I think we’re gonna need all the help we can get.

So far 6 of us have provisionally agreed to take part, and talking to a few people about the event this week, a couple more have taken a serious interest in getting involved too which is great – the more of us the better.

So as you can imagine, it’s been a busy week all around but things are starting to take shape now. We have a rough date in mind of when we want to start the trip, a very basic route idea, and training – however informal – has now begun for most. Well thinking about when to start training anyway!