Day One - DONE...!!!

It's 24th June 2009 - and at 0800 hrs we start our epic journey! From London to Paris, by cycle over four days.

After an hour of London Underground and National Rail travel, I finally reached Blackheath in South East London at 0800 hrs for an 0830 start to the adventure. There were 28 of us, and 27 of them looked really fit - and the 28th one (me!) looked very sleepy.

The instructors and the expedition leader were doing their bit to warm us all up for the ride ahead. The target for Day One was revealed to be 80 miles. I felt cheated - I was expecting 60 miles!

Well, a couple of bananas later and a couple trips to the nearby hotel's washroom later, it was time to set off - in single file - 28 bicycles - snaking their way out of London.

Over the next four hours we were all greeted by bumpy roads, polite car drivers, a noisy A2, a warm and sunny day, all culminating into a much needed lunch break. By now, my mind was telling me that we would have done at least 50 out of the 80 miles for the day. My instructor told me that we had another 50 to go for the day! My cycle was doing fine - but I was positively deflated.

The second half of the day was interesting - lovely hills, lush green British countryside on a clear sunny day! What I had not envisaged about the hills was the fact the roads could be uphill as much as downhill. Even as the uphill climbs were monstrous (and fatal!), Day One belonged to the enthusiasm of the journey.

So, Day One - DONE!

The Walled City of Lucca (Italy)

My second day of outdoor cycle training happened on rented cycles around the walled city of Lucca (a 'leaning tower' away from Pisa, Italy).

Before this starts sounding like a travelogue (maybe it already does!), let me assure you it's not :-)

My outdoor training schedule is for weekends, and of course, weekends are also for travel - so the only logical way of doing both is to cycle on weekends at places that I travel to...meeting my commitments to both!

The cycling adventure at Lucca gave me a good flavour of the sloping terrain I might encounter on my London-Paris ride - especially the ride up to Dover. In a nutshell - it's not easy. Nevertheless, I am told that the slopes on the London-Paris route are mostly sloping down (and not up) - I am counting on that being true!

Update on the bike - I am planning to place an order for my bike this week - so look out for the next post - and if you have any suggestions on which bike to buy, please send them in :-)

Until then...arrivederci!

Well...! Begun is half done...? Not quite :-)

So I finally crossed the barrier of not having cycled in over a decade - and it happened in Amsterdam. We (my wife and I) hired cycles at Weesp (about half an hour outside of Amsterdam) and rode around the countryside.

True, there were more number of breaks than the number of kilometers we pedalled, but it was a start...and it left me rather confident of cycling for a longer duration. (See pictures as evidence :-) )

Encouraging words from 'backpacking ninja' and 'priya' will see me through my first intense training session - coming up this weekend...!

An update on my fundraising - I have managed to garner about 8% of my target - so, it's a long road ahead...and I still need to decide on which cycle to buy.

See you around!

Hello and Welcome...!

Hello everyone :-)

This is my attempt at reaching out to a whole host of well-wishers, colleagues, friends, family, and just about everyone - to share with them my journey on my first ever long-distance organized cycle ride.

The cycle ride starts on 24 June 2009 in London and finishes under the Eiffel Tower in Paris on 27 June 2009...and the training for that starts now...actually, it should have started 2 weeks back, given that I have not peddaled an inch in the last decade...!!! But, what the heck...

Just so you know, I am doing this to raise money for a charity (The Prince's Trust), and any advertisements you see on this blog keep the counter 'clicking' on the funds raised...!!!

I will be updating this blog with the progress I make on my training and fund raising and everything else...or the progress I SHOULD be making and haven't made...either way, you can keep coming back to this blog to see how I am moving along. Any suggestions from cycling experts or novices (like myself) are most welcome :-)

See you around...!