So it was finally upon us and as the phone rang at 6:30am in our hotel room it could only have been one man, Sam of course had dutifully taken it upon himself to call everyone’s room just to make sure no one was getting a wink more sleep than him. A taxi was called and we set off with ‘The Frog’ in tow to our start line at Woolich Common with a rabble of butterflies in each of our bellies. The weather was great and as we got closer to The Common we saw officials already shutting off roads in preparation for the London Marathon also that day.
Woolwich Common
Fearful our route would be effected we quickly applied Sudacrem and stocked up on Powerade and got on with the job in hand. Thankfully getting out of London was not the nightmare we’d envisaged and the roads were relatively quiet and we were quickly out into the countryside making great progress. The whole day actually went incredibly smoothly and we ploughed through the 85 miles we had to do at an impressive pace winding our course along Pilgrim’s Way towards Dover. Just before our penultimate stop at Bridge we had our first noteworthy incident cycling uphill a pedal clipped the curb and the sound of Jamie hurtling headfirst into a clump of stinging nettles ensued, no real damage was done apart from a clunk on the konk so we pressed on to the next stop.
Feeling a little weary and sunbeaten by now we were all really looking forward to calling it a day and getting to Dover as soon as we could. After getting lost briefly we once again made great time to the port and arrived at 5 o’clock waved in by Peter and Brian with The Channel in full view. A tough day but we relaxed in style with pints and a meal as we crossed. Our evening ended in Coquelles just outside of Calais.
Leaving England
