Peter Land: Going the distance

Wed 22^nd June

Fiddled – put extra bottled cage on bike, checked allen keys in toolkit, etc. Got together a huge carrier bag of Isotonic drink powders, high carb gu, high energy bars etc., dismantled bike to pack it in the car and set off. My 12 year old son said he wished he’d done the training so he could do the ride for me – so do I!

The check in is impressive. All big banners, booming motivational music, motor bikes, cameras, cars and logos. Just like Glastonbury really, without that pungent smell. Met up with my team mates and watched the video of the 2010 run again and wondered again why the cycling scenes are shot in slow motion. I reckon it’s because it makes it look more glamorous, more magical and less like hard work. The pasta dinner is disappointing, might need all the food in that carrier bag to get through until tomorrow!

Thur 23^rd June

D(eparture) day and we’re off in the cool early morning down into south west London. Don’t know what to expect so just sit about the middle of the pack and wait for the pain to kick in, which surprisingly it doesn’t. So I move up a bit and begin to enjoy myself, chatting to my new best mates Will (Carling) and Lee (Dixon) and many of the other 80 or so in our speed group. One other chap needs a stockbroker but I didn’t have my business cards with me (didn’t really have anywhere to put them), so I’ll just have to hope he’s in my hotel tonight. In fact I hope I’m in my hotel tonight as the day wears on. The highlights are ‘comfort breaks’, normally in field entrances, but the required operation is difficult to negotiate in bib shorts, wish the bib was a bit lower at the front. Worse for the girls though, you certainly get to know your fellow cyclists quite well on these trips. One highlight is the pace, felt really comfortable at 17mph, another is the leg massage in the hotel; one lowlight is that it takes as long to get from Dover to Calais as it did from London to Dover and the other is that we lunched in a lovely English country pub, where instead of a pint of best I drank a lemon flavoured electrolyte drink. Yuck.

Fri 24^th June

A lie in until 6am today and then off from Calais into the gentle French hills. Gentle but very long, I discover as we seem to go up for miles at a time and by the afternoon I am exhausted. The encouragement from colleagues is brilliant and I am determined not to drop to a slower group, jump in the ‘white van of shame’, or accept a push from Dave, our bullying ride captain, so I persevere but it is so very tough. Highlights today? I can’t remember one during the day except Stephen Jones’ explanation of exactly where he is sore, but a gentle stroll along the canal in Amiens in the early evening helped me recover some good humour. Mrs Land declares she is proud of me, so even she is coming round to this cycling lark.

Sat 25^th June

We’re told we have a very tough 25 miles to start, then a long grind to a late lunch at about 80 miles, before we are to assemble as one group of 350 for the final 25 miles or so into Paris. In fact the morning is very long but by now I’m used to the pattern; focus on the next mile, the next hour, the next comfort break – oh a steep hill, damn it, the next mile, the next hour – hurray, another comfort break – the next hour, and so on. Eventually we pull into a sports complex on the edge of a town and all the hard work is done, apparently. We wait a long time for Group 5 to catch up and then form up as one big pelaton to move into Paris, through streets blocked off to other traffic and around a corner to see the Arc de Triomphe ahead. Between it and me there is only about half a mile, but half a mile of cobbles – please don’t let me puncture here, in front of these cheering crowds – but then the jarring stops and I’m through, down to the finish and Sasha to greet us with the champagne.

The rest of the evening passes in a blur. My feelings are a mixture of pleasure, pain and regret that it’s all over. I’ve had some real laughs with these people and I don’t want it to end; I don’t of course know if my key will still fit the door lock at home, either.

Sun 26^th June.

The big homecoming and my front door key does still fit. I’m forgiven as it was for charity, after all. The bike isn’t on ebay…yet, as I’ve agreed to do a ride to Cambridge, just a quick 70 miles or so. Maybe after that, but only if I get a very good offer as I am now rather attached to her, I mean attached to it. And of course I’ve got all the gear now, and so many happy memories, and new friends. The consensus is that we should all do it again so I’m going to have to work on a way to drop that casually into a conversation with Mrs Land……