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london-paris: ten years after

london-paris 2017

there are at least four things you need to know about france. firstly, between calais and paris there are numerous little towns and villages named after saints of whom most of us will have never heard; those villages are frequently populated by a large number of 'barky' dogs which are usually and thankfully tied up in their gardens. they have an uncommonly large number of unstrategically placed manhole covers that seemed always to live on the descents, yet never on the ascents. and though they drive on the wrong side of the road, they still have the chainsets on the same side of the bike as do we.

london-paris 2017

but most of all, the french put the british to shame in their welcoming acceptance of the itinerant cyclist.

our motorcycle outriders closed down everything on the way to paris: road junctions, traffic lights, farm access, pedestrian crossings; you name it, they shut it down. and rather than the "get off the fackin' road" protestation that greeted us on the way through an english town on day one, the french came out of their houses to applaud and offer encouragement, to film and take photos on their phones and ipads, to high-five the peloton as they passed, to pull over onto the grass verge even though there was plenty of space to continue and to interrupt silage operations in their monster tractors to offer safe passage.

london-paris 2017

for cyclists brought up with the guilt of not paying road tax, this was something of a very welcome situation. and when the amalgamated peloton in excess of 400 velocipedinists headed into paris on saturday afternoon (bear in mind we're talking about the day prior to the tour de france's arrival), the fact that we not only rode up one side of a delightfully cobbled champs elysées, but round a shut-down (those motorcyclists again) arc de triomphe on our way to the eiffel tower, we probably felt even better than christopher did on the top step come sunday afternoon.

there are many london to paris rides nowadays, considerably more than was the case some ten years ago when i first joined a smaller hot chillee peloton on a different parcours that, in 2007, ended at versailles. i rode once again the following year, when the route had diverted to dover and included a ferry trip to calais. the champs elysées, arc de triomphe and eiffel tower all featured for the first time, beginning a trend that, in this, the ride's fourteenth year, are part and parcel of the experience. during our ride through central paris, we passed cheering participants of two other excursions, while others have upped the level of purgatory by bridging the capital cities in 24 hours. but then, that's their lookout.

london-paris 2017

naturally enough, over that trio of rides, i surged on at the front, keeping myself inches from the bumper of our maserati lead car, while all behind clamoured for me to slow down. at least that's how i remember it; and as long as you don't ask anyone else, that's exactly how it went down.

the 2017 hotchillee london-paris ride occupied three days in july, departing imber court sports club, near hampton court palace, at a time of day that we'd all hoped didn't really exist. but getting up at stupid o'clock when still fast asleep is an unavoidable aspect of the ride; embrace the suffering, because it's not going away. for three days, all we really had to do was eat, sleep, cycle: repeat.

london-paris 2017

rather obviously, between london and paris, there's a chunk of britain and a slightly larger chunk of france. the roads featured on the former barely rose above atrocious (but then, we all knew that) while those of the latter offered the speeding cyclist a far more amenable passage. granted, while surveying the landscapes and townscapes across the channel, we had occasion to trammel more than a few small, narrow and largely unkempt farm roads, but those were considered as features and almost never as bugs. and unlike british britain, they were often edged by quaint buildings featuring brightly painted wooden shutters.

london-paris 2017

on offer, in exchange for your hard-earned, is the option of five separate cycling groups, delineated by their advised average speeds. groups one and two scoot along at the sort of velocities associated with the competitive milieu; in fact they are the very individuals fighting for coloured jerseys in paris, while the remaining three groups were able to develop our social abilities at less onerous tempos, kept in check by friendly but firm ride captains. horrid thoughts of mechanical or personal malfeasance were mitigated by a following van containing a mechanic with a mobile workshop accompanied by a qualified paramedic. nobody actually fixes a puncture, they'd simply swap out the wheel.

we're all faux professionals here.

london-paris 2017

so what has changed in ten years? well, cycling has changed a lot over that period; britain likes cycling now, so instead of only four groups on the road, now there are five. and there's now a substantial waiting list to ride hotchillee's london-paris. the riding is a lot better organised; in 2008, on day one, another rider and i were left behind several miles from dover to find our own way. with an increased number of support staff, that would never happen nowadays. and the hotels are bigger and better. saturday night's hotel in paris was the montparnasse pullman and my room was on the 25th floor.

something that hasn't changed in the last ten years is the presence of a large bearded gentleman astride an appropriately large motorbike, playing hits from the eighties and nodding his head in time with the beat. midway through an onerous ascent, a bearded head bobbing to a reggae beat offered the opportunity for a smile and at least a brief gravitational anaesthetic. those french motorcycle outriders have considerably more clout at their behest than their more legally restricted british counterparts, but both groups do a marvellous job of keeping everybody safe from marauding interlocutors.

london-paris 2017

i'd be fibbing if i told you that the hotchillee london-paris ride was the greatest thing since sliced bread, given that i've never attempted any of the others. but the impeccable organisation surely gives them the edge? on arrival at the day's hotel, luggage is sat in the lobby awaiting collection while crew t-shirted hotchillee people dole out room keys. prominently displayed is a board advising the times of dinner, breakfast, coach collection the following morning, ride start time and the weather forecast. and if you happen to be roomed in the amiens mercure hotel, there's a view of the cathedral to die for.

and though breakfast, lunch and dinner are provided each day (with the montparnasse pullman hotel offering the most incredible finishers' spread i've ever scoffed), there are numerous daily water stops, with riders annihilating almost 3,500 litres of water en-route to paris. i asked hotchillee owner, sven thiele, how on earth he'd garnered permission to shut the arc de triomphe on the saturday afternoon before le tour descended?

"By asking stupid questions that I didn't know where stupid. And demanding an answer."

though there's an epithet that states it is better to travel well than to arrive, sven's london-paris ride offers both by the musette-full.

it's impossible to capture three days in a few words, so there will be a few more finely crafted paragraphs sooner, rather than later. thanks to all at hotchillee for three days of cycling bliss with nothing that i'd call a headwind.

hotchillee.com

wednesday 26 july 2017

twmp ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................