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Our epic ride was fantastic – the 3 days getting to Paris, just the 12 of us, was the highlight, riding across the Isle of Wight (any excuse to take more than 1 ferry to get to France!) meeting up with new friends from Lisieux Cycle Club and Maisons-Laffitte Cycle Club who joined us for some of our journey and an impromptu visit to a Calvados distillery before lunch on day 2 (this is what happens when I’m at the front leading!) and nearly not getting any lunch as we were a little late (1300hrs!) and the owner threatened to not serve us, as he thought we weren’t coming! (Although our driver was sat in his van outside with English plates, watched them open up, open curtains, turn lights on, then promptly sat there and watched them do the reverse, without thinking to make himself known to them!!) Didn’t dare tell the owner the real reason for being a little behind schedule! Anyway he eventually conceded and suggested that we all have steak and chips with home-made pate to start…we were all quite happy and even happier when he only charged us 7.50Euros each for the 2 courses (a fiver in English money…how could he do this we wondered?!).

Day 2 saw us visit the home village of Monet  (can’t remember the name!)with a pleasant lunch stop with more French cycle buddies before arriving at Paris (Maisons-Laffitte). The evening saw us living it up with the Twinning Friends of Herblay, in a very Jam and Jerusalem way! None of us will ever forget it!

Then  the “Circus” came to town! Collecting a further 91 cyclists from the Eurostar at the Gard du Nord and escorting them across Paris to the Eifel Tower for photos and on to our hotels. You have to remember at this point that they had started their day at 6am from Yeovil Football Stadium, and in true footie fan mode, many of them had been drinking tinnies the whole journey, so it was interesting seeing how our French cycle friends (who were helping escort them) reacted to seeing the rabble, looks of total bewilderment and incredulity that these people were going to cycle back to Yeovil clearly etched on their faces!

Day 1 of the official BackfromParis ride started with rain, heavy rain, more rain and then dried up just before getting to Evreux – what can I say? Well we cyclists had never seen brake pads disappear so fast, leaving many with unusable rear brakes – we had some very long descents and the surface water was obviously full of tiny road particles. The evening was memorable with a lovely meal in the Normandy Hotel.

Day 2 started again with rain, but soon brightened, fortunately, as this was to be our longest riding day covering nearly 90 miles to get us to Ouistreham. Beautiful countryside with tythe barns down undulating lanes – when I asked one of the Group 1 riders what he had thought of the scenery, he answered (having no idea that he had passed all these tythe barns) that the only French thing he’d seen all day was the Michelin tyre in front of him!

Day 3 saw us arrive after a good crossing into Portsmouth where we were treated to Her Majesty’s Breakfast at HMS Excellence. 3 More little ferries, including a tiny pink one that could only take 12 at a time piloted by Uncle Albert, and then from then on the day got worse…..English Car Drivers! The short section we crossed of the New Forest was an experience that I will never want to repeat. We had ridden the whole event split into 8 groups, leaving at intervals so that groups were so far apart that you rarely saw another group until you got to your destination. Each group of about 12 riders had an “incident” across the New Forest – a road that is a 40mph zone, cattle grids , ponies, sheep, cattle, all roaming freely – the impatient motorist who will overtake at any cost, driving past you with a whisker to spare whilst they try to avoid the on-coming vehicles, and on-coming vehicles having to do emergency stops and take to the grassy verges to allow these idiots to drive through. It was an absolute nightmare and every single rider hated the experience, we all thought it had only happened to our group, but once we got to Bournemouth and chatted to everyone, we realised the scale of the problem. It marred the return to the UK in a big way and those drivers should be ashamed of their behaviour.

Day 4 should have been a pleasant ride on the Bournemouth sea front to Poole and a return via our beloved Dorset hills, but no, wet and windy weather lashed down on us again, and being very French (which means that I don’t like to always obey rules!), I decided to go off route with my group and led them away from the brutal southerlies of the sea front to the quieter interior roads of Westbourne thereby avoiding the worst of the weather and re-joining the route at Poole. The closer we got to home the better the weather became until finally we saw the sun. We were met at Cerne Abbas by a few friendly faces, my son Olly (the Royal Machine!) along with a couple of club riders. They accompanied my group back to Yeovil, where again we took a detour to avoid the Steam Rally and managed to grab a lovely cup of coffee at the Nuffield before making our way to the mass rendezvous at Garador. Then at just before 1400 we rode en mass to the Yeovil Town Football Stadium, with Events Crew racing ahead lights flashing, sirens wailing, to close the roads temporarily for our 102 riders. Most local drivers got in the spirit and tooted their horns and we heard a few cheers, but if it had been France I know you’d have heard our reception in West Coker! Then we partied away in the Beer Tent to live music before, yes, David and I, retook to our bikes, my mother having taken our bags, to cycle back to our house…is it an offence to ride under the influence!?

Hope this gives you a flavour of our experience! Reading it through I want to do it again!!

This year will be the last Get Pedalling event and 108 of us have signed up to ride from Paris to Yeovil to raise monies for Cyclists Fighting Cancer, Cystic Fibrosis Trust and Yeovil Town Community Sports Trust. I along with my husband David and a few like minded friends have decided to also cycle the outbound journey - just to make it more of a challenge! It will be about 500 miles in a week.

Very sadly one of our 64 cyclists from last year's event lost his wife to cystic fibrosis and it is therefore fitting that  the Cystic Fibrosis Trust is one of our charities. The other charities are Cycists Fighting Cancer and Yeovil Town Community Sports Trust. More information is included at the end on the charities.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity. So it’s the most efficient way to donate – saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

Cyclists Fighting Cancer (CFC) is a registered charity providing a unique and highly effective way of helping kids with cancer through activity and exercise.

We give new bikes, tandems and specially adapted trikes to children and young people who have been affected by cancer throughout the UK.  The effects of the disease and its treatments in children are numerous; amputations, balance issues, physical weakness, coordination difficulties, lack of self esteem are just a few of the most common side effects seen in many patients.

Exercise has been shown in numerous adult studies to be the single most effective way of improving both physical and mental wellness for people surviving cancer.  We encourage cycling as the best form of exercise based rehabilitation especially for children because it provides all these benefits in a low impact, fun, sociable and exciting way.

Cancer also causes massive disruption in families, therefore we also give bikes to their siblings and in many cases their parents in order that they can take part in an activity as a family once again after what can be years of hospitalisation and upheaval.

We plan to supply another 300 awards this year which will take our total since we started in 2006 to over 1200 cases.  In addition we funding a dedicated research study with the University of Leeds to clearly illustrate the relationship between physical and mental well being and physical activity in children surviving cancer.  Our main focus is raising awareness and to providing a bespoke service to each individual applicant.

We operate totally on the kind support of the public and cyclists doing bike rides around Britain and across the world. All monies donated make a huge difference to our total fundraising effort and ultimately to the number of children affected by cancer we support.

If you would like to know more about the charity, please visit... 

http://www.cyclistsfc.org.uk?temp-new-window-replacement=true

Cystic Fibrosis is a life-shortening disease affecting more than 10,000 people in the UK. You can't catch cystic fibrosis, it's something you are born with and most UK cases are diagnosed shortly after birth.

The disease is caused by a faulty gene; this gene controls the movement of salt and water in and out of your cells, so the lungs and digestive system become clogged, making it hard to breathe and digest food.

For a more in-depth look at cystic fibrosis, its history, research, care and treatment, please visit ....

 http://www.cysticfibrosis.org.uk?temp-new-window-replacement=true