This is our 10th Year supporting the Cycle Challenge and have raised some well appreciated donations for deserving charities.  We want to aim big for our 10th year and support even more deserving chairities such as Maggies, British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research.  Please help us achieve our £10k Target as we embark on another challenging 550mile ride through a very hilly French landscape!

– Thursday 28th September

We will ride 190 miles from Arras to Epernay, and soon will be amongst
cemeteries and battlefields of the First World War, 100 years ago. A
moment of reflection to encourague us on... We pass Thiepval Memorial, engraved with the names of 73,367 British and Commonwealth soldiers who fell during the battle of the Somme between July and November 1916, who have no known grave.  The Battle of Thiepval Ridge was 26th – 28th September 1916 which was won with the loss of 12,500 lives, with German losses believed to have been 135,000.

After riding through the Forest of Saint Gobain (where the glass and mirrors for the palace of Versailles was made by Saint-Gobain S.A) we ride along the Chemin des Dames before getting into the Champagne vineyards as we approach Epernay for our first night’s rest.

Day 2 – Friday 29th SeptemberAn early morning ride up the Avenue de Champagne, passing Moet & Chandon, Mercier, Perrier-Jouet, Demoiselle and Castellane before we ascend the Montagne de Reims, through Hautvillers where the Benedictine monk, Dom Perignon in the late 17th Century evolved the ‘refermentation’ method to create champagne.Leaving the Champagne region we head across the plains North of Chalons towards another memorial of the First World War at Verdun.

We finish Day 2 just North of Nancy.

Day 3 Saturday 30th September

Leaving Nancy we track the Moselle river South and then head East and soon see the Vosges mountains ahead, for a few Cols! The views are stunning as we climb through ski resorts and descend into beautiful valleys. After our final descent into the Rhine valley we pass through Hunawihr where we start the final climb to the Chateau of Haut-Klenigsbourg and a descent again through the vineyards of Alsace.