They advertised it at 300 miles in 2 days. When they gave us the actual route is was 329, they said Amsterdam 300 sounded better than the Amsterdam 329. Due to signs being blown around or missing it was actually 348 miles!
9pm Thursday 72 brave or mad cyclists set off from Blackheath for this real test of endurance, cycling through the night we reached Dover at 4:30 Friday morning. 90 hilly miles done. An hour later off to the ferry port for the 6:40 ferry to Calais.
9:15am Calais. Back on the bikes for another 90 miles into Holland, fortunately this was flat. I suffered a puncture in a rather inappropriate place – some of us had inadvertently strayed onto a motorway. Whilst I fixed my bike the others climbed up the grass verge to re-acquire the cycle path. Just as I was about to the police turned up and I got landed with a 90 Euro fine!!
We finally arrived at our campsite for the night at about 9pm, after a 45min wait for the ferry !!
5 am Saturday we were woken up to prepare for the final 130 miles, we were faced with strong headwinds and frequent showers, but we peddled on, some enjoying it so much that the missed some signs and did an extra 25 miles on our first 45 mile leg!
After fighting the elements along the Dutch coast, we finally turned inland towards Amsterdam and the finish.
9.15pm Saturday night I finally pulled into the hotel, 48 hours after starting and 348 miles later, tired, sore but unbowed. All in the name of charity – us mad 72 have raised in excess of £100k!!
Yes it was tough, but looking back now a couple of days later, still a little stiff and a very sore and swollen right hand, it was enjoyable, a laugh in places, but as Steve Redgrave said “If anyone sees me planning one of these again, they can shoot me!!!”
Well done to all of the other riders and to Scope and Action Challenge for organizing the event.
I hope you have enjoyed this blog
Daniel
