Not a French Revolution, more a British Queue

I'm not sure what made me want to do the French Revolution sportive, probably the fact that it sold out last year, therefore I figured it must be good.  Stuart and my friend Gareth were also mad enough to sign up for this ride.   We knew the logistics would not be easy, but it was only after we had paid out money that we received the email saying that we needed to be at the Dover Ferry terminal at 5.30am.

Staying in a hotel in Dover the night before did not feel like a palatable option, so instead we picked the town of Canterbury, a 30 minute drive away. This was a good choice, a nice city, lovely restaurant, but we should have heeded the ominous clouds.

We got up at 4.30 on Sunday morning and were duly lined up at 5.30 am ready to head to the ferry

Despite the lane dedicated to cyclists, the wait to board was incredible

The French authorities had decided to do 100% passport checks on all 800 cyclists!  We spent three hours waiting in the freezing cold in our Lycra.

We had more queuing when we got to France and the start gate

There was not much hope for the rest of the day after this sustained lowering of the core body temp.

The route was pleasant enough, but the weather not great.

Then the heavens opened and we were soaked for 2 hours of riding.  Without hesitation we agreed to jump on the sweeper van at the last feed station, cutting off about 2 hours of riding time.  Gareth heroically completed the route, and he hadn't even had a light weight rain jacket.

We didn't arrive home until 10.30 that night, if we had caught the ferry 2 hours later we would not have arrived home until Monday morning.

I put the French Revolution in the same bucket as London to Brighton.  Not enough reward for too much effort.