An excursion to the Palace

Hi folks I’m back again: I still want to raise money for charities who combat domestic abuse, so I’ve been thinking of pedalling across Britain again next year but this time side to side. It will be much shorter, but there will be a further challenge as I’m going to carry camping equipment with me; just like a snail with its home on its back and probably just as slowly.

“In the meantime you should try to keep up to scratch with another little project”, urged Pascal. “So I have booked for you to come on the Palace to Palace Ride with me and Sarah:  It starts at Buckingham Palace and ends up at Windsor Palace. Granny Liliane is coming to look after the boys – it’s all fixed.”

Sure enough, a packet soon arrived in the letter box with a number to safety pin on my back and another label for the bike – together with a tracking device to calculate the time I took on what the instructions ominously referred to as ‘The Challenge.’ It was going to be a mass event and my number was 1996. Two challenges were available, in fact, you could choose the 46 mile option or the 90 mile one for the tough cyclists.

The organisers referred to themselves rather disquietingly as ‘race organisers’. “No no”, Pascal reassured me,  “They do heaps of different events and it’s just the usual form of words”.

I saw that we would pass 3 ‘Feeding stations’ — and, when on the big day we had to leave before dawn to drive to Windsor, it was nice to  imagine the heaps of tasty snacks awaiting us along the the route. We would certainly need them!

We waited in freezing darkness to load our bikes into a fleet of huge pantechnicons and then to be loaded into buses ourselves (obviously the 90 mile riders went off well before us). I felt pleased to be wearing several layers of woolly jumpers!

The coach drove us through the growing sunlight towards London, past the familiar iconic views as we headed towards the Palace. It was captivatingly beautiful. We stopped near the start of the Mall and joined the scramble to find our bike van — not too demanding as it had parked right by our coach. But now I saw the need for a number tag on each bike.  I have never seen so many thousands of cyclists all together — quite thrilling and yet this was just one of the latest batches: the process had been going on for 2 hours or more. In fact our coaches were late and we had already missed the mass group photo.

Against a continuous background of speakers issuing instructions, pep talks and chat, we tracked down a public toilet and then ate some flapjacks that we had brought with us.

Now it was time to join the grid and get ready to be despatched; and at this very moment I heard my name name announced “Gina, the oldest woman to complete the End to End was taking part today.” I cringed in horror but Hey! Why be so shy and retiring? Nobody here would remember and anyway, is there such a thing as bad publicity? 

Then we suddenly we were off – and no time to fret about how to find the route or negotiate the traffic and all the other cyclists, just hang on, keep pedalling, follow the red arrows and chew on the flapjack! I have never cycled in London before so it was exciting  and a bit scary. The route was impeccably marked and many sections of road had cycling lanes segregated with barriers.

I’m so glad that I did not see the pile up when a cyclist touched a barrier and fell off, bringing two others down with him. We heard about this right at the finish and not before (thank goodness).

We followed the route of the Thames for some of the way (we were never too far from it) and, around Putney, unable to pass another café we succumbed and stopped for a coffee at last. Oh the bliss; and also bliss to remove some of those jerseys that I was boiling inside.

Crossing Richmond Park was one of the best moments; it was enchanting in the crisp sunlight and there were so many deer. We soon arrived at the first stop and got some bananas. Obviously lunch was to be at the next stop, I thought (In fact there was a meal waiting for us but not until the finish, as we eventually discovered.  Those ‘Feeding Stations’ were a DIY job ‘Feed here but bring it yourself.’)

Bushey Park was next: it seemed to be all so easy to getting  through London. It was a lovely route throughout although I have to confess that just about 2 miles from the finish in Windsor I got the dreaded ‘Bonk‘:   I suddenly felt so tired that I could not go on without sitting on a nearby wall for about 10 minutes.  The fact is that I have never before ridden so far without a break for a meal. That’s my excuse anyway. So now I have demolished my carefully  built up image of Supergran!

But Hey Ho – I had   a lovely day, all said. Thank you, Pascal. How lucky am I to have a son who, far from trying to restrain me from acts of reckless folly, actually urges me on and cooks up a few ideas of his own. I call that real love.   

Addendum (by Pascal)

I must add that Mum rode very strongly. The lack of a meal was a problem (note to self – remember that next time, and make sure that there’s hot nosh before 30 miles!), but despite that she put in an impressive effort. I don’t think that there were many (any?) other octogenarians on the ride – and I can say with certainty that she was riding more strongly than a lot of the younger riders out there. She rode up hills, while others walked, and completed the distance in 4 hrs 33 minutes (according to my GPS). I’d like to clarify that I forgot to pause my GPS during the water refills, loo stops etc, and add that if I can manage that pace when I’m her age then I will consider myself to be doing very well indeed.

Mum claims 46 miles, my GPS says 47.16 miles – in any event, it was more than 45 miles!