ldn2mc

We’ve gone viral…!

After 4 tough days, we woke with surprisingly smiley faces at breakfast. We knew that compared to the previous days, today was due to be a flat day (apart from the end) so at 8.15 we set off to conquer another 100 miles and hopefully get back in time to have a relaxing evening in Lyon and something close to a good nights kip!

Warming ourselves up in the first few miles, it seemed like today was going to be the day which completely ruined our “behinds”. Bump after bump was not a great way to start Day 5. The sun was beaming down on us and with it being this early in the day we knew we were in for an absolute scorcher.

We enjoyed going through the rare towns that were on our route as it broke the stints up quite nicely. The van had trouble finding us after it had made a supermarket stop, which meant we had to go further than we anticipated before we stopped. With various injuries and niggles this was tough and we weren’t in a great mood. Until on the horizon we saw some people jumping and cheering with signs and banners. Confusion and curiosity overcame us. We thought for a moment that LDN2MC had gone viral. We thought France had found out about the ride. It turned out George’s family from Geneva had come over to cheer us on and show their support. Words can’t describe how happy and grateful we were for this moment. Emotion spread over us. This became our 30 mile break as the van caught up with us and we enjoyed baguettes avec jambon. Introducing each other it was smiles all round for the time being. And only 22 miles till lunch!

The further south we head the more toots we seem to get. Encouraging lorries to pull their horns was a source of enjoyment for a few miles. This spurred us on to keep going on what was simply a pretty tedious route. At lunch we only stopped briefly to refuel and recharge, quickly moving on for the next stint.

We had one more stop before the hotel. It was only a quick one because on the flat since lunch it wasn’t too strenuous with the only notable feature was Harry being veered off road and bunny hopping over a pothole and back on to the straight and narrow.

After a final break we knew the mountain of the day was nearly upon us. It was a biggy. Unfortunately it was a biggy with no view at the end of it, but the downhill which followed was decent. We had one more hill to conquer getting in to Lyon, and we then strolled down towards the river to find the hotel and have a look around the city.

We were adamant on Italian for dinner. The first place (next to the hotel) wasn’t doing pizzas or lasagne tonight for some reason, so we thought we’ve got all of Lyon to find another Italian. We were walking for a good hour with no luck. Asked passers by, asked the reception at our hotel…it would seem the French don’t do directions very well. We finally decided to go somewhere else…who refused us entry as we were in joggers and looked a right mess. Back to the place which doesn’t do pizzas…an hour later!

After salads and pastas we were still peckish. We found a closed ice cream parlour so decided a Mcflurry was the next best thing. We had a laugh strolling back to the hotel with Daime Mcflurry’s joking about real life. A really nice way to end Day 5.

Looking forward to getting another day out the way tomorrow!

P.s. A fantastic day of donations today, please keep spreading the word and pushing people to show us their support.

Joe McElderry

Just a quick one before we get started, to all those reading this and avidly supporting us through this extremely tough challenge; please, please reach out to your friends, family and anyone you know to sponsor us on our virgin page. It spurs us on a heck of a lot knowing each day we are raising more and more for Cancer Research and depresses us greatly when our total doesn’t move. Anyway, on to the events of Day 4!

After being in the saddle cycling for 8hours 40mins excluding breaks yesterday we were glum, frustrated and more tired than ever the following morning. Another 111 today and at half 8 we set off.

After yesterdays sun, today had a lot of sun burn most notably on George’s calves and Barwick’s wrists (?!). We loaded up on sun cream to do our first 30 mile stint. It was very, very slow progress and the hills of this morning were really not appreciated. Tempers were fraught, patience extremely short and tensions were high in the camp. We quickly realised that banter and jokes aren’t taken the same way after 300 odd miles than they are on a Friday night.

We stopped after about 30 miles and feasted out on fresh croissants, French bread and tuna (cheers John West!) and Chiltern Foods snacks. Straight back into another hill and we were struggling to up the pace to a decent rhythm. George managed to blow his tyre about 50 miles in and had to wait for the van for a replacement. We assessed the extend of the rip then assessed the extent of the damage to Dan’s arse. Not a pretty sight. We sneaked in a quick drinks break and pushed on to lunch.

We had lunch in a really nice setting by a river which was really needed after the slow morning of hills and awful road surfaces. We had travelled across half of the French countryside, and when we all got told before the ride of the flat French roads…we were being simply lied to! We were acutely aware of the climbs we had ahead of us. Some nasty hills coming up and we were not looking forward to them.

80 miles was the start of the “Joe Mcelldry” (The Climb). We made the decision to go over the mountains rather than go round them because we’d shed a few short miles off the journey (or so we thought!). From sea level to 1200 feet, this was going to be some effort. I’m not going to go into a great deal of detail, but we were going up very vertical for a very long time. And we did 3 of them!! It took all of our teamwork, encouragement, leg power and mental strength to not stop. Nearly sobbing after each one, we kept going and going with the thought that the last 5 miles was purely downhill. The views at the top of each climb made the effort worth it. Absolutely outstanding and put a smile on all our faces.

We paused in the village of Chateauneuf because it was quite a place with some incredible views! Apart from Mike stacking when pretty much at a standstill and Dan veering onto the grass verge as a result of too much chatting and not enough looking where he was going, the were few incidents at this point in the ride. With all the injuries the team were carrying, it was a crazy effort that we put in today. Hitting speeds in excess of 40mph on the downhill, Harry nearly lost it at one point which was mildly amusing (and frightening) and after a couple of wrong roundabout exits we finally saw the hotel and another Buffalo Grill for dinner.

One more day down. 400+ miles complete. Day 5 is upon us.

P.s. We need your help to raise ALOT more money. Thanks :)

Also, keep up to date on our progress throughout the day on our tracker. Login and password ldn2mc. Enjoy!

http://www.retrievatracking.com/login.aspx

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=ldn2mc&isTeam=true