A clear sunny day at last! Not perfect though as there was a strong headwind of around 25mph.
The Service in Abbeville
Another good breakfast at the hotel and then a long bus back to Abbeville to pick up the bikes. After the rain the previous day we tried to clean off most of the dirt from the bikes and re oil the chain. Several people found punctures where their tyres had slowly gone down overnight. My bike was ok though. The war memorial was on the main roundabout of the town and once again all traffic was stopped for a brief remembrance service.
After the service we popped into a cafe for coffees. As we were in their we heard a loud bang as someone over inflated their tyre! The majority of us were riding road / race bikes with slim profile tyres which were at over 100psi. The theory is that this high pressure gives you extra speed as the tyres have less surface area on the road digging in and causing friction.
We were off at 9am. I found the morning much tougher than any of the other days. Much of it was across exposed farm lands where we battled a strong wind. I found I wasn’t in the front group and was going straight into the wind unshielded which made each mile tougher. Lunch was in Poix de Picardie and I learnt that the reason I was finding it so tough was that I spent the morning at the front of packs with people drafting along behind me. In the afternoon I made sure that I kept behind other people to block out some of the wind. This really helped. Also the fact that Lunch was much later today meant psychologically it was better as you knew after lunch you were half way there!
There's always time for tea
We met up with the other groups at Auchy la Montage. The village held a party for us. It was great to stop for a drink and sandwich and short speeches before carrying on. During the speeches we were caught out as God Save the Queen went into a second verse and 250 people mumbled the verse up until the last line!
Then as a group we left for Beauvais our final night stop before Paris! We arrived here safely and had another rememberance service before leaving our bikes in the fire station ready for the final day!
Related posts:
- Day 4 – Beauvais to Paris I couldn’t believe it was already the last day. The...
- Day 2 – Calais to Abbeville Despite an early start it was great to be waking...
- Day 1 – Greenwich London to Calais The first post in a series charting my adventure of...
- 2008 Round up As we approach the end of 2008 I felt I...
- Three day weekend! What a great day! After an overcast week today the...
