• Cycled 280km to Paris within 24hrs on Friday + Saturday. The first 100km finished in Newhaven where a drunk stopped by me to say “There’s nothing worse than a cyclist, apart from a ginger cyclist” then two of his “friends” “apologised” and pointed to another drunk in the group and claimed it was his birthday. Funny how people celebrate things in different ways.
• As the residents of Newhaven settled in for another heavy Friday night, we searched for the tribute bench to Eazy-E. Unfortunately when we found it, the plaque has been forcibly removed in a way that would make your dentist proud, and replaced with the word “Easy-E” written in marker on the raw galvanised steel below. He would have wanted it that way. RIP Eric Wright. “You think I give a damn about a bench? I ain't a sucker”.
• Before boarding the ferry to France we met a fellow cyclist who had decided to risk sleeping in the “Sleep seats” provided on the boat. These are a hoard of upright chairs next to the cafeteria. Later, when we got to our cabin, we found to our surprise, that we’d booked two rooms. Each of these rooms had four beds, 8 beds total between two of us. As we totally didn’t need that much space, we gifted one of the rooms to the guy we’d just met. He had a great time and regaled us with stories of his welcome comforts “there was a shower, did you have a shower?” at 6am as we rode together through a slumbered, misty Dieppe for our first French kilometres.
• Sometimes I interchange ‘ quotation marks for “ quotation marks. I’ve never learned the proper time to use them and I probably never will. In a similar vain to knowing exactly what is a noun, verb, adjective etc. I will always look them up to check.
• There was a french town we cycled through where all the road signs were turned upside down. What looked on the surface like a local joke that had stuck, is actually a form of peaceful protest about the treatment of Farmers.
• The ride went without any major calamities until we reached the final few km’s and I managed to forget to unclip and fall hilariously into Lachie. This incident was welcomed by many, laughing french people who’s rainy mood was hopefully raised by seeing me inelegantly take out my friend.
• Turns out, even if you eat your body weight in croissants and bread and drink a whole lotta water, you’re still hungry, tired and dehydrated after cycling that far. Tune in next week for more stories about my hydration.