L2P - Day 4 Beauvais - Paris

Today is the day!

with the prospect of only 50 miles or so to cover it was a relaxed affair for most of the riders, only the threat of being swept up by the broom wagon was hanging over us.

The first decent hill after around 7 miles was hard work but once over the top of that pushed on till lunch, knowing that Paris was within reach.

The afternoon stint meant that we needed to reconvene at a park about 5km before the finish, so that we could ride in en masse to the Tour Eiffel.
We were issued with our "I cycled from London to Paris" T-Shirts and set off in 2 groups, slow riders at front, faster ones in the 2nd group.
For those of you who know Paris this will come as no surprise, but hitting the Arc de Triomphe (not literally) at 4pm on a Saturday afternoon is an interesting experience - imagine 50 cyclists, following a van in convoy round an enormous roundabout with cars cutting in and out from both left and right irrespective if you are in their space - One of our guys hit the tarmac on the Arc, so heartrates were climbing. Suffice to say that Le roadrage did emerge from the english contingent, which was best summarised when one of our riders lent in through the van window of one particular van and pointed out that there were 84 of us so maybe he could be a bit more friendly in his driving manner.
So on down the Champs Elysses (quite how they race down here on the Tour de France i do not know) cobblestones a plenty, and then onto the Place de la Concorde and over the Pont de Concorde before streaming down the other side of the Seine and a left hander under the Tower to the Finish.

As someone once said "It's been emotional" and i would highly recommend both the experience and the company who organised the trip to others - a brilliant crew who kept most of us on the road, and encouraged us even when we were cold wet and hungry to carry on.