Day 1 - The kindness of strangers

Yesterday morning, Zeina and I left Ladbroke Grove in West London at 6am to begin our 2,900 mile journey to Marrakech. The first couple of miles saw us stopping to make minor adjustments to our bikes and luggage, before crossing Battersea Bridge and getting a great view downriver of the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye. Making our way through London at rush hour was pretty straightforward (I'd had nightmares of lorries and irate Monday-morning drivers knocking us off our bikes!) In fact, we found the car drivers to be very considerate and so we were able to start the day confidently and with big smiles on our faces. Finally leaving London, we hit the outskirts of Kent to follow the route notes kindly donated by one of my ex-colleagues from the days when I led London to Paris charity fundraising bike rides. It took us through tiny villages and some beautiful countryside and with almost perfect weather conditions and a belly full of ham and eggs from breakfast, it was almost too good to be true. Then of course I did a very silly thing, called my best mate Ali at the 45 mile mark to tell him how great it was all going and promptly missed a turning (sorry Zeina!) It took me a couple of miles to realise my error and by then we'd done a lot of downhill, so didn't fancy climbing back up it all to find the right turnoff.

It was at this point when we began to experience the kindness of strangers that continued the rest of the day. I stopped at a busy BMW dealer to ask directions and the salesman spent about ten minutes on Google plotting us a route and then printing it out for us, what a star. We detoured a few miles and got back on track, then just as we were getting our first hunger pangs and beginning to feel a bit weak at the knees, we entered the village of Harvel and saw a sign for the 'Harvel Farmhouse Shop' which promised pies and homemade cakes! Alas, when we pulled into the farm we found the shop to be closed. But then a gate to the farmhouse opened and out came Steve the farmer who was immediately friendly and also turned out to be an all round top bloke. Steve asked us what we were looking for and we hesitantly replied: "just a bit of cake or something?" To our surprise, he opened up the shop for us and came out with four slices of delicious homemade cream cakes leftover from the weekend. "Help yourself to these and make yourselves a cup of tea inside". We chatted to Steve and discovered that he keeps free-range pigs and makes a range of delicious sounding sausages that are very popular with the locals who visit his farm shop at the weekends. We nabbed a photo with Steve before continuing our journey and want to say a big thank you to him and also that if you're ever in the area at the weekend, drop by and check out the shop, his cakes are amazing!

After that stroke of luck we carried on and the miles increased, when we got up to 75 miles we realised that is the furthest we've done together since beginning the training. Around the 75 mile mark we had a couple of little sections where it was clear we were no longer on the right route, but the countryside was so beautiful and the weather so nice that it didn't seem to be a problem. But by the 85 mile mark we were feeling pretty exhausted, very hungry and realised we'd been cycling for nearly eight hours, not including the breaks we'd had. Also, my backside felt like someone had been smacking it with a cricket bat and I was very, very sore. Stopping in Petham, we chatted to a mum and her little girl who not only gave us quick directions to get to our destination, but also filled up our empty water bottles. Into the last stretch, we pushed ourselves on and when we finally saw the sign for Littlebourne, where my friend Ron was putting us up for the night, I can't tell you the relief we felt. We managed to drag our bikes into the cottage and then scavenged for food like two feral children, chomping down boiled eggs, a protein bar we found at the bottom of our bag and whatever else we could find. We'd cycled 95.2 miles and had been on the go for twelve and a half hours, I couldn't sit down as I was so sore, Zeina had got some dust or something in her eye earlier in the day, which had worsened and was now swollen badly. I was very happy to be there and we are looking forward to picking up the rest of our bike kit tomorrow morning and then pushing on to France on Wednesday morning.

Things we learned on Day 1:

1. Eat, eat and then eat some more, even if we don't feel hungry
2. People we meet are really interested in what we're doing and very friendly
3. Let Zeina navigate
4. I need a new bike saddle, or I risk ending the ride as a eunuch