LONDON-PARIS BLOG

• Friday, 27 June 2008
• Adam Tranter
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Adam Tranter is on the London to Paris race-come-sportive-come charity ride. Hopefully by the end we'll know what it's all about.

I like travelling, I think it might have been one of the reasons I wanted to write, so that I could relive my experiences to an audience. You're in for a real treat then, as my first travelling experience of this week has been a truly negative one.

My normally drab, but efficient train service from Coventry to London was cancelled, due to the rail service's buzz-words, “overhead line failures”. I had to get to London (via a slower Leamington-Spa to Marylebone route) for the start of the London-Paris Cycle Tour, a sportive ride with a twist.

Around 250 riders will start at Hampton Court Palace for the 600km, 3-day bike ride. Amongst the mix of sportive riders and weekend racers, there's some more, well, established sports stars in the form of James Cracknell and Stephen Roche. As I'm helping out with the technical/web and reporting aspect, I thought it would be a good idea to bring a colour laser printer along for documenting finishing times and classifications.

I have officially, the world's smallest colour laser printer, an impressive boast. Unfortunately for me, the world's smallest colour laser printer must also be the world's heaviest laser printer, and when combined with a large bag and intermittent back problems, I was on the road to some inconvenience until I got to the hotel.

After quickly dumping my bags, it was off to Imber Park for the London-Paris Pasta night. It gave the chance for riders to sign on and collect their goodies before the early start the next day. I somehow managed to act as ‘bag-hander-outer’ for 2 hours, before then tucking into the best bit, the Pasta. Behind the scenes, a lot of work goes on in the Tour, not only is there 8 Subaru support cars and drivers, there’s a whole team of photographers, cameramen and media folk.

These said media folks, have just finished a long night of video editing, website updating and programme design. It’s hectic, it’s busy and it’s exciting. And we haven’t even started yet. At the time of reading, the riders will either be getting ready to start their first day, or be pretty exhausted after completing it.

It’s time to get some late-night pizza and another bottle of Vitamin Water, before printing 250 copies of this blog, and the programme it is located in. Then time to change the website, upload some photos and possibly go to sleep for a couple of hours. It’s a good job I’m not riding as well. I’d feel guilty eating pizza.