 The End Of The Line It may have taken two attempts and copious amounts of painkillers, but after spinning my legs for three and a half weeks I finally managed to complete my bike tour to Geneva and back again. In the process, owing completely to the generousity of friends, family and many people I dont even know, £6515.50 was raised for Papworth Hospital's Mesothelioma Fund! Another £512.90 was also raised on top of this through Gift Aid. I would just like to say a massive thank you to everyone and anyone who has donated or helped out in any way, your support has been really appreciated. I wont bore you with a blow by blow account of my time sitting on the bike but I will show you a few photos and some facts and figures that are bordering on interesting... Photos I took a lot of photos whilst I was away and the large majority of them were not very good! However a few did actually turn out alright. Below are 5 that I feel sum the trip up quite well. If you are super keen to see more then check out the Tour Photos (photos from my most recent stint in France start half way down the page) Random Trivia Whilst I was away I made a rather long list of likes and dislikes about bike touring as well as an odd list of songs that I either sung in my head, or more embarrassingly (and much more likely) sang out loud. However, having looked back over these pages of notes I can see that this is the sort of information that is only interesting to me (unless you want to know the one town in France where dogs didn't bark at me?), so instead I stole a list of facts from another bike tourists website and switched in my info. (www.tomsbiketrip.com, It is an amazing website and he is nothing short of an epic badass!) Trip Duration: 26 Days (22nd August - 16th September 2011) Starting Point: Champagne-Ardenne Train Station, Reims, France. Finishing Point: Papworth Hospital, Cambridgeshire, England. Distance Cycled: 1141 Miles (1836Km) Shortest Day (Not Including Half Days): 30 Miles (48Km) Longest Day: 106 Miles (171Km) Average Daily Distance (Not Including Half Days And Rest Days): 71miles (114Km) Max Speed: 41.6mph Highest Elevation: 1447m Number Of Punctures: 0 - Absolutely amazing, Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres were brilliant Worst Moment: Having cycled up a steep hill for an hour I found myself at a dead end, the road I was looking for apparently didn't exist. I then had a rather frantic hour of trying to put myself right and find somewhere to camp before it got dark. In this hour it rained heavily and I ended up pitching in the dark... Best Moment: Cycling along the lake front into Geneva Number Of Dried Out Sunflowers Seen: Over 2 Million (I had a lot of time to work out the numbers...) Twitter Posts Sent: 39 Photos Taken: 459 Photos That Were Actually Good Enough To Show People: 42 If you are keen to see where in France I actually went, hop on over to The Route page and take a peek. Summary Overall, across the two efforts, I covered a distance of 1537miles, which is about 146miles further than was needed to complete the distance I promised. Bike touring is full of rather epic highs and insane lows, I can honestly say my emotions have never been so all over the place as they were in the three and a half weeks I was away. Some days I wanted nothing more than to curl up and go back to bed (which I even did once) and other days (the majority of the time) I felt so amazing that it almost felt like I could float the rest of the way home with nothing but happy thoughts to keep me in the air (Peter Pan reference there). Overall I would describe the trip as both character building and fun. Character building because some days were genuinely difficult, whether it be the physical effort of it, or far more often the mental effort of staying motivated and upbeat; and fun because, well it was fun, I had a blast! I think the best way to tell whether you have enjoyed something or not is whether or not you would do it again, and I can say without a shadow of a doubt I would do it all again in a heartbeat.  Geneva What's Next? Now all of this cycling stuff is done with I find myself having finished university and being unemployed, so next on the agenda is finding a job! The bike tour raised £6515.50 (not including Gift Aid), which works out £4.24 for every mile I cycled, so if I can just find a job that pays that well I'll be set! On the 'adventure' side of things I have plans for a potential bike tour next summer as well as (optimistically) a road trip around Europe. Also, if I happen to still be unemployed in November then I might take myself and the bike off to Wales for a week and see what sort of trouble I can get in (check out Wales:North to South for more info); although to be honest employment might be a better idea! Thanks again to everyoner your support, it means a huge amount to me and I know it means just as much to Papworth Hospital. Till next time, Jamie  I Got Bored During The First Attempt So Took Up Woodcutting Comments are closed.
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