Bon Voyage - The Send Off

The Final Team Line Up
Due to a few minor changes the team has changed slightly:
Mark Nelson (Captain Turdseye)  - Team Captain
Dean
Mark Querzani (Quiz)
Tim
Charlie (Sicknote)
Kees
Kevin
Shaun (Captain Cadence)
Anna  (Bumpits/Bumtits)
Richard M
Paul G
Nathan
Gareth
Jo
Michael
Toots
Tony
Paul M
Gary (Dad)
Ian
David (Jiim'll) - Support driver of Van
Giles - Support Driver of Truck


The day began at Chez Turdseye with everyone loading their bags into the van and registering with Gareth. It felt a little like being at school having to hand over our passports to be checked. Lucky we did though as Richard soon found out! Gareth opened Richard’s passport to check the dates were valid, the date was fine, however if it was Richard’s wife who was coming to Paris it would be fine - he'd only picked hers up by mistake! Further to this problem was the fact that he not only didn’t have his passport, but he lived over in the flat lands of East Anglia, so a courier was arranged to transport the passport to meet us in Portsmouth.

Once the van was all loaded up, riders were fuelled up, final mechanical checks had been done, we all set off to Catherine Wayte Primary School where our send off was going to be and the local rag had arranged to come down to do an article and take our mugshots and our nearest and dearest were there to wave us off. I'd turned up wearing a stripey top, beret and a string of onions - i frickin stank! (it became a good excuse to blame the onions later in the day)

The headteacher of the school had organised all the children to line the playground and each of the riders to be introduced, and ride through whilst they cheered. Mark gave us a run down of what we were to do - one at a time, ride through the playground, follow  on through towards swindon, keeping a blue shirted cyclist in view and regrouping a little further on.

So we had our picture taken and were had warned us not to fall off  - we managed to all stay on board! (for now) but it was dead cute weaving through all the cheering children so a massive thanks to all of them, and the teachers at the school.

All of us together in our kit looked brilliant, the colours are great and we looked like a proper cycling club - I'm sure there were many times we didn't look like a cycling "club" throughout the trip though!

During the morning briefing Mark had told us that we would be regrouping in Wanborough, taking a quick stop check and then set off on the route. He also warned in his scare mongering fashion that pretty much immediately we would hit a "bit of a climb" which would probably have people off on their feet and walking up it! Nothing like a nice hill to start a 4 day cycling trip hey!?

So after 20 cyclists coughing their way up "a bit of a climb" was now the start of Day 1 and we were off!