Rome to London 2024

24 km's of today's ride was on a superb rail trail with a mostly -1% gradient and shrouded with mature trees with the undergrowth still damp from the recent rain - this meant we were out of the glare of the sun and covered in shade with a temperature that was only mid twenties as opposed to 30 out in the open. The boys found a couple of coffee shops however we needed to wait till we got to Amiens at midday to find a reasonable Boulangeraie. I was quite pleased with myself today as I had a lovely conversation completely in French with a young French woman who was walking her dog on the trail trail. We both understood each other without the need to get out Google translate. Here is the conversation word for word. Me - "Bonjour Madam, du velo". Her reply "Merci". The conversation then ended with and exchange of smiles and a wave.  A simple everyday translation is something along this line. Me - *Gidday, two more bikes coming". Her reply *Cheers*.  As I say...

After our six days in Paris for the Olympics it was time to go on the bike and begin the next phase of our ride and that is North to Dunkirk. Before we left the Hostel we were invited by Donna to perform the "Japanese Coal Miners" action song! Donna is a Japanese American from Manhattan and is capturing people to do the above song as she is assisting the IOC to come up with a montage of people performing the song to somehow be incorporated in to the closing ceremony. So what's the backstory behind a Japanese song at the Paris Olympics? You may recall that the 2020 Olympics kind of didn't happen in 2020 and were replaced by the 2020 Olympics being held in 2021 in Covid lock down conditions. Poor old Japan missed out on all the parlava to do with holding the Olympics. And this montage is to acknowledge how tough it was for Japan. So after the shooting of our video for Donna it was an easy ride out of Paris alongside the canals once again. We stopped so the boys could ha...

 The rain has stopped and it's been a nice day weatherwise - no rain and not too hot. Peter had some friends to catch up with today so after breakfast Stephen and I tppk ourselves off to check out the Pavillions at the local fan zone park - the first one we tried to enter, India, we found you had to pre buy the tickets and sorry, but they were all sold out for today! It was just after 10:00 a.m. and there were very few people around in fact we asked ourselves several times as we were walking around the perimeter fence if they were in fact open. Eventuallu we came to and "Entree" gate for the French pavillion so marched in there, were body scanned and bag searched only to find out it was ticket only! Okay, where do you buy tickets, around further to your left - off we walk and yes we eventually find the main entry gate but no ticket sales! We ask and the fellow pointed in a direction that we followed ony to come to a dead end! I think it was his idea of having fun. The peo...

We decided to find a Boulangerie for breakfast however as we walked outside and it was raining quite heavy we decided for the in-house breakfast offerred here at the Hostel. After breakfast we had a session on the ride accounts (well I got my Tablet opened up and the spreadsheet up) for Stephen to work his magic with the numbers. We each kind of take turns at paying for the various common things (like our accommodation) and Stephen's spreadsheet keeps track of it all and who, owes who, what. This way at the end of our ride there should only be a need for a small amount of money to change hands to balance the books. Tickets for most of the Olympic events are sold out Peter has found however we decided to go to the Free to access Road Cycle Time Trial event which was raced through the streets of Paris and as it was about 5 km's from our Hostel we opted to take the bikes which happens to be the best way to get around as on bikes we can cover the ground quicker than alternative opt...

 A quiet day as we relocated to the St Christopher's Hostel and moved from our own room to sharing with the others, two more of whom are also Aussie! Settling into noisy French bar to watch the live broadcast of the opening of the Olympics. 

No riding today other than in trains and trams as we made our way around Paris in between walking quite a fes km's - It was a tourist day for us after I had dropped my front box off to a shoe repairer to have the latch re-glued. We bought ourselves a day pass for the trains, trams and buses (18 Euro) and made our way in to the City to check out Notra Dame Cathedral - they are well on the way fo having it finished for sure. We found it easy to walk around the City as all private vehicles appear to have been banned from the Olympic areas during the Oympic period. While this means there is very little traffic and you can walk down the middle of the Road - like we could and did during Covid lockdowns the fact that there are olympic venues scatterred all over the City means there is then a huge fenced off person cordon around each venue so anywhere you want to walk that is near a venue entails doubling back and walking the very long way around to get to where you want to go. By the end ...

A quiet day to begin with here in Paris, breakfast at the Hostel and then I went off to Decathlon to check out the Tee Shirts as my "best" one needed replcing on account of the seams not seaming anymore on account of a rather hot wash/dry that kind of cooked it and melted the glue holding the seams together. I managed to get two new Tee Shirts so was able to come back and relegate the current two to the bin - they now being two of the three chucked so far on this trip (the first being my halfway travel tee shirt that went into the bin at Doha. I came back to the Hostel and was able to call home which is always nice and not always that easy as I'm generally on the road or in bed at what is a good NZ or China time (didn't speak with Nicholas in China today but caught up with him and Phoebe a couple of days back). The Boys by this time were back from the bike shop where they had gone off to drop off their bikes for a service (Stephen's more so than Peters) - I'm ...