David Pollard (SH 1959 – 1964)

David Pollard wrote to us in early November to share his ‘late life adventure’. We are very impressed!

Pedalling from London to Paris

by David Pollard

Why? You may well ask. My younger son lives and works in Paris and although my wife had originally intended to travel with me (on Eurostar), she is classed as ‘vulnerable’ to Covid and, somewhat reluctantly, she gave me permission to have a ‘late life adventure’ and go it alone. My son was all in favour.

I had recently bought an electric bike (cheating?) and undertook trial runs in Cornwall. I set off on 26 September from Truro to Paddington on GWR laden with 2 weeks of baggage. When will train companies in the UK provide sufficient space for the storage of bikes?

The official route from London to Paris was conceived before the London Olympics in 2012 and it has been improved significantly since then. The ‘Avenue Verte’ links the London Eye and Notre Dame via the Newhaven/Dieppe ferry and 247 miles of a mixture of minor roads, off road paths, and tracks. The surfaces and signage in France, in particular, are superb.

Man and machine behaved remarkably well and, without pushing it, I covered 231 miles by using a slightly shorter route in Sussex. With 5 overnight stays this worked out at some 46 miles a day. I arrived at the Stade Jean Bouin, HQ of L’Equipe de Rugby Stade Francais, on 1 October. Ben is Head of Strength and Conditioning for SF having previously worked for Saracens and the England team.

After a week of seeing some of the sights and sounds of a slightly subdued and heavily disguised Paris, I travelled back to Truro via a TGV to Brittany, 3 nights including cycling and walking on the coast, the ferry from Roscoff to Plymouth and another cramped GWR train.

I dutifully filled in the requisite self isolation form and lived in our posh shed at the bottom of our garden for the next 2 weeks. Penance I suppose! In retrospect the timing was pretty good – it would be impossible to contemplate during ‘Lockdown’