Here’s the customised van with added logos – we look like an official car! Pete did a great job mofifying the roof bars we had available, 6 bikes on top – two at the back! Here we are at the Eurotunnel terminal, loads of time to grab a coffee and breakfast.
Juast a couple of hours later and we are at the hotel, what a great choice this was (Mercure Metropole, Lille) – the management even gave us a ground floor meeting room to store the bikes.
Friday night and after registering for the ride (we got a bit lost!) we’ve gone by tram to Lille centre for some food and drink.
Lille tram/underground network is really efficient.
Inside one of the trams
Saturday morning and we get ready for the unknown!
Here we go … out of the gates and incredibly we take a wrong turn at the first junction together with about 50 other riders – the gendarme/martial standing on the junction just watch us go by – added another half km I reckon – doh!
Trefor’s first puncture
Sunny group all together after fixing the first puncture
Trefor’s second puncture!
Looking back at the riders
Trefor’s third puncture – he had to walk it a few hundred yards out of the pave section – we couldn’t go backwards into it.
We stopped for a rest/drink and so did the guy riding this old fixie – hat’s off to him for riding that!
Motorhome envy – at the end of a pave section
All finished! We even saw Caws at the finish.
Sunday morning and we went into Lille to kill an hour and grab a coffee just the other side of this
Inside this building was a courtyard selling old books/magazines.
Sunday am in Lille, deserted
By dumb luck we find ourselves parked up about 1km from Trou d/Arenberg and there’s a party going on! It’s really warm and I smell beer! Poor Robbie was limping badly from his fall on the ride yesterday – I think he made it worse as a result.
Since this was my Ruby Wedding Anniversary I offered to share a celebratory beer!
Good spot to watch the race come by because there is also a large TV screen we are facing.
Almost here
Banging the boards!
I take video of the riders coming by
Anticipation…
Took a selfie at the end of it all, what a great place to watch the ride from! Now we are wearing our Paris Roubaix hats
