Epilogue

Photo 28: The bridge in Cahor

Photo 29: Pegasus Bridge near Caen

Photo 30: Home to Portsmouth again at last!

It was a long journey home on the Sunday and despite another early start teams didn't get back to their beds in England until after 01:00am on Monday morning.

It was a long drive back through France, but we arrived early enough at Caens to visit Pegasus Bridge and read about the amazing bravery of the soldiers that secured the bridges by glider at the start of D-Day. Our achievement over the last few days felt insignificant in comparison, however as always I am grateful for the time and commitment volunteered by the organizers to make the event possible. To plan a route for 320 cyclists through France is a challenge in itself and they did a fantastic job. The event can sound easy as its completed in a team of four, however as anyone who has taken part will tell you the hard part is the pace as there are a lot of miles to do each day and none of us are professional cyclists. The camaraderie between teams is a key part and everyone shouts encouragement which helps when the legs are getting tired. However the thing which really drives everyone to complete the challenge and the thing we are all most grateful for is our sponsors.

At the dinner on the last night the organizers announced that Challenge Adventure Charities have now raised £2,750,000 through their charity cycle rides over the last 20 years and the Cahors Challenge looked set to add another £200,000 so they are now very close to the £3 million mark. Every penny they raise goes towards charity and this year our team were supporting Cancer Research, British Heart Foundation and The Encephalitis Society. Its great to be able to do our part in helping to raise money for these charities, and as always we've had many generous donations so we just wanted to end this year by saying a massive, massive thanks to everyone for their contributions and also the good luck messages we've all received on Facebook, the blog, via email and Twitter. Thank-you all!!.

Day 3 - The Grand Finale!

Photo 25: Ian wearing his lucky boxer shorts for day 3

Photo 26: The spectacular view coming down into Rocamadour

Photo 27: Finished!!! The Cisco IT Team have a celebratory drink at the end of the Challenge (Left to Right: Colin Seward, Paul Clements, Kevin O'Healy, Ian Pudney)

We started the fourth round of rides at 13:20 with 111 miles gone. Looking at the profile it looked like we had some big climbs over the first two or three rides and that would then take us to the last summit of the day. From there it would be largely downhill to the finish.

Paul took the first ride and had one of the most spectacular views of the trip so far down into Rocamadour. He had a steep descent to the bottom of the gorge and a long climb out the other side. I went on next and had some more climbing with a couple of short descents and Kevin then finished off the climbing and Ian started the final set of descents down to the finish.

The road still went up and down so the descent wasn't straight down, but it was nice to have the feeling that you were near to home. Paul went out for his fifth ride of the day at 15:10 with 138 miles done. We finished the fifth round of rides and Paul and I then did a sixth each down the valley and along the river. Ian got out for his sixth ride with 8 miles to go. I took a quick breather and then with 3 miles to go we stopped the van again and Paul and I both jumped out and joined Ian for the final ride to the finish line. The finish line was just over the bridge in Cahor and down by the river. We'd done it for another year 540 miles and over £2,000 raised for charity. It had been hot (very hot) but as always some spectacular scenery and great camaraderie. I wonder where the 2012 Challenge will be...!

Day 3 - Limoge to Cahors (165 miles)

Photo 22: Another early start in the dark for day 3 of the Challenge

Photo 23: Team 20 showing the determination that won them one of the Challenge trophies this year

Photo 24: A view from the van at the spectacular scenery

Dinner on day 2 was a long drawn out affair. We had a welcome cold beer on the hotel patio in the sunshine for half an hour and then sat down for dinner at 8pm. Three quarters of an hour later there was still no sign of food as the hotel owners were waiting for everyone before they started serving. The hotel staff finally started to realize they had a lot of hungry cyclists on their hands as plate after plate of bread disappeared so they eventually gave up waiting and started to bring the starters out!. Two hours later dinner was finally finished. The course order was a bit confusing and a lot of the cyclists had left before the end not realizing that apple tart was being served after the cheese!

Alarms greeted us on day 3 at 05:30 again and we headed to breakfast. By 6:45am we were on the road and Paul took the first shift with his dazzling head torch. I was next up and it was still dark as I set off down a long hill. The cold morning air on the downhill froze me to the bone, but fortunately there was a good climb after to warm me up, unfortunately my phone then rang! It was Ian on the phone to say they were driving up to get me. They hadn't seen any riders or vans for a while so it was clear we'd taken a wrong turn somewhere. I jumped back in the van with my bike and we chased off to find Paul. We soon spotted where we'd missed the turning in the dark and then spent the next 30 minutes trying to catch up with Paul again!. By the time he finished he'd been on the bike for an hour. He was glad for the change, but in true Paul style he was very unflustered and had just assumed we'd gone to get some petrol or shopping.

Having got Paul back in the van it was my turn again, and this time I was heading the right way and had a good 30 minute ride. Ian and Kevin then finished the first round of rides and Paul started us on round 2 with 44 miles already done and it was only 9:23 am. Round 2 had some great rides. Some tough uphills, good downhills and spectacular scenery. By the end of round 2 we were 78 miles done. It was 11:28am now and the sun was beginning to get hot, very hot! Another 87 miles to go and probably a few more hills....