Summary

1a. The riding team:
From left to right: Bruce Thompson, John Randal, Aaron Hill, Stuart Lowe, Jason Kelly, Steven Fish, Mike Conza, Paul Arnesen

b. The support team:

First photo: New Zealand Support crew from left: Matt Jenke of Silver Eye Films, Organiser and Directeur sportif Jonathan Douglas, logistics etc Julie Dunlop, mechanics Bill Boakes and Cameron Wyness. Second photo: Van driver etc, from Kortweg Cycling, Belgium, Roger.

 
2. My bike:
EMC Equip R1.0 with 10 speed Dura Ace 53:39 front and 11:28 back (more than adequate)

3. Training from 01st January 2018 prior to the tour start:
a. 12,239km with 84,871m of vertical climbing (245 Te Mata Peak equivalents @ 346m each)

b. Longest training ride (time): 8hrs 32m

c. Longest training ride (distance): 207.2km

d. Most vertical climbing in a single ride: 5,465m (15.8 equivalent Te Mata Peak climbs including 14 actual Te Mata Peak climbs)

e. Longest virtual (indoor) ride: 13hrs 15m, 257.0km, 10,503m of vertical climbing (30.3 equivalent Te Mata Peak climbs as part of the Everest [8,848m] & beyond challenge)

f. Training temperature range: -4°C to 30°C

g. Training Camps: Two, Cambridge December 2017 (2 days) & Christchurch April 2018 (5 days)

4. Tour riding:

 

i.e. total riding of: 

a. 3,506km with 56,997m of vertical climbing (164.7 Te Mata Peak equivalents @ 346m each) taking 136hrs 46m (5 days, 16hrs 46m)

b. Longest daily ride (time): 10hrs 27m (Stage 19)

c. Longest daily ride (distance): 238.6km (Stage 7)

d. Most vertical climbing in a single day: 6,447m (Stage 19) (18.6 equivalent Te Mata Peak climbs)

e. Riding temperature range: 13°C to 36°C

f. Persistent rain: nil

g. Punctures: nil

  

5. Overall:
We travelled around France and cycled through scenery and many small villages we would never otherwise have seen.

We took on the locals ...

and won!

We saw superheroes.

And former Tour de France winner Frank Schlek.

We climbed many mountains.

Had a visit from the devil.

We were well fed on and off the road.

 

And all completed the Tour and reached Paris.

6. Fundraising

The team raised over $75,000 for the Mental Health Foundation. 

7. What's next?

 

The return home

Sunday morning in Paris saw a full breakfast at leisure with no riding planned. The hotel supplied the best breakfast of the trip with cereals, orange juice, eggs, bacon, pancakes, sausages, croissants, breads, cheeses, meats, yoghurt, pastries and coffee etc.

With the final stage of the tour proper being held, advice was that with road closures and traffic, the best way to get to the airport was by public transport using the trams and trains. After goodbyes to the team, I was driven to the Gare de Nord train station in the van as a couple of other riders were due to catch trains from there.

It was then necessary to catch the Metro to Charles de Gaulle Airport which with lifts too small for bike bags and other luggage to carry up and down the various levels at the train stations and airport was more difficult than it needed to be. The Metro was hot and relatively slow through the various stops.

Once at the airport, it was a long walk to check in which with a bike, also proved very time consuming. It took literally eight airline staff and two "self check in" machines to get the bike checked in and accepted. With such efficiency, my hopes of ever seeing it again were at best 50/50.

It took around two hours to get to the departure gate from the start of check in after boarding passes and bag stickers were obtained before going through border control. From there, it was an internal airport train ride and another walk to get to the gate and wait.

As by that time it was evening, I had a baguette for dinner from one of the airport shops.

The flights home departed and arrived near enough on schedule in contrast to my outbound journey.

A little surprisingly, the bike bag appeared in Auckland but bio-security were very slow due to staff training which meant I had to take all my luggage to the domestic terminal to ensure it caught the same flight as me. The bike again made this harder than it needed to be.

I arrived home to an overcast day with a temperature of just 11 degrees.

A longer video of the complete tour is planned and this will take a few months to be compiled and edited. There has been some suggestion that this could be shown at local theatres as a further fundraiser for the Mental Health Foundation. The team has raised over $67,000 to date with more to come. Visit https://events.mentalhealth.org.nz/fundraisers/jasonkelly to make a donation.

I will endeavour to put together a tour summary over the next few weeks and further photos will also be added to various posts in due course.