28th April, 2012. The beginning of an Awfully Big Adventure

Julian Claxton chats to the umbrella-man

Rain was forecast, and there was a bit of drizzle as I rode down to the Wheelers' HQ.   I missed Neil's speech, though he was still standing on a chair delivering the last few words as I struggled through the crush to sign on. It all felt like a Commissaire's race-briefing. Within minutes we were being urged to get a move on and ride down to Angel Hill for the official send-off. There was a quite impressive crowd, with a mixture of cyclists and "civilians" - relatives, supporters, the Mayor of St Edmundsbury and the Rwandan High Commissioner, who had a large black Mercedes (Reg No. RWA 1A), a chauffeur who quietly smoked as he leaned against it, and a man in a chalk-stripe suit to hold an umbrella. We milled around, tangled our bikes and dodged umbrellas. Once the Rwandan High Commissioner's speech was over, and we had rolled out Southwards behind Brian Aldiss on his hand-cycle to cheers and applause, we made a large enough group to cause a satisfying amount of traffic chaos behind us. Past the Rugby Ground and on, on, on to Rushbrooke Lane - oncoming cars inclined to give in and move over when faced with such a large and politely unruly group. By the time we reached Little Welnetham, there seemed to be fewer riders (had we split already?). Not the thirty-eight mentioned in Caroline's email - and far from the forty-eight claimed in the East Anglian Daily Times on Monday. Riding alongside Neil, I mentioned that I was happy to stay on the front for a while - and mentioned the German border as a possible limit.  I could tell how amused he was by how little his expression changed. I (look, I know this isn't all about me - OK?) met several new best friends as the group morphed and mutated and the cocktail-party-on-wheels element  got established.

Neil's interview:  "That's R-W-A-N-D-A"

The High Commissioner's Speech

 Names? Ah . . . names, um, yeah I got some names, but, well, you know how it is . . . Met two guys in smart matching outfits, one from Wickhambrook and the other from Bury. I only realised how local they were when I tried to take us all in the wrong direction, and it turned out that we were on the taller guy's training route.

Caroline, and my two anonymous chums

The groups were splitting up, and the front had to slow down several times. There was a wide disparity in experience; but we were united by our support for the incredible journey the Rwanda Quartet were beginning. At the front we ignored the huge weight penalty born by the our heroes, and pressed on into the increasing rain. We knew that they wouldn't want us to patronise them by going really slowly. We stopped at Bildeston for a thorough regroup, and for a couple

Caroline indicates it's time to go.

of riders to pop into major sponsors Lifecycle's shop to buy extra waterproof clothing. This was the last time we would all be together in one group, until Harwich. The further south we went, the heavier the rain and stronger the wind became - and the stronger the desire to get to our destination as quickly as possible. Neil had gone back to check up on two riders off the back, and I never saw him again. Even at the end. So "Stay Lucky, Neil!" as I might have said. There was a good contingent (half a dozen, maybe?) of Gt Yarmouth CC riders, being Julian Claxton's local club (sadly, only three of us represented the Wheelers. Me, Henry Wood and Paul Callow). They were satisfyingly impressed with Suffolk, even though we could hardy see any of the views on our route. Hadleigh's architecture was specially well-received by 'Ray'; it seemed that the deprecatory term they used for impressive buildings was "not a bad pile o' bricks". I pointed out that a lot of our fine houses were piles of bricks plus sticks.
The GYCC lads were very conscientious about directing traffic around our rolling road block (I know, we don't approve of that in the Wheelers) especially an energetic and muscular little guy with a voice like Jools Holland. I had a good chat with Julian, who is a professional photographer and told me about his awkwardness over appearing in the photos of others. I was forced to drop him near Mistley, because we were going up a steepish hill and, well, you know how it is . . . .
On the map, the road out to Harwich (well Parkstone, actually)  looked like a pan-flat road following an estuary. Not the case at all. There was quite lot of undulation, as with the rest of the Essex Coast round here. And when that finished, we had a block headwind for the final four or five miles, rain lashing us as we struggled along the main A120. Forty-two of the 6,000 miles the boys must travel have now been covered, leaving 5,958 to go. Paul Callow and I stood on the windswept car park of Morrisons and waited for our wives to arrive, everyone else had gone into the superstore in search of coffee. Caroline had turned up in Neil's pick-up - without Neil. She seemed reassuringly unperturbed by this (she had seen him several times through the afternoon, as they coordinated rescuing stragglers). I'm  sure we will all be thinking of the boys as they set off across Europe from Sunday morning. I didn't get up until after nine - and I didn't go out on my bike. I wrote this.    SJH

Today's  Kliban Cat Calendar page

Come on Julian - only 5,958 miles to go