France – the spiritual home of cycling

Training Update: April

This month saw Richard contract a post-COVID cold (kindly donated by Mrs Fulham). As a chilly April gradually gave way to a warming May, we transitioned from wrapped up to stripped off.

How? We moved our training location from the Surrey/Hampshire Tour de Perilous Potholes to the silky-smooth surfaces of the roads in northern France.

Over eight rides, we covered nearly 500 miles and some 30,000 ft of climbing during our 38 hours in the saddle. 

With hardly a car on the rural roads, most of the vehicles we encountered were agricultural: hell-bent on turning the tarmac to mud during prime muck-spreading season.


Behind every great man...

Not only a training camp, the trip was also a planning session for the support team (aka Jacqui and Teresa) - to test tracking technology for pitstops and rendezvous. They also managed to sneak in 150 miles of cycling, setting their own PB’s fuelled by panache and fromage blanc.

The evenings saw us entertained by the storytelling of Mr Batten snr and nourished by Mrs Batten snr’s home cooking.

We spotted a variety of wildlife on our travels: a vast array of cows, stoats and goats, deer, birds of all shapes and sizes (including woodpeckers), and one uncorroborated sighting of a snake.

Key learnings 

Recovery drinks and post-ride stretching are vital. 

Jelly babies are still the sportsman’s sweet of choice, although Madeleines are a welcome addition to our snack bag.


High-quality road surfaces lead to a low incidence of mechanicals, as we only experienced one puncture. However, Mr Fulham did manage to create a bobbly tyre as well as a 'rapid unscheduled disassembly' of his rear mudguard on a practice session before leaving the UK.

Then there's the crème de la crème - Volterol, Chamois cream, suncream, café crème, and ice cream.

And finally…

We're thrilled to report that our pledged donations have smashed the £2,000 barrier! THANK YOU everyone. There’s still time if you’d like to support us and Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice Care. See our JustGiving page.


We'll post another update at the end of May, before we start the epic ride on 5th June. In the meantime, here are a few more photos.


Cheers Richard & Paul





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