Clock to Tower: The Big Event

What do you get if you cross nine rhinos, nine hornets and six hares?

Answer: About £30,000 for charity and one heck of a sore arse.

Yes – against all the odds, a full hat-trick of cycling teams crossed the finish line in Paris on Tuesday afternoon following 300 miles of concentrated sweat and toil.

The Hares, renowned for their strength and speed; the Hornets, reputed for their agility and grace; and the Rhinos, famed for their appetite and alcoholism, all stormed down the Champs d'Elysees at a few minutes past four to crowds of adoring fans and supporters (well, two families and a slightly confused Colombian tourist).

Celebrating with champagne beneath the Eiffel Tower, everyone was truly jubilant at completing the challenge – a four-day feat of drive, determination and exponential consumption of KitKat Chunkies.

It hadn't all been so joyous, however. Since setting off on Saturday, we had contended with scorching sun, driving rain and appetites the size of mountain gorillas to make it to that glorious home straight.

Somehow, during the course of the trip, the 24 of us – a motley crew of doctors, policemen, high-powered executives and a vicar – worked our way through 500 litres of water, 400 energy bars, 192 gel bars and about 40 bottles of red wine (which may or may not have had something to do with the Rhinos being re-christened the Winos about halfway through the trip...).

We got lost. We got tired. We got punctures. We got pissed. We got to see more of the Gravesend Balti curry house scene than anyone really hoped or expected (courtesy of some rather suspect orienteering). But, most importantly, we got up – every morning at 7.30am, to reconvene, remount and recommence our trip south.

Each day we started as a united troupe, before separating out into three teams, each with its own distinct character.

The Hares were the experts, the Chris Hoys of the group. Chief Hare was 37-year-old Hounslow PC Russell Clarke, whose good-natured tolerance of amateur bike woes knew no bounds. A former elite GB cyclist from Chesham, he could easily have nipped to Paris, bought a pair of Eiffel Tower book ends and returned to the pack in the time it took most of us to get both feet in our cleats.

The Hornets were the intermediates, the Olympic qualifiers. Head Hornets were Kevin and Flo Watson, both key organisers who sacrificed many hours of their time to ensuring the trip ran as smoothly as possible.

Kevin was also chief motivator, a man of fierce stamina who stymied all misguided attempts at over-indulgence on snack breaks with "two minutes!" bugle cries that echoed to the Swiss border.

The Rhinos were the beginners, the school sports day skivers. Top Rhino was Chief Superindentent Richard Walton, borough commander of Harrow. A founding trustee of The Educational Frontier Trust (TEFT), Richard was the main brains and brawn behind the trip – a man of true grit, resolve and no-nonsense dedication to safety at junctions.

The key job of the Rhinos was to make the other teams feel better about their sporting prowess by indulging in three-course boozy lunches and stumbling through the hotel doors just in time for last orders.

I feel it is not really important for the purposes of this blog to mention which team I happened to be in.

What I will say, however, is that I had an absolutely brilliant time. The trip was an unmitigated success, raising more than £30,000 for TEFT, and those who helped organise it – Richard, Kevin and Flo, Mike Walton, Jon Taylor, among others – can truly be proud of their achievement.

We may have had 20 flat tyres, 18 falls, 30 dislocated chains and numerous saddle-based injuries not really appropriate to discuss here – but the main thing is, we made it, and in style.

And, for anyone feeling the economic pinch as summer approaches, I can’t say enough to recommend the French countryside for a cheap weekend break.

Populated by giant cows, cobbled roads and crooked farmhouses without a right-angle in sight, every town we pedalled through – from Hesdin to Abbeville, Oisemont to Beauvais – proved more idyllically rustic than the last: the sorts of places where people keep aspidistras on their windowsills and old women sweep doorsteps with brooms made of twigs.

As the cars emitted their chirpy beeps to pass us on the road – in contrast to the boisterous soccer-hooligan hoots we'd become accustomed to from our fellow countrymen – I got the impression people in France actually quite liked cyclists, rather than envied them for their fitness, despised them for their do-goodiness and ridiculed them for their padded bottom-wear.

If you do decide to take up cycling, however, I would suggest you first read up on your cycling semantics. Bikers, I have discovered, use a special coded language that sounds deceptively similar to classic English, but is actually entirely different.

"We're not far away now", for example, means "if we get there before dark, we'll be lucky", whereas "there are no more hills" means "if you had any idea what's round the next corner, you'd never leave this cafe".

"Gentle undulation" means "mountain of doom", and "argh!" means you've been catapulted into the undergrowth at speed and could do with a bit of help (apologies, Tristan – grasp of lingo on that hill admittedly wasn't quite what it should have been).

"Let's have a quick snifter in town", on the other hand, means "Let's hit the only open club in Beauvais till the early hours, get hemmed in by torrential rain, discover no taxi firms are operating and be forced to grab a 40-Euro lift home in the back of a white van driven by two fat drunken locals" – though this translation apparently differs depending on which particular cycle route you're covering.

There are also numerical disparities to be aware of, too. In cycle language, a distance of ten miles, for example, actually means 30 – unless it refers to a distance already covered, when it means three.

But apart from the occasional misunderstanding engendered by these unspoken rules, there were few hairy moments on the trip – and on the fourth day, Rhinos, Hornets and Hares came together in one harmonious menagerie to pedal the final 65 miles into Paris.

Overall – truly an adventure to remember forever.

PRIZE WINNERS:

“Food before fitness”: Pete Whitfield, accountant from Chorleywood (and second fastest banana in the 2009 London Marathon) – for his quite astonishing ability to devour a farmyard’s worth of livestock and still cycle 30 miles before sundown.

"Luscious in lycra”: Robert MacNaughton, businessman from Italy – for a selection of daring two-piece spandex extravaganzas.

“Abuse of power”: Gavin Collins, vicar from Chorleywood – for his shameless extraction of record sponsorship from congregants.

“Falling for no reason”: Dave Jones – for a suspicious number of falls onto Florence, the only other woman on the trip.

THE TEAMS:

Hares:
- Russell Clarke
- Michael Walton
- Andrew Morley
- Robert Macnaughton
- Chris Hale
- Sean Brew

Hornets:
- Kevin Watson
- Flo Watson
- John Harman
- Paul Culver
- James Gardner
- Gavin Collins
- Igor Richter
- Adam Kirkham
- Dave Jones.

Rhinos:
- Richard Walton
- Andrew Robertson
- Sam McElroy
- Tom Cockburn
- Peter Whitfield
- John Nash
- Marcus Stoneham
- Tristan Kirk
- Rebecca Lowe

Support drivers:
- David and Judy Cansdale
- Jon and Clara Taylor