Richard Kennedy has completed his ride in the Royal British Legion Poppybike Pedal to Paris 2009 event. Over the course of the last four days the riders have covered around 280 miles, since leaving the starting line at Greenwich. Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, was in attendance to wave them off on Thursday.
During the ride Richard allowed us to monitor his progress live by using GPS tracking software with his Blackberry mobile device. As well as providing live position and speed data this information also allows us to provide a full history of the progress and route taken throughout the event.
Visit www.thewestongroup.co.uk/richard to view interactive maps for each stage of this amazing journey from London to Paris.
Day One - London to Dover
The first section of the route entailed a dash through the Kent countryside, closely following the path of the M20 motorway.
This leg of the journey terminated at Dover (to prevent wet feet) as the riders hop on a ferry across the channel to Calais for the first overnight stop.
Day Two - Calais to Abbeville
Heading South from Calais taking a route close to the coast, taking in the countryside on the way to the well known destination for today - the River Somme.
Abbeville is located on the River Somme, 20 kilometres from its modern mouth in the English Channel, and 45 kilometres northwest of Amiens.
In 1940, the Germans had massed the bulk of their armoured force in Panzer Group von Kleist, which attacked through the comparatively unguarded sector of the Ardennes and achieved a breakthrough at Sedan with air support. The group raced to the coast of the English Channel at Abbeville, thus isolating the British Expeditionary Force, Belgian Army, and some divisions of the French Army in northern France.
The Battle of France was lost.
For our intrepid cyclists their battle has only just reached the halfway stage, with two more days of cycling still to come before arriving at their destination.
Day Three - Abbeville to Beauvais
After following the low lying coastal lands yesterday, today our riders head further inland with an unavoidable increase in altitude at some points reaching over 800 feet. With the final destination for tonight of the town of Beauvais.
Beauvais is capital of the Oise department in northern France. It lies about 90 km (56 mi) north of Paris.
Day Four - Beauvais to Paris
The final day of the event takes the riders on a journey from Beauvais southwards to the River Seine, then turning eastwards towards the finish line.
Approaching the final stretch into central Paris, the riders take a route along the Ave 18 Juin 1940. At this point the riders may hear the echoes of Winston Churchill in their ears, for it was on this date that the famous speech was made containing the line, "This is their finest hour".
No doubt spurred on by these thoughts our riders have a short final dash to arrive at the Arc De Triomphe and the finish line itself.
Follow the journey in Google Earth
Click the link below to download and view the complete journey using Google Earth.
-- Download Track Data for Google Earth --
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Some information in this article was taken from Wikipedia, it might not be true. |
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