Day 1: Albourne to Dieppe (The Warm Up)
The warm-up. The goodbye. The silly small bike.
The last week was a blur. Work, emails, deadlines, the usual noise that fills every corner of a busy business life. If I’m honest, I’d barely had a moment to think about this adventure, the one I’d been planning for weeks, until this morning, when I finally put the out-of-office on at midday, had a quick lunch with my lovely wife, Lucy, and walked out to the driveway.
There it was. The yellow Brompton. Packed, ready, slightly ridiculous-looking. I love it.
Saying goodbye to Lucy was a strange moment. She’s been genuinely supportive, she understands why I do these things, because she’s wired the same way. We both know that time for yourself, a proper challenge, a reset, it matters. As a business owner, switching off doesn’t come naturally. But I have a great team, and for the next six days, the inbox belongs to someone else.
The weather forecast was typically British about the whole thing — intermittent rain, possible thunderstorm, best of luck. I had the rain jacket within reach. In the end, a light shower around the 20km mark, then nothing. The South Downs rolled by, the legs felt good, and somewhere around 30km in, I stopped overthinking it and just rode.
Destination: Newhaven ferry terminal. Coffee and a biscuit at McDonald’s first, not glamorous, but effective. There’s something quietly funny about sitting in a fast food car park on the south coast, about to cycle to France.
The ferry crossing was uneventful, which is exactly what you want. Slightly less uneventful was handing the Brompton over as oversized luggage. Watching someone carry your bike away and disappear with it is its own small anxiety. A lamb shank dinner helped. No wine, big day tomorrow, clear head required.
A last-minute check of tomorrow’s route revealed the hotel was plotted a couple of miles outside Abbeville town centre. No idea how that happened. Fixed, saved to the Garmin. Those extra kilometres at the end of a 100km day with 750m of climbing would not have been fun.
Now me and the bike are safe in the first hotel room of the trip.
Tomorrow is the real start. Over 100km, proper climbing, and all the thinking time I could possibly want.
Day 1 done. Warm-up complete.
