3 Days on the Right to Play Charity Ride

I’m a career runner with a few triathlons under my belt but I’ve never found the motivation for hours on my bike until now. Back in November I discovered the Strava community and a focal point which was a 3 country charity ride for Right to Play. Although having two small children at home restricted my training to times I alone could make, a Garmin device with GPS route tracking and heart rate measurements started to make each ride more interesting. Discovering Strava has made me feel like I’m part of a community of riders and allowed me to look at my own rides but more interestingly compare myself in the crowd as well.

Lone riding turned to amazement as on the 4th July I left my house and rode the 12 miles to St Pancras station and then met the 200 other riders who were all heading to the same event. I couldn’t help but thinking that this would have been even more interesting if all 200 riders had been riding together virtually during training and therefore natural teams could form. As it was a lot of the ride (see my personal blog for more of the story) was about riding with different groups and only on the third day did I feel truly comfortable with the team of 10 I found myself with and the day was great fun because of it!

So the ride was:

Day 1. Brussels to Bruges

Brussels to Bruges segment on Strava

Day 2. Bruges to Calais

Bruges to Calais segment on Strava

Day 3. Dover to London

Dover to London segment on Strava

A spectacular route and I hope that by following my maps others can discover this beautiful route.