Cyclng the Line: Part Deux (La Voie de la Liberté)

It’s official. Cycling the Line: Part Deux IS ON!

Longer, tougher and generally more painful than ever, Steve and I are dusting off the panniers and the padded shorts and will be getting back on the bikes for another gentle ride across a large chunk of continental Europe in order to raise a few quid for our service men and women: past, present and future.

This time we will be following La Voie de la Liberté (The Road of Liberty) – one of many routes taken by the Allies in 1944 after the successful sea-borne landings at Normandy in the summer of that year. This particular route is the one taken by General Patton of the US Third Army. It starts just inland from the Normandy coast and winds its way through France, into Luxembourg, and then up to Belgium, taking in the Ardennes, where it finishes at Bastogne. A total of  1,145km, or, in proper distance,  715 miles. (As a comparison the original cycling the line trek was 550 miles).

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Steve and I met last week to agree on the route and put the wheels in motion, so to speak, on this next adventure. The minutiae are yet to be completely finalised, but here is the general gist: We plan to do the cycle ride over 15 days; 12 cycle days with 3 rest days thrown in so we don’t kill ourselves. That works out to be an average of 60 miles a day for every cycle day. We will also be doing this trip a little bit earlier in the year, probably the last week of September/first week of October. This will mean it wont get dark at 4.30pm like it did when we went out last time – that was a real pain. Trying to cycle on main A roads in the pitch dark during evening rush hour was ‘interesting’ but not something either of us are keen to repeat again if we can help it.

It’s all for charity

As last time, the whole point of us killing ourselves for 15 days is to raise a bit of cash for our soldiers. Last time we raise nearly £3500 – which was absolutely amazing. I wonder how much we can raise this time round? I know times are tough, but if you can spare a couple of quid then we would be incredibly grateful.

This year, our charity of choice is………. Help For Heroes. You can donate at our dedicated Just Giving page:  http://www.justgiving.com/Cyclingtheline2

Thank you in advance!!