Planning

The route

In preparation for day one, I tested two routes out of London – National Cycle routes 20 and 21. I chose route 20 as it was less muddy. Then two weeks before leaving, the four of us did the London to Newhaven route as a practice ride. This helped as it gave a good idea of our group speed, tested everyone’s abilities and confirmed the route to Newhaven was ok.

I used ridewithgps.com and Google maps to finesse the route. I wrote an app to plot the elevation of each day side by side so I knew how days two and three would compare with day one which we had tested:

Route elevation

Data from the trip

GPX files

These files contain the data from the actual ride:
London to Newhaven GPX file
Dieppe to Gisors GPX file
Gisors to Paris GPX file

You can view these activities on a map on RideWithGPS:
London to Newhaven route map and elevation 
Dieppe to Gisors route map and elevation 
Gisors to Paris route map and elevation

Itinerary

The plan for the trip was as follows. The actual times were pretty close to the plan. NB if you are using this to help your own trip, make sure you use the (actual) GPX/RideWithGPS files above rather than the (planned) RidewithGPS routes below.

Friday 3 April

London to Newhaven
http://ridewithgps.com/routes/7213637

09:00 (UK) Meet Trafalgar Square
14:00 (UK) Pub lunch
19:36 (UK) Sunset
20:00 (UK) Arrive Newhaven, find some dinner
21:00 (UK) Enter Ferry terminal
23:00 (UK) Ferry (£20 pp with DFDS Seaways) departs Newhaven

Saturday 4 April

Dieppe to Gisors
http://ridewithgps.com/routes/7143979

04:00 (FR) Ferry arrives in Dieppe (4 hour crossing)
07:20 (FR) Sunrise
09:30 (FR) Big breakfast somewhere en route.
15:00 (FR) Arrive Gisors – buy food for next day, then check into Hotel Moderne – €35pp
15:30 (FR) Siesta
19:00 (FR) Dinner somewhere in Gisors
20:25 (FR) Sunset

Sunday 5 April

Gisors to Paris
http://ridewithgps.com/routes/7214269

07:21 (FR) Sunrise
08:00 (FR) Breakfast in hotel – €8 pp
09:00 (FR) Checkout
12:00 (FR) Start looking for lunch options!
19:00 (FR) Arrive Eiffel Tower
20:00 (FR) Arrive at hotel Claude Bernard Saint-Germain – £67pp
20:27 (FR) Sunset
21:00 (FR) Dinner

Monday 6 April

Home by Eurostar

07:19 (FR) Sunrise
08:00 (FR) Breakfast at hotel (included)
09:00 (FR) Check out of hotel
09:40 (FR) Arrive Gare du Nord
11:10 (FR) Eurostar departs Gare du Nord (£57.50 pp)
12:30 (UK) Arrive St Pancras

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