I’m looking into organising a Lon-Paris road ride. My dad has advanced Parkinson’s, and the Parkinson’s Society organise a L-P ride every year. I was going to do it with them, but a few of my mates want to ride it too, and the £1350 sponsorship requirement each for 6 of us in the village is a bit high. We want to do it for charity, but with a bit less pressure.

It looks like either 100miles/day for 3 days, or 70/day for 4 days. Options I am considering are:

1. Hire a motorhome, look for some sponsorship from a local company for the cost.
2. Stay over in simple French guest houses.

Does anybody have any experience of doing this, or any useful tips?

I’ve done a few similar rides. You’re never short of good accomodation in France so I’d go for option 2. Much nicer experience overall I think, it’s one of the highlights of touring in France. I’ve been served huge portions of dinner ‘pour le cyclist’ by hostel/hotel owners. As long as you’re ok with a bit of shabby-chic or however you’d describe some French B+Bs. I’ve just winged-it in the past and always found somewhere at the end of a day but booking ahead is better for a 3/4-day group ride.

My lad did that with a couple of mates last year. They did it in one go. Sleep on the ferry, all done in 24 hours and hop the train back. Makes logistics easy.

I’m just starting to plan exactly the same thing, however mine won’t be until April 2017.
My younger brother did it in 2012, and followed this route –

Dieppe-Paris

Sadly he did in 2013, and the purpose of our trip is recreate his journey to coincide with what would have been his 40th birthday.
There will be potentially 20 cyclists (of mixed ability) doing our trip I’m currently looking at the following –

Day 1 – Greenwich to Newhaven (approx. 60miles and quite hilly)
Day 2 – ferry + approx. 30 miles into France
Day 3 – Approx 70 miles
Day 4 – 35-40 miles – arrive in Paris.

I agree the above doesn’t look particularly challenging, however it follows the same format as my Brothers trip (he was between Chemo treatments at the time)
We’ll be unsupported, and carrying all our kit.

Ferry from Newhaven is approx. £35, and the Donald Hirsch route has recommended places to stay.

I know it’s not in aid of Parkinson’s but the British Heart Foundation are organising a similar trip next year, which only asks for £500 per rider so might be more realistic.
https://www.bhf.org.uk/get-involved/events/bike-rides/london-to-paris-off-road-bike-ride
A few of us are looking at getting involved.

I think the Newhaven – Dieppe is the standard offroad ride, but we are looking at Dover-Calais, which is more riding, less ferry.

Freeagent – I reckon there will be a few tears shed when you hit Paris.

5thE – sounds a bit too hardcore for me! The touring is a big part of it too.

I did an L2P road ride with a group of people off Bikeradar forum in 2010. Similar cost issues had put people off.

Collectively, we paid for minibus hire and a couple of non-cyclists kindly offered to drive our kit in exchange for their trip paid for.
I think there were 18 of us and it cost about £300 each which was for ferry crossing (minibus plus passengers and a load of foot passengers), minibus hire, fuel, hotel rooms on a shared basis (Campanile in calais and Amiens and then a random one in Paris). The minibus brought back a load of people on the way back and the London based ones got on the Eurostar.

Our route was London – Dover, Calais – Amiens, Amiens – Paris.
I’ve provided links to the route in a similar thread if you do a search but it’s about 70 miles, 115 miles and 100 miles.

If I were to do it again, I wouldn’t bother with the support aspect. The riding isn’t hard and modern bikepacking bags make carrying kit easy and it’s basically 3 days of touring. If you pre-book hotels etc you’ll only need to carry the minimum kit for off the bike.

Brilliant – thanks!! Did you have any issues storing bikes in French hotels?

I just did the BHF off-road London to Brighton on Saturday, the London to Paris version is equivalent to London to Brighton three days on the trot so I tip my hat to anyone who can manage that!

No trouble with bikes in our hotels. Just took them into the rooms. Guess it depends on the quality of the hotel though!