Sam's tour de France ends under la Tour Eiffel

Sam finally off his bike

The lads did it! The last 30 miles to the heart of Paris were the hardest with confusion about the route and overcoming the complexity of winding their way into the centre of town. Much to the slack jaw incredulity of Eiffel Tower visitors, Katie and I stood proudly with our ‘well done’ banner and cheered the boys home. We had both bought ‘I [heart] Paris’ T-shirts, jammed them on and embarrassed the hell out of Sam waving our banner as they arrived at the Eiffel Tower.


With poor traffic, their last leg was tiring as fatigue and traffic reduced their speed from 28 to six miles an hour. While hubby was thinking of fruits de mer and steak at Bofinger, Sam was thinking about the children of Sierra Leone. And getting off his wretched bike for a while.

For Sam, the highlight of the cycling was using his mountain bike, which didn’t exactly make the trip that easy for him, but when he got to stony forest tracks, he really could enjoy them and shoot ahead of his father’s bike, which was usually far faster. For Chris, the beauty of the northern France was his highlight, taking a leisurely pace through the countryside.

They both fell fast asleep when we headed straight for the hotel for a hot bath and some Deep Heat.

Sam and hubby have both done so well and have had some lovely messages of support from family and friends and, of course, sponsors. Remember they didn't do it for themselves and contributions can still be made to help the children who inspired Sam to do all this in the first place at Justgiving, Sam Ogden-Newton.