Arresting indeed is the view of the majestic basilique that sits atop St Quentin as you arrive in the city, However we had a closer encounter with  matters “arresting” as we cycled into the city. It was encouraging to see welcome flags to the city declaring that St Quentin is the “ville la plus sportif” in France – so we felt quite lifted as we cycled in. But not for long. Within five minutes, we had two policemen on motorbikes pulling up next to us and signalling Robin Cooper into the side. “Yippee” we thought, “how great, a police escort”. How wrong we were. Robin was sandwiched between the two motorbikes and accused of         breaking the code of the road when cycling into the city…they berated him and then it went from bad to worse when they asked for 90 euros. Robin wisely played dumb and refused to pay and they eventually went on their way. Mercifully he didn’t play the “Do you know who I am?” card, as the chances were that they’d never heard of Medway.

Your editor was sorely tempted to yell out ” Two words for you – Bradley Wiggins” as I was slightly anxious that we’d all end up in the slammer and I was anxious to get to a warm bath.

Ville la plus sportif  - I think not…

Didn’t have time to type much yesterday and sadly it seems to have merged into a long day’s haze of wheels turning, hills and wind. Each day it’s a bit like childbirth – long and painful and you don’t fancy it again –  then after a bowl of pasta and a decent glass of merlot everything seems a bit better and you’re ready to get going again.

The day started with a massive hill climb out of Epernay, 850ft up through the beautiful champagne vineyards with milestones marking the ownership of brands such as Mercier.

Within half an hour the heavens opened and it tipped it down – cycling can be a challenge, but it is doubly so in the pouring rain. You drip from the head downward and keeping morale up when you’re soaked to the skin and can’t see where you’re heading makes morale tricky to keep up. But kept going we did. The catering crew did a superb job and lunch was held in a bus shelter!

We also held a number of stops at different cafes -selling a range of interesting artefacts.  Mercifully the skies cleared in the afternoon and after a few wrong turns we sailed into St Quentin for our warm welcome after 5000ft climbing.

We were ready for an evening out and some of the group entertained the locals with our our rendition of one of Tom Jones’ more famous numbers at the local karaoke evening. But it was’t to be late as there were still 88 miles to tackle today.