And they are off...

Three days in and 400 kilometres down (yep, that’s right, it’s taken
no time at all before we have submitted to the group and started using
metric measures).

The cyclists waiting to leave the hotel on Day 1

The start of Day 1 was fantastic, cycling in a convoy from our hotel

to the nearby Giza pyramids. Not a bad setting for a start line. 

The Start Line: Ali & Lizzie, bikes and pyramids...

 We stayed in the convoy for three painful hours, speeding up and slowing
down, around Cairo’s equivalent of the M25; once we had gone from the
A3 junction to Guildford to the A41 to Berkhamsted, we pulled off the
M25 and were let loose on the open road. It was long, flat and
straight and we’ve not really deviated from that since we got on it –
for example, today’s directions were:

Turn left out of camp
48km – police check (stay right)
71km – lunch
110km – coke stop
136km – camp

We found a good ‘peloton’ (cycling group for you lay folk who haven’t
heard of Sir Bradley) to ride with over the past few days, motoring
along at 38km/h (22mph for the Non-Europeans). At first we thought our
training regime had been exceptional and our enormous quads were
challenging Chris Hoy’s – then we stopped for lunch and realised there
was a tailwind gusting at around 30mph. We were very grateful for that
until we had to pitch a tent in it. Now that’s up, we can relax for a
few hours, before dinner at 5pm and to bed soon after 6pm – the crazy
life we live on tour !