London to Paris on the cheap

[Lucasmik]

Is anybody doing or has done the London to Paris ride, and is their a way to do it without having to raise thousands in sponsorship money. As I would love to give it a go but do not think I could raise the required amount of money.

 

[Herzog]

Easy.

Get a tent and a rack. Campsites are around 8 to 15 quid a night. Foot passenger on the ferry is around £20. It's around 450km, so 100 km a day (so 5 nights max). Plus food and all the rest.

I usually spend about £20 a day when touring.

 

[arallsopp]

Or go credit card touring, as I did a few summers back with a mate.
Day 1:
0800 start
London to Newhaven (follow the FNRttC route).
Newhaven > Dieppe (let the ferry do the work).

Night 1:
Any one of a hundred hotels in Dieppe harbour.

Day 2:
Exit Dieppe on the Avenue Verte, aiming towards Beauvais

Night 2:
Either Beauvais, or the first decent looking place after your legs get tired.

Day 3:
Beauvais (or thereabouts) to Paris. There are a few nice approaches. We went via Chantilly (which was beautiful, but cobbled and considerably off route).

Night 3:
A bar in Paris, with the bike stuffed into your hotel room. Join it after midnight.

Day 4:
Paris hotel to Eurostar, and back to London by early afternoon.

With two sharing, I think it all came in under £200 each, incl. food, drinks, ferries, trains, accommodation, etc.

Andy.

 

[yello]

It's easy enough to do, as the above posts point out. I guess it really depends on how you want to do it. If you're looking for supported (i.e. carrying no luggage) then that will obviously take more arranging (a friend in a vehicle of some kind) and be more costly. Maybe with a club? Or maybe try the Friday's ride to Paris.

Those charity ride things are big business these days. Whilst there used to be a London-Paris ride that didn't have the sponsorship aspect (at least, I think there did???) I'm not sure it exists today - but I'd like to be wrong!

Edit: link added

 

[martint235]

How far is it? Should be possible to do it without all the kit. Overnight to Newhaven, sleep on the ferry, Dieppe to Paris during the day and sleep on the Eurostar on the way back.

I think Andy's tips are likely to be more scenic and a lot more fun though!!! Now Andy, about next year's charity cycle ride.......

 

[philk56]

Hi

I did the standard ride last year, via Dover, following the same route that my wife did a few years ago on a charity ride. Although we had the advantage of still having the route maps it's not too difficult working out a route via Abbeville and Beauvais. In fact because there are so many charity rides you will encounter many of the direction arrows, of various colours, that have been left in place.

This year I'm going across again but this time on the Newhaven/Dieppe route. We've found this very useful in planning the ride: Dieppe-Paris. Hopefully it will work out ok - we leave next Monday.

 

[Jezston]

You shouldn't be using sponsorship money to pay for the trip. All money raised should go to charity.

Pisses me off when friends and colleagues email me saying "I'm going to climb Mount Kilimanjaro for charity! Need to raise £4000!". I'm not paying for someone's bloody holiday.

 

[Angelfishsolo]

You shouldn't be using sponsorship money to pay for the trip. All money raised should go to charity.

Pisses me off when friends and colleagues email me saying "I'm going to climb Mount Kilimanjaro for charity! Need to raise £4000!". I'm not paying for someone's bloody holiday.

Did the OP mean that or did he mean he would need to raise £1000's of pounds to be included in the ride?

 

[Jezston]

Did the OP mean that or did he mean he would need to raise £1000's of pounds to be included in the ride?

Dunno, concerned it may be, but next sentence was more of a ot rant.

EDIT

Googling about seems there are quite a few organised London to Paris bike rides each year. This appears to be one of the biggest:

http://events.breastcancercare.org.uk/server/show/nav.139?gclid=CIajnInk7KkCFVJTfAod7RbCZw

You will spend four nights in four star hotels during this challenge.
...
the tour cost is £620; these costs are paid from your minimum fundraising.

To me, that's just wrong.

 

[Angelfishsolo]

Dunno, concerned it may be, but next sentence was more of a ot rant.

A valid concern I guess.

 

[Lucasmik]

Hi, unfortunately with all the sponsored rides you have to raise a minimum in sponsorship before you are allowed to take part, for example one ride is a minimum of 1400 each, and yes I do believe that covers you accommodation whilst away, does seem wrong to me as well but if you want to take part they have you over a barrel. I was trying to find out if there were any honest rides out there that were not conning both the rider and the charity? There should not be a minimum amount to raise for a charity but what they should do is tell you the cost of the trip and you pay that then they should let you get on with collecting sponsors and it should be none of their business.

 

[Jezston]

Hi, unfortunately with all the sponsored rides you have to raise a minimum in sponsorship before you are allowed to take part, for example one ride is a minimum of 1400 each, and yes I do believe that covers you accommodation whilst away, does seem wrong to me as well but if you want to take part they have you over a barrel. I was trying to find out if there were any honest rides out there that were not conning both the rider and the charity? There should not be a minimum amount to raise for a charity but what they should do is tell you the cost of the trip and you pay that then they should let you get on with collecting sponsors and it should be none of their business.

Fair enough, don't understand why they work that way - makes me feel like something dodgy is going on and people are getting kickbacks from the sponsorship that isn't going to charity. Or maybe they just find it easier to raise more money by encouraging people to join in with the promise of a free holiday attached. The costs mentioned in the event I linked to above seemed quite ridiculously high.

Take it you'd rather do it as part of a big group? Otherwise, there's no reason with all the advice above you couldn't just do it yourself.

I did a coast to coast bike ride a month or so back (see sig) - the first day I followed the Sustrans C2C route and there were a TON of people doing it at the same time so you're never alone!

 

[tiredlegs]

Think you`d find a lot less people doing these rides if they had to pay the £500-£600 out of their own pocket. I did London2Paris last year in aid of kidney research and raised £3200, so roughly £2600 going to the charity. I would not have been able to afford to pay the £500 myself. I think the idea is not to settle on the minimum fundraising amount but to raise as much as you can.

 

[martint235]

Hi, unfortunately with all the sponsored rides you have to raise a minimum in sponsorship before you are allowed to take part, for example one ride is a minimum of 1400 each, and yes I do believe that covers you accommodation whilst away, does seem wrong to me as well but if you want to take part they have you over a barrel. I was trying to find out if there were any honest rides out there that were not conning both the rider and the charity? There should not be a minimum amount to raise for a charity but what they should do is tell you the cost of the trip and you pay that then they should let you get on with collecting sponsors and it should be none of their business.

Does it have to be London to Paris? I was asked to set up a charity ride by my brother and asked the esteemed people of this parish to come up with suggestions. The winner was a ride from London - Stonehenge - Royal Wootton Bassett - London which 5 of us completed in June. I managed to raise around about £950 (not sure of full total yet), all of which goes to Help for Heroes. I think I'm safe to say that all 5 participants enjoyed the ride.

IIRC on some of the rides, if you don't raise the sponsorship, you lose your payment too which I think is a bit of a con.

 

[Willo]

I keep flirting with the idea but never take the plunge. On the sponsorship issue for the organised charity trips, some I looked at offered a self finance option re the costs so that all money from sponsorship goes to the nominated charity.

I'd like to do something informally / relaxed with a groupb sharing the cost of a support driver. Fella at work said his trip was fairly cheap where about 7 of them shared fuels and ferry costs for a friend willing to drive.