Simon Curlew, Ian Taylor and Chris Batch braved strong headwinds in a magnificent effort to see the Menin Gate and hear the Last Post at Ypres. Here is their story...
After leaving The Houses of Parliament at 8am on Friday, we rode 91 miles to Dover in a biting headwind and caught a ferry to Calais with a further 5 miles to cycle to the hotel (including cycling down the motorway by mistake).
The second day, we left Calais, with obligatory hangover, bound for first the Menin Gate in Ypres and ultimately Brugges. Having tackled the long long climb into Cassell we were looking forward to the steep descent, only to find that the descent was cobbles!!
We got to the Menin Gate after 60 miles and took 30 minutes to walk round and take in the sacrifice of so many.
We arrived in Brugges at about 7.30 pm local time for some well deserved beer and food, together with particularly sore backsides!
The tour of the Cemeteries was a sobering experience and one of the pics shows Tyne Cot Cemetery, the largest Commonwealth grave site in Flanders.
We the made it on to the Menin Gate for the last post at 8pm. This happens every day of the year and was haunting, sobering and moving. Always well attended, there were a large contingent of recent British Army recruits. The Last Post is sounded by the Ypres fire Brigade and sent shivers through our spines. The Gate commemorates 56,000 souls whose bodies could not be buried and they are all named on the walls. Again a picture shows us in our Redhill kit in front of a small number of the names.
All in all a great experience and one that raised over £100,000 for a Kent Children's Hospice and the Get Kids Going Charity.
Not something we could have done 6 months ago without all our regular great club runs!
There were a lot of local people from our area on the ride and we have told them all of Redhill CC - so expect some more new faces soon!!