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news
Jonathan Parker (via Twitter)Cyclist smashes London-Paris record
A cyclist has smashed the record for the fastest bicycle ride from London to Paris. Jonathan Parker completed the trip in 12.5 hours – including the five-hour ferry journey – raising over £10,000 for Cyclists Fighting Cancer in the process.
Founded in 2005, Cyclists Fighting Cancer gives new bikes, tandems and specially adapted trikes to children and young people who have been affected by cancer throughout the UK. By 33, Parker had lost his mother and two uncles to cancer and this year his father also died of the disease. Donations can be made via his JustGiving page.
That page mentions a London to Paris record of 21h30m and we’ve also found another unofficial time of 17h32m, but Parker was aiming to do considerably better than both.
After doing the 59 miles from Greenwich to Newhaven in 2h28m, he then had the five-hour ferry crossing. From there, it was 110 miles to Paris.
With 40 miles to go, Parker was an hour ahead of his target time, which would have seen him arrive in Paris in under 15 hours. This was despite it being 30 degrees his having battled a slight headwind for much of the way.
In the end, the official recorded time was 12h31m26s. Parker’s efforts are all the more impressive for the fact that he was once told he may not be able to walk again and would definitely not be able to participate in sports.
After being involved in a serious accident a few years ago, Parker broke all his limbs and lost eight pints of blood. With more than his fair share of metal in his body, he says he suffers a lot of pain when training in cold or wet conditions, but he now competes in time trials for Team Bottrill.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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18 comments
Amazing - a truely outstanding feat. Well Done!
Why didn't he ride under the channel tunnel like Chris Froome. Was he scared he would loose GPS signal?
the route from London to Paris via Calais is so much further. Quickest way is from Newhaven. Also, we asked about riding through the service tunnel but we were denied.
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the route from London to Paris via Calais is so much further. Quickest way is from Newhaven.
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Ahh, that explains it. I'm cycling to Paris tomorrow and I know I am planning to ride more than 169 miles! More like double that (I'm going via Calais).
Froome used a service tunnel, which is closed to the public and illegal to use, unless you're a Tour de France winner shooting an advert.
Having driven support for a few friends doing it but not aiming to set a time (well Big Ben to Eiffel tower) in just under 22 hours, also via Newhaven, I'm intrigued to know how fine you cut it with the ferry. (We got there way too early (pace of one rider was a little unknown) and lost about 3 hours (so went and got proper food in)
It was fairly fine timing, we knew the power JP had to hold to get us there in time, but the headwind we had on the way down meant he had to up his average to make it. We had calcuated around 280 watts to get us there with loading time, but had to up it to around 300 watts to give us some wiggle room.
An inspiration? I should say so! Chapeau!
I've beaten that. I cycled to Heathrow, took a plane to Charles de Gaulle and cycled to Paris.
Something fishy about this. Broke all his limbs and lost 8 (eight) pints of blood??
Nothing fishy about it at all, the man is made of metal. Xrays to prove it. With that much blood loss he should have died. When i say this man is a fighter, it would be an understatement.
During the ride he posted a 18:52 10mile TT time then back to back 2 x 55min 25's & 54min.
Amazing work.
The report is a bit garbled, or I've missed something. How can he be on track for 15 hours (or is it 14 hours?) with 40 miles to go, then do it in 12.5? Anyway, a fantastic ride.
That would be my fault. i was tweeting from the support van and with only 2 hours sleep I really wasn't up to working out how long we had been on the road and doing a simple calculation. I was just trying to keep the social media active by giving mileage updates and i twas just easierto say we were on rack for the record. It wasnt until we stopped we worked out we had been adding the +1 hour all the time and the acuatl time was displayed on both of the garmins we had recording.
Hard as nails. Love it!
That might be because he's made of them!
Well damn.
Chapeau!