#BBBR13 Day 0 - London to Paris

Rising rather early for a bank holiday, it was into the car and down to the station; hoping all the while that FCC and National Rail would not conspire against us and put a replacement bus service (no bikes!) at the last minute.
Hurrah! No!
So on board, and soon exchanging texts with friends to see how their journeys were going - all well.  A good sign (along with the bright sunny weather).

Arriving in Kings Cross just under two hours later it was a short walk round the corner to the meet up point where upon our first surprise awaited us - our bags were to travel with us. Damn!  Wish I had brought the back pack straps for the main bag - it would have made life a bit easier.

Not surprisingly, the meeting point seemed to be the Champagne Bar at St Pancras.  So, there I headed where in short order I bumped into loads of fellow riders from last year, and of course my team mate, Keith

Within 20 minutes of entering France we (all of us - not Keith and me!) had drunk the train dry :-)

A coach transfer, a briefing, a shopping trip to the WoundedWarriors.CA cycle store (an impromptu popup store from kit bags outside the bar!) and dinner.

The plan was for an early call and then on the bikes after breakfast to head down to the L'Hôtel national des Invalides for the official start.  However the diggers on the site outside the hotel window (see below) decided to do that for us a few times in the night. Damn!