Adam Roberts and I [Matt Chesterman] completed the London to Paris Cycle Ride, which ran from the 21st to the 25th of June.

We had the evening of the 24th of June in Paris, as well as the whole day on the 25th – which was well needed to get over the saddle sores!

And I must add that there were one or two well-deserved beers consumed that evening before ending up on top of the Eiffel Tower at midnight.
We decided to take part in the event mainly for the challenge, and thought it would be a great experience to achieve something for charity.

The reason for choosing CRY is that, with us both being footballers, it seemed a suitable charity – due to the amount of footballers that suffer from Sudden Death Syndrome.

My father also has an irregular heart beat, and he was lucky that his was diagnosed – although he could have had it for up to 30 years prior to it being diagnosed.

Despite battling difficulties at times – particularly the second day, which was quite possibly the hardest day of my life due to having constant arguments with the wind – the feeling when finishing was great.

It was a really well run, fun event, and we would definitely do it again.

We had a great laugh, especially crawling back to bed a little worse for wear most nights after deciding a few beers and watching lots of the World Cup would most certainly set us in good stead for a whole day’s cycling the next morning!

How wrong we were, yet night after night we never quite learned our lesson!

Although it does sound like our whole trip involved French beer, I can assure you we did do some cycling!

If we could also say ‘thank you’ to everyone that helped us and sponsored us, especially Camberley Town Football Club who supported us both in raising the money.

We raised about £2500 between us for CRY.

Matt Chesterman