Memorable moments;
Meeting Mohammed for the first time - the Palestinian who miraculously managed to get over here form the West Bank two weeks ago (his first ever time leaving the West Bank!). He has a permanent grin on his face and spent the first half of the ride today cycling along one handed taking video, entirely unphased by the traffic of central London.
Steve (one of the Sheffield cyclists and starting the ride very much a cyclist rather than a political activist, but with a hugely strong sense of values) chatting away merrily to Jeremy Corbyn M.P. (very much at the forefront of fighting for the Palestinian cause in British politics) and then asking - 'and who are you?'.
The start of the ride: we had 50 or 60 other cyclists accompanying us, plus our police escort who were on mountain bikes and who were clearly loving their afternoon out (one was very keen to join the ride and said he wanted to come with us next year. He was clearly ex - army and I never got the chance to find out if his motivation was about cycling, politics or both).
But the best thing about setting off was our 'Road Crew' - 2 guys on bikes both towing huge sound systems and a deck, the one set up on a long rocket like contraception that snaked along behind him in a slightly perilous way. So we set off to the sound of Queen's "I like to ride my bicycle" at full volume. [message to Jonny and Dave - I think we need one for Sheffield - get it sorted!!]. Our supporters and the Road Crew cycled with us all the way to Greenwich Park and we got lots and lots of support from people who saw us along the way. Several people were flying Palestinian flags from the backs of their bicycles.
At Greenwich we said goodbye to our supporters and they cheered us off, out of the park. There was one very earnest guy (might have been on the 2004 ride) who kept shouting to us, 'remember why you are doing this, they'll be days when you only have about 5 hours sleep and you've been on your bike for 6 hours- you'll have to remember why you're doing it'. We set off - about 28 of us with the two support vans. The serious stuff had finally began - the pace upped considerably and we met our first hills. London seems to go on for ever (how is it so big?) and we had a couple of funny moments cycling twice round huge roundabouts (no mean feat when you're in a column of 28 cyclists in single file and you really do meet yourselves on the roundabout) when our navigator got it wrong.
Another memorable moment - a runner beside us on the pavement shouted across "London to where….?. I shouted back "London to Jerusalem".
Runner: "you're kidding - are you on your way back?"
Did I look that tired???
"No, we've just set off from central London today - we're going to the West Bank and to Jenin Refugee camp."
Runner (he's got it now) "Brilliant, brilliant - good luc…………" as I sail off away from him down a long hill - I can't afford to get left behind at this stage of the game.

Other people on the ride: Fares - a larger than life (in every sense of the word) Syrian guy - who is studying and working in Norwich and will go with the ride I think as far as Syria (as a Syrian he is not allowed into Israel). He's huge and bubbling with life - his peace cycle bib doesn’t fit him so he's already got a designer tear in it and he cycled today with a huge 5 foot pole with a Palestinian flag attached - looking like a strange sort of Palestinian sailing boat.

Monday 13th August: Dartford to Dunkerque: 120 K.

'Two raging dogs and our first border'
I scribbled some notes at about 12.30a.m. lying in my bunk bed in Dunkerque youth hostel at midnight, so I've added to these later. I remembered the earnest guy who told us about getting 5 and a half hours sleep and 6 hours cycling - well today (our first full day!) we got up at 6.30 a.m. for an 8 a.m. start, a and we finally reached our stop for the night about 11.15 p.m. French time (10.15 English time)! I didn't quite expect things to get this hard so soon - but we're all still smiling.
So, today the plan was Dartford to Dover, the ferry crossing and then a quick 3 K ride to Dunkerque youth hostel. Steve had been nominated as lead cyclist the evening before so he had the daunting job of getting us riding as an efficient group and getting to Dover for 4.30 a.m. to book onto the 6 p.m. ferry (if we didn’t make this ferry there was a chance we'd be there overnight as this was the last ferry with space for our two vans) - no pressure then!
The first minute of the ride was a scary huge roundabout with an excuse for a cycle route over it, but we managed it unscathed and for the first of many times I was glad that we were so visible in our shiny green bibs and flags. The morning passed reasonably uneventfully, but there was more stopping and starting than we wanted, - inevitable I guess with a new group. Things like finding a stop with toilets, and a place for the support crew to do our lunchtime shopping, became the concerns of the morning. It became apparent though that no one had ever reccied the route - which seemed daft since lots of cyclists lived in London and could easily have done this ride as a training run. (easy to be wise after the event - especially when you've not been one of the organisers). Still, the stop start progress meant that our p.m. ride down the A2 to Dover (yuck!!) had to be done under a pretty tight time pressure. Steve basically said to everyone that he was going to have to up the pace and that if people couldn't keep up we'd have to go in the van. This was not really in the spirit of the ride, and we all knew that - but it was forced on us by the pressure of getting to the ferry.
But - we all made it!! A horrible, everlasting ride - on and on and on - in rain and wind down the A2 with some long, grinding, totally unpleasant hills with lorries sailing past us. This is not what cycling is meant to be - but the best thing was that we all made it on our bikes (me with two short pushes from Ali) - and this was due to the fantastic spirit already in the group. Some of the male riders were totally amazing - so supportive and encouraging without a single hint of macho riding between them.

We had a cold and very tedious wait at the port with it taking what seemed an endless time to sort out our tickets and embarkation. Ferry ports are not built to welcome cyclists - we had to stand outside in queues whilst car drivers are cocooned within. We also had to say our first proper goodbyes - to Cathy and to Leila who had cycled with us, and who would rejoin the ride in Damascus. Then Shaf (our Israeli British cyclist) came running up to say that he was not going to be allowed through and he'd see us in a couple of days! What??! I never quite understood what that was about, but he's had to apply for a new passport and they'd been some delay on his, so he hadn't got it back. He'd been hoping that someone would have brought his passport to Dover and met up with us there, but this plan hadn't come off. His bike was put in the van (a sort of guarantee to us all that he'd meet up with the group again) - hurried hugs, a promise to see us in Belgium - and he was gone. Our first graphic example of borders dividing people……there will be many more to come on this ride.

So 25 or so bikes being shunted onto the car deck at the side of those huge lorries and we were off on our way to the Peace Cycle's second country……
We quickly took over one section of the ferry by hanging all our wet clothes, bibs and flags on any available piece of furniture. This did not impress a member of staff, who pointed out that the bar was ' not a laundry' - but being low key for us is not an option. This paid off when a fellow passenger came up to tell us " What you're doing is a great thing - I should be coming with you".
" Do, just come - we've got a spare bike……."

A quick meal on the ferry and introductions to Heidi, our co-ordinator for the Belgian part of the ride, who had joined us at Dover. Another taste of how there would not be a single second to spare on the ride as we used the spare minutes on the ferry to have a meeting. The idea was for Heidi to tell us about the next four days, but we had only time for some quick information about that night, and the fact that we only had a very short ride to the Youth Hostel, 3 kilometres on the flat. Ha, ha, ha.
So, off we set again, on the right hand side of the road, Steve still lead rider and Heidi navigating in the van. 3 K later, a roundabout, and Heidi somewhat perplexed that this roundabout was not on her map and the slowly dawning realisation that we were not where we thought we were. Several minutes later, a quick recce by the van and an announcement that it was actually 8 K. Still, we can do this thing…and its not raining. On we went…….still no youth hostel and a more and more uncertain lead van. Stress and tiredness building up after Heidi told us that we had not got off the ferry where she thought, and it was actually 18 K to the hostel! Still, we can do this thing.
And then two raging dog scenes. One was our steady, supportive lead rider, who had been telling people off for not having lights on their bikes (we had been told to have them - we all knew, but this was only day three and we weren't meant to be wandering round Dunkerque in the dark). Raging dog impression culminated with Steve yelling at Kieran about his lack of lights…the Peace Cycle grew up there and then - Kieran, our youngest rider, was being treated as a grown up who had to take responsibility and all of us slowly staggered towards the realisation that this ride was about being serious cyclists, serious Peace activists and Being Visible.

Second raging dog scene was Heidi choosing local woman with large and angry dog to ask directions from. Bad mistake. Dog got angrier and angrier, map had to be laid on the floor and passed at distance between French woman and Heidi. Once the dog nearly got free completely and leapt at Heidi…..darkness was falling, we were lost, an enraged French dog was after us, our co-ordinator had nearly been eaten by said dog and our lead rider was turning into wild dog himself. Things were not looking good.

A car came past and I spluttered in poor French to the driver that we were looking for the Auberge do Jeunesse. Yes!! the driver would lead us to the hostel. Huge cheers all round and off we rode with our new lead car …….we got to the hostel about 11.15 p.m. local time - bikes shuffed into the garage and cyclists shuffled to rooms. Sleep!!!

Also:
 http://publish.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/08/347165.html