for the next three days i'm cycling to paris on gravel i'm with captain day from hot chili
and about uh 40 other people this is hot chili's inaugural the first london paris well yeah that's
what inaugural means oh it's inaugural and the first one and we haven't done it before either
yeah but that's not george that's like that's derrick the drone there's some thongs over
there thongs yes because you people call them you call them flip-flops but they're not their thongs
thongs they're havianas with haviana stuff on them i think you should have them would you do you want
them is it your size no no hang on hang on hang on francis this is my gift to you which i would
like you to carry to paris you know you have to take the flip-flops now thank you for my thongs
thanks so much for my present captain you're welcome it's um my thong is a bit damp it seeped
through my pocket it just made my back wet it's like a cooling device so here's the plan
this route london to paris is nearly all off road which means it's quite slow some fairly
technical bits of walking track would slow you down a lot in this first section should
get faster later after guildford we have 120 k's to do today to the ferry is it in new haven
captain new haven we'll get the ferry hopefully not to get there too late then 140 kilometers
through france tomorrow the queen stage of the event then 50 more k on gravel the next day
towards paris rendezvous with all the people who are doing a road version of this event
which you may have seen in previous years on this channel and then all right into paris
together but that does mean that we've really got to get a move on to get there on time
i found george again i don't know how he got in front of us there's derek
he probably flew there he must have held on you can know they have drones now
that can take a 300 kilogram payload and they've got them in japan where they can fly them packages
from roof to roof from the logistics buildings onto the roof of the tower blocks and they're just
trying to get the aviation approval yeah well i think they in the middle east they've got like an
ambulance thrown where they can take a an injured person at a traffic accident and fly them in
an uh well not unmet because you're in it they can fly them in a drone back to the hospital so
it's three days of solid riding coming up nice to be back on the bike after a bit of a hiatus and
perfect weather for it took some time off over the days where it was like 40 degrees here in the uk
so um we're very happy that it's a bit cooler a bit cloudy perfect the exploding jizz bomb
just everyone got a razor sorry sorry fella i've got to get the cat back on
sorry about that it's an energy bar that you eat with the packaging on
are you pranking me are you pranking me you're really committed to this prank
we definitely need that plug okay mechanic plug feel if i can ride along with my
thumb on it we'll be okay all right yeah hotel events are great because there's a
mechanic usually to fix your stuff or captain who will ride along next to you
with his thumb on a puncher what's the taste of no it doesn't no you don't eat it
we're talking tire pressures oh yeah
yeah hi xc bike yes or no for this ride 100 yes yeah you're having fun
yes amazing definitely the right weapon i think however others may disagree and for
the south dams way which is that massive hill in front of you that is definitely xc bike 100
it's the quickest way across that is an xc bike you finally hop the gates oh yeah easily yeah
one-handed the gravel bikes are a quicker bike on this road and tomorrow i mean we can put jono
in the hurt locker he will open up the locker door elvis will be in there dragging him in
and smashing him on the head with a broken guitar that's how painful he'll be tomorrow when we
when we rip his legs off and let the dragon off the chain i remember we stopped that and you were
just pouring with sweat and i just said it's a bit dusty you can tell who's been sitting on wheels
based on who's got the most dirt on their face jack's face completely clean my face completely
clean your face you know good shower monkey pup i know you guys will ask so i might as well get this
done today quick look at my bike here it is it's got added gravel there's been some changes since
the last time i rode it and now i have a brand new wheel set from parkour which i picked up
and got a clip of dove explaining exactly what's changed since his last gravel wheel set so here's
that clip so it's the brand new alta gravel wheel set which we launched a couple of weeks ago we had
a long chat about hookless rims recently these are hookless rims perfect for gravel riding frankly
um it's the perfect use case nice low pressure and the big difference that we found with these is
with the hookless rim we've got a new impact plus rim technology so basically inside the
rim layup we're using a slightly more flexible resin in the carbon which means that when you
bottom out or if you have an impact on your rim you're much less likely to crack it it's going
to be much harder wearing which is great for gravel riding when you're crashing i see that
as a challenge see how easy it is to break them i apologize in advance if i do you'll break yourself
first you probably noticed as well that we had a bit of fun with our new laser engraver so we've
done some custom hub laser for francis and do that basically with whatever you like now so
if anybody's interested in something super custom we can get pretty much whatever you want onto the
hubs now sram red axis etap mixed with eagle so a mullet setup cellar repent saddle we all set up
two bits with the hutchinson tour eggs so they're like fast gravel tyres rather than grippy ones
perfect for what we've done today there hasn't been anything too technical and it's been dry
which goes a long way on the whole all the choices have been fantastic so far perfect setup i've seen
on the profile that today is mainly flat tomorrow is very hilly but the end of today has a very very
very steep climb before we get to the ferry so i'm probably going to be glad that i've got a 50 tooth
cassette or whatever it is 30k to go it's getting toasty now g'day i'm a um i'm an avocado pip
good present right cheers buddy here is evidence of other people using the weird mouth mount hey
man i'm i'm respected i shouldn't be in format film no doesn't shoot some gopro in his mouth
it really does but it's legit let's have my passport taken away quite nigel are we
are we able to we're going to be able to come back well no without possible we're
stuck in france forever we're stuck in france we're not going to be french nationals francis
um so we're gonna have to learn along for english english i think it's called french yeah that's
what we need for that we we were sure well we just watched loads of only resources on ada douche
so just getting onto the ferry skipping the queue because we're on bikes not in cars