PART II

Our group ended up chasing after the group 2 (Green group) who left before us the starting mark in the morning and finally entered, in a leading position, London by the Richmond Park. There was a madman from Credit Agricole who saw us and decided to attack us in the park. We decided to put him in place, ie increasing the speed at 46 km/h. It took us about half a minute to eliminate this guy.

 A London´s  Tour  as a final stage of the race, photo in front of Buckingham Palace, the Tower Hill junction and finally the finish line where were awaiting for us with  Champagne all the organizers, photographers and friends with Ian Fisher, the Country manager, ahead.

Finally, we had the fraternization dinner and the prize–giving ceremony with special awards from each guides to an outstanding member from their respective group. In our group the choice was obvious, François made a real accomplishment by racing 390 K between Paris and London with a single gear bike at an average of 30 to 31k per hour; and believe me not everybody can do it!!!

 After this great adventure in the magnificent scenery we went through (I will send pictures), I can only thank you all for your support and your encouragement. I also want to congratulate and thank all the race organization crew (guides, logistics, cameras, etc ...) that has been truly wonderful and outstanding. Congratulations to all of you!

We have raised 1700 EUR for a good cause and we can be proud of this achievement. Globally, we have been able to gather 115,000 EUR surprising the people Care International who confessed that they did not expected such huge amount. With this we will be able to do much more than expected.

It has been proven again: SG's team spirit and our people are our strength! If anyone still wants to do something for the cause, my portal "Aiderdonner.com” will be open to receive donations until 06/27/1910.

Again, my sincere thanks to everyone and I hope that it will motivate someone to sign up for the next edition. I will definitely sign up again so: see you next year!

30 employees participated yesterday in the presentation of Médicos del Mundo.

Teresa Pardos presented to staff the project  "Awareness Creation and Education to prevent Female Genital Mutilation in Spain" to be co-financed by SGCIB Spain.

PART I

After a copious dinner (to regain our strength) with the regional representatives of SG (whom made us an additional donation of 500€), we took the Ferry.  We arrived at Portsmouth at 6.30 am (the night was short!) and had the typical English breakfast (eggs, sausage and greasy food!) that I would remember later on.

As per the rules of staggered starts, at 9.30am, our group was the last one to leave the starting mark. We were also the last one to know that the main characteristic of the South East of England landscape was “its hills”, thus, transforming the last 140 km of the race into leg killer ones.

Right at the start (at 6 km) we came upon a rise of 400 m at 15% and thanks to it, I was able to “enjoy” for the next 40 min my English breakfast for the second time. Thus, I decided to shelter in the middle of the pack to hide from them the painful experience I was going through. I was hoping that no one would notice, and seized the opportunity to return me the “favor “I did them yesterday by accelerating over 45km/h during a long while. Thanks God, nothing like that happened and I have been able to recover smoothly.

We're chasing groups and almost reaching the lead at the 2nd supplies (80 K of the target) where Manuella Junter (SG coordinator of the event) kindly came to cheer us. We did not know that we would miss her encouragement 10k later, when we faced a beautiful uphill of 2k ending with 800m at 18%,  in other words, “a wall”  that was about to disseminate our group.

The older ones (Gerald and I were ahead along with our guide that suddenly put a 50 m distance between us without breaking a sweat), François, our rugby man with only one gear bike, was looking like a locomotive, and displaying an astonishing force to uphill of about 700 m of the slice at 18%! The truth is that he is a titan and I must confess that it was the 1st time that I saw something like that in my life!