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The team set off from Trafalgar Square on Friday
morning...
...and arrived in Paris on Saturday evening.
On a cold blustery Friday morning in March four Officers from the Royal Engineers Troop Commanders Course set off on a roller coaster of a journey, completing a sponsored 280km cycle, from London Paris, on an antique tandem bicycle.
Setting off from Trafalgar Square, the officers cycled from London over the steep North Downs Ridge to Newhaven where they took a midnight ferry to Dieppe. After a dark and freezing 120km ride through northern France, the team paused at the castle town of Gissors. This provided the historical focal point for the challenge, having been visited by TE Lawrence in his own 1908 bicycle tour of France.
At 1800hrs on Saturday 17 March, the tandem team glided through to the very centre of the Eiffel tower to complete their exhausting but extremely rewarding challenge. It had taken 17 hours of cycling, three punctures, two near misses and sheer guts to reach the Eiffel Tower. It took only two hours to get home on Eurostar.
The ride raised funds for both the Army Benevolent Fund and Kids for Kids, which is currently working with local people in Darfur.
The tandem survived the ordeal well and has now made its way to Iraq, where it will undertake its first operational tour from May and be used to raise even more money for charity.
The Tandem is an antique the team have restored over the past four months. The tandem is lovingly known by Royal Engineer Officers as the Bandem and has become the mascot of their Troop Commanders’ Course. In its short history as an unofficial Royal Engineer asset the Bandem has been used to demonstrate the use of anti theft flame thrower devices and more recently has followed the route the 1st Battalion, the Parachute Regiment used on their epic march to secure the famous bridge in Arnhem during the final stages of the Second World War. Future Bandem activities involve an operational deployment to Iraq in April, explaining the distinctive British Army Desert Warfare camouflage pattern, and a possible deployment to Afghanistan in 2007.
The team consisted of Second Lieutenants Dave Bryant, Ben Sinclair, Ivan Vukomanovic and was led by Second Lieutenant Rich Roberts, all current members of the Royal Engineers Troop Commanders Course based in Chatham, Kent.
All sponsorship raised by this event was split between the Army Benevolent Fund and Kids for kids. Kids for Kids has been instrumental in supporting the relief efforts currently underway in Dafur.
For more information please visit www.justgiving.com/bandem or contact 2Lt Roberts on 07974 208 926.
