The Paris-London race this past weekend (23rd-24th October) was superb & surreal: how many times can you hope to race as an amateur with Jean-Marie Leblanc as chief commissaire in his big red car & Bernard Hinault watching from one of the guest cars as you crack big time with 15ks to go…and this wasn’t any gentle randonnee – not with Eric Leblacher (Credit Agricole pro and 4th in the recent Tour of Britain), Nicole Cooke and Laurent Jalabert riding (although Jaja ‘disappeared’ somehow).

Anyway, Ben rode superbly to get 13th on the first 150k day on Saturday from Paris, and held onto 13th overall (out of 250 riders), while I made it into the winning break on Sunday for 9th or 10th on the day and about 25th overall (final results still awaited, due to an unfortunate collision between a sponsor’s car and the timing device…). Report by Julian Bray.

Final results are now confirmed: Ben Johnson 13th, Julian Bray 24th.