Nadine Emsley cannot remember how or why she decided to cycle from London to Paris, but she’s sure it seemed a good idea at the time. Slogging from Calais to Abbeville (79.8 miles) in driving rain and a 14mph head wind, she began to have doubts. ‘I was averaging 8.1mph – trust me when I say that is very, very slow – and I was really questioning what made me sign up for this.’

The 30-year-old in-house lawyer at Canary Wharf Contractors admits she’s no Lance Armstrong – she doesn’t even ride to work. Her 15-year-old bike ‘has gears, but that’s about it’. She discovered she was the only one in the 53-strong lycra-clad party to have a pannier. ‘Maybe the French manicure kit and the Jimmy Choo strappy sandals were a bit much, but you can never be too prepared.’

But despite the pain, and mangling her iPod headphones by catching them round her pedals, she made it to the finish line at the Eiffel Tower: 285.07 miles from Greenwich: ‘A sight and feeling I shall not forget for a long time.’

The effort raised £2,000 for St Michael’s Hospice near Harrogate (contributions are still open at www.justgiving.com/nadineemsley).

What next? ‘John O’Groats to Land’s End, I reckon. Any takers?’