91Èȱ¬

So there will be no back-to-back Grand Slams for Wales, no record-breaking run of Six Nations victories - and from the bleary-eyed red-shirted hordes wandering through the bright spring sunshine of Paris on Saturday morning, there were precious few complaints.

Sometimes sporting results can be cruel, unfair, destined to give you sleepless nights of what-ifs and why-nots for years to come.

Not this time. France's was no act of larceny. Victory was as deserved as Wales' title-sealing triumph had been in the corresponding fixture last year, and everyone from Charlotte Church to Carla Bruni knew it.

This is why successive don't come around very often. Over the course of two championship seasons, the chance are that at some point you'll have a collective bad day against a team enjoying a collective very good day.

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Fired by a heady mix of adrenaline and foolishness and accompanied by six stout Wales fans, I spent Thursday and Friday cycling from the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff to the Stade de France in Paris.

A total of 450 kilometres in two days - there are easier ways to get to a Six Nations match.

I've been posting updates and throughout on la grande adventure here. Feel free to offer your advice, encouragement and outright scorn down below...

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I think it was at the that the idea was first mooted: to mark the occasion of this week's France v Wales match, the first Friday night game in Six Nations history, we should cycle from Cardiff to Paris.

How bad could it be? Eight Wales fans in the prime of life, plus one neutral 91Èȱ¬ journalist desperately hanging onto his prime with his fingernails - a couple of happy days in the saddle, zipping along through the spring countryside, stopping occasionally for liquid carbohydrates and pain au chocolat, children at the roadside waving handkerchiefs, white horses galloping through fields of corn alongside us, a magnificent match at the end of it all.

At the time it all seemed so simple, so plausible.

It also seemed a very long way off. Now it just seems like a very long way.

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If you wanted a Valentine's Day of love and hugs and holding hands, you should have stayed well clear of Cardiff.

was not for faint hearts and fans of fluffy toys. This was brutal, bruising stuff, engrossing and exciting, thunderous and thrilling.

It was a match that dragged you to the edge of your seat, made you wince with empathetic pain and left you wondering which way it would go right until the final five minutes.

In the tunnel afterwards, the players were limping, grimacing and bleeding. It was as romantic as an A&E department.

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There are many traditional ways to begin Valentine's Day - breakfast in bed for your loved one, a rose petal-strewn bath, an over-priced hand-made card.

Slightly more unusual is to scarper at dawn in order to have breakfast with two front-row forwards and a man called Grans in a Harvester just off the A48 outside Cardiff.

Such is the happy nature of a Six Nations road-trip. Having posted a blog last week asking for a lift to Cardiff with some England fans, the time-honoured day of romance began for me in the company of Damo (tight-head prop), Julian (hooker/prop) and the afore-mentioned Grans (second row, from the look of him).

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"Bring on England!" beamed Wales centre and man-of-the-match Jamie Roberts after the , and you could imagine the beleaguered covering his cauliflower ears as he heard the words.

On an afternoon so cold the shivers froze on your timbers, the manner and style of Wales' win warmed their supporters' cockles as effectively as a double glug on a hip-flask.

Where a day earlier that was as unedifying as it was unappetising, Wales produced a main course that managed to leave you both satisfied and ready for more.

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Scotland and England fans - I need your help.

Those with long memories or well-developed blogger stalking habits may recall the happy success of last season's Six Nations trip to Ireland v Wales, when I spurned the normal option of a flight from London to Dublin and instead put out a plea on the 606 messageboards for a lift over with a section of Warren Gatland's barmy army.

Thanks to the splendid company of Tom W, Teeth, Maddog and Charlie Bev on the subsequent car/ferry/train jaunt, a far more was had. All the and analysis was done, but with a smile on the face and a dull ache in the kidneys.

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