a nice photo at Carcassonne

Don't panic, I'll get there eventually.

Leaving Brest (by the way, the Tour starts in Brest next year). The weather was great. Bright sunshine, about 70 degrees, a little tailwind. Although the first stretch out of Brest is uphill, back over Roc Trezevel, I was feeling a lot better about riding back to Paris than I had been the day before. Aside from the weather, there were plenty of fellow riders on the road, a big change from the night before. It seemed like my luck had changed, and I even started wondering if I should stop and get some sunscreen(!). Unfortunately, the weather only held for few hours.

I got back to Carhaix, feeling good, and on schedule, and was eating lunch at the control there. I glanced outside, and it was raining. CRAP! I jumped up and ran out to cover my (all leather) saddle. In spite of all the rain I had managed to keep the Brooks dry thus far: if I hadn't it would have been sagging like a 2x4 with the entire cast of Riverdance stepdancing away on it. The rain was over by the time I was done eating, but there were spotty showers all the rest of the day. After the steady rain of the day before, spottiness was not a real burden. Stopping to pull my rain jacket on and off was a small price for the relatively dry stretches.

I was still feeling fairly good, all things considered. My speed was dipping just under 15mph average but I knew I would make it. I got to the next checkpoint, Loudeac, ate and left about 7pm. I planned on sleeping at one of the checkpoints that night, but had not decided which one - I would just play it by ear and stop when I got really tired.

On I plowed. The wind started to pick up a little, a headwind/crosswind which slowed my down. There were not as many people on the road now, and I was getting picked off by little groups. It was a little demoralizing but I was well into the homeward stretch now so I wasn’t worried.

I haven’t mentioned enough that the French truly take an interest in this (and I assume other) rides. There were still people on sidewalks and in driveways shouting “Bon Courage!”, and lots of little ad hoc rest stops. A family would set up a table with drinks, cookies, fruit and sandwiches, and just give them away. At dusk I stopped at a little table run by 4 girls, about 12 years old. I had cookies and STRONG coffee, which were very welcome. I also noticed that they had a little bar set up at the end of the table. No beer or wine, just three bottles of spirits. CRIKEY!, none for me thanks. I still have no idea how you can have a stiff drink and set off into the sunset after 490 miles without getting even sleepier.

The wind was picking up a little more and I was slowing down even more, when a 34 year old Belgian named Christophe rode up and asked if I wanted to work with him. Does the Pope wear a funny hat?? Of course I would work with him. He was quite obviously stronger than I was, but he told me that he only wanted someone who could pull a little bit to give him short breaks. With Cristophe doing about 75% of the work, we took off into the evening.

Of course it started to rain, and hard. We were getting pelted, but I stuck with Christophe. True to his word, he pulled me a majority of the time, only taking short breaks. We were only going 16 or 17 but it felt like we were flying. We were picking off little groups steadily, and sometimes a rider or two would try to get on with us, but our blazing (ha-ha) speed apparently didn’t allow it. Both of us would have welcomed more horsepower for our little break, but Christophe didn’t want to slow down, and I didn’t want to lose my ticket back to Paris.

There is a control at Tinteniac. I ate and met up with Christophe as I was rolling out. (by this time I had taken to thinking of him as "Franck, the Belgian Wonder Pony".) We struck out for Fougeres. It was still raining hard, and pitch black. Even with the terrible weather I didn’t feel too bad. We were making great time, but the pace was starting to take its toll. When we got to the outskirts of Fougere I told Christophe to go ahead, as I was planning on sleeping, but he slowed down and stuck with me.

Interesting side note here: Franck had a fancy Polar HRM (heart rate monitor) that was linked up with his speedometer. These things are pretty accurate because you can enter a lot of specific data about yourself into them. While we were stopped at Tinteniac, which was about 840k (520 miles) into the ride he told me that his Polar said he had burned 20,000 calories up to that point. That would be exactly 8 times the recommended daily calories that you find on that nutrition info chart on the side of the Captain Crunch box. I had a good laugh over that, especially because his reading was in actual calories, not Kcals. What he really told me was that his Polar told him he had burned 20 million calories. It was pretty late at night, and I about fell over laughing. Then I realized what units his computer was using - it was still an impressive number.

At Fougeres I ate and showered then went to the Dormir to get some sleep. The spaces were all occupied, so I had to wait a few minutes for someone to vacate a spot. When one opened up, I told the volunteers that I wanted to get up at 6AM. They marked the time on a post-it, stuck it to my assigned spot on the grid, then I took off my shoes and tip-toed to a gym mat in a classroom.

When I woke up I felt pretty good, until I saw the clock on the classroom wall. 11:00!!!! WTF! The volunteers had not woken me up! I was alone in the room. I got it together, packed up and started riding. But after a few K I turned around. According to my control booklet I only had til 1pm to ride the next 80k. There was no way I could make that and I knew it, but I planned on finishing the ride, even if I was outside the time limit. If I went fast I might be able to finish at about 4 am.

I got a little ways out of town and thought “this is nuts. I’m on vacation. I have to catch a train at 7 tomorrow morning”. I turned around and went back to town.

Eventually I found a travel agency (where I had to deal with one of very few "typical" non-english speaking, slightly rude French people), and got a train ticket back to Paris. I still had to ride 78k to get to Laval, where I could catch a train.

It took til 10 to get back to Paris, but at least I had time to clean up, break down my bike, and sleep. Though I could have ridden all the way, I doubt I would have made the 7am train, I probably would have still smelled, and it would have been pretty awful for my wife to travel the next few days with me while I caught up on sleep.

That is my best race excuse ever. It wasn’t the rain, or the flat tire, I didn't get sick and develop lockjaw-nightvision. I slept through PBP. I may be back in four years.

While I was riding, Kate and Susan went to London. The queen wasn't in, so they came back to Paris.

it was how long? (or - we know he got to Fougeres at 2AM!)

Yup, it was like this... warmed over

I was awake for 34 hours

When I got to Carhaix, the last checkpoint before Brest, I had been awake for 29 hours. I had never been awake that long before, much less ridden 300+ miles at the same time. In spite of latching onto a tandem I was still having a pretty miserable time. At that point I would have told anyone thinking of doing this ride to run screaming and never think of it again. Various scenarios were running through my head, and they all involved abandoning and catching a train back to Paris or cutting the ride short. Can I just turn around here? carry on to Brest and catch a TGV back to Paris from there?

I ate some food at the school cafeteria and decided to get some sleep. I’d figure out how to best bail out when I woke up.

Sleeping at PBP is really organized. As I have explained, the checkpoints are all at schools, and there are sleeping areas at most of the checkpoints. Either there are cots set up in the gym, or gym mats on the floor in classrooms. You follow the signs for “dormir” and come to a table staffed by a handful of locals. Though I speak very little french, it was obvious to me that there was an age requirement to be a Dormir staffer - you had to be at least 60 years old, preferably older. Anyways, you can rent a cot or mat and army surplus type wool blanket for 3 or 4 euro. You sign your name and frame number and tell the staff what time you want to be woken up. Then you grab your gear, take off your cleats (so as not to wake the other sleepers) and with a tiny flashlight one of the old guys leads you to a numbered spot where you can get a few hours shut eye.

At least that’s how it is supposed to work. At Carhaix I had a head full of ideas about how best to quit - not exactly soothing thoughts to drift off with. Pile on a neighbor who could stand on the podium in the volume contest at the snoring olympics, and it was impossible to sleep. I tried for an hour and a half, but it just wasn’t happening. After some food and rest everything looked better though, and I made up my mind to go on.

I got up, ate again, put on dry clothes and headed out for Brest. It was about 11pm when I left. Though the previous night had been dark, it was nothing compared to the second night. It was a pleasant night with a slight tailwind, and warmer than before, but it was cloudy, and I was pretty much alone. With the clouds it was pitch black. I quickly caught and passed two riders and then couldn’t see anyone. Periodically I would see headlights of other riders coming at me but there were long stretches where I just rode, hoping I was going the right way. I could tell that I was climbing steadily and had been for a long time, I was on something bigger than a hill but smaller than a mountain.

The climb turned out to be Roc Trezevel, a 1250 foot climb, and the last obstacle before Brest. I didn’t see many returning riders because the out and back sections of the course separate at this area. It keeps the roads a little less crowded during the day when there are many, many more riders, and traffic too. I only saw about 10 cars in the couple hours that it took to crest Trezevel. Eventually a group of three other riders caught me, led by (who else?) a strong Italian rider. With my new friend doing about 80% of the work for all of us we made it into Brest about 3:30 in the morning.

At Brest I ate again, had a delicious beer, and was finally able to get some sleep. After 35 hours awake and about 345 miles, I went out like the proverbial light bulb. When I was gently shaken awake at 8AM the sun was shining brightly - finally. I ate again (they had a great liver(?) pate, chock full-o-fat and salt) and took off. My legs were getting weary, but I was heading for home. Things were really looking up.

Rain and pain

The first night was the best thing about PBP. Although I didn’t see any French countryside, I couldn’t really see the hills coming, and at least the first night it did not rain. For me, the first night was the best part of the whole ride - flat tire and chasing aside. Like everybody else I was full of adrenaline and sheer excitement. The weather was good too. At about 55 degrees it was perfect kneewarmer/armwarmer/wool jersey weather.

The first checkpoint on the way out was just a food stop. I hit it about 2 AM and had a ham sandwich and coffee. They were selling beer and wine, which wasn’t a huge surprise. What shocked me…

was the amount of guys drinking beer at 2 AM. I was getting a little bleary, and here are a bunch of Euros knocking back a fortifying beer before jumping back onto their bikes to head off into the pitch black French countryside.

Most of the ride is rural, the only town of more than 20,000 inhabitants is Brest, at the turnaround. In rural France at night there is no light. Houses don’t have yard lights, but they do have shutters, and they use them. It is pitch black. This makes it a little easier to ride than in the suburbs here at home, where my eyes are constantly trying to adjust to varying light. You can get by with a much less powerful light, assuming that you trust there are no potholes. If there were I didn’t find them.

The second checkpoint was about 220k into it. I got there about 5, the sky was just beginning to turn grey, and there was a lot of moisture in the air. I got off and my neck was just killing me (I had borrowed a camelback because I was worried about running out of water on the first night. Not only did I not use it enough to get my neck used to it, but I didn’t take a single swig from it. It wasn’t hot enough to worry about getting thirsty). I packed away the camelback and went in to stand in line for food and to get my control card stamped. I was getting pretty sleepy and weary by this point, but knew that I would perk up with daylight.

It was getting light when I came out, and I did perk up. Then the rain started.

I know some guys who went over to race in France, and they tell me that rain showers are really common. These weren’t showers, they were all day rain with short breaks where it only drizzled. Even with a rain jacket, you get wet in an all day rain. It was cold too. I was wearing 2 pairs of shorts, arm and knee warmers, 2 jerseys (one wool) and a rain jacket. As long as I was moving I was fine, but I started to shiver as soon as I stopped. At least the ride has gotten big enough that the control points (they have pretty good food too) are all in schools. You can go in and get out of the rain to eat and warm up a little. Up until the ’90s the ride was much smaller, and controls were sometimes a big tent in a field, riders were much more on their own for food too.

With the cold and rain PBP was getting more like a forced march and less like a ride. After hours in the saddle and hours in wet shorts, my nether regions were irritated, to put it politely. There was nothing to do but keep going though. I had only recognized one other rider, a guy I rode about 15 miles with when I did my 600k brevet. Just like on that ride, he dropped me, only faster. I didn’t have a phone, not that it would have helped, since my wife was in London.

On I rode, and eventually got in a group and started to make some time. I realized that I hadn’t eaten enough through the night, and started hoovering food at the checkpoints. By 7 pm the rain had stopped, and even though it was still overcast I started to feel better. The 24 hour mark passed and I had managed 304 miles. After the checkpoint at Loudeac (2nd to last on the way out to Brest) I hooked onto a tandem with some other guys and we got a nice pull into Tinteniac.

PBP Deux

Brevets completed, notes signed, 80 hr group chosen, children shuttled off to relatives, my wife and I head to Paris. The fun started even before we boarded the first plane.

A few years ago my friend (and frame supplier) Paul Wyganowski had converted my all time favorite frame to a travel edition with S&S couplers. I had gone to Hawaii to work at the Ironman a few times, and getting a bike over was always an excercise. One year I borrowed a giant golf bag, the travel kind that you put your sticks in to go on the plane. I managed to just squeeze in a 650 wheeled bike, but the padding was minimal, and I worried about the frame getting wrecked. With a coupled bike travel was much much easier…

but so far I had been flying my bike in a cardboard box. Nothing bad had happened but I needed a real case if I was going to be dragging a bike around Europe. I made an aluminum and plywood case - a real one with wheels and latches, and the bike just fit in. Great so far.

We go to the Minneapolis airport to leave and hit a snag. Of course the ticket agent asks “what is in the box?”. I’m prepared for this and she is satisfied with my explanation of “excercise equipment”. Everybody takes a big box of workout gear on vacation to France, right?

The snag is that the box goes 53 lbs, and there is a 50 lb limit after which the $50 surcharge kicks in. The agent kindly asks if there is anything I can take out, since it is only 3 lbs, but I’m not interested in cracking the box open on the floor of the terminal and rooting around for 3 pounds of crap to lighten the box. It took me over an hour to get everything squeezed in. The bike alone would have been cake, but add a front and rear rack, clothes, shoes, bottles, bags… I fork over my credit card and vacation begins. Next stop, Paris (chicago doesn’t count).

We land at Paris, I immediately I realize what it’s going to be like dragging a 50lb box around the trains and subways. The box keeps steering to the right so I have to give it a jerk every few feet to hold my line. Oh, and the Paris metro has precious few escalators. I’m mostly hoofing this thing up and down stairs. We find our hotel, and I I can even fit into the laughably small elevator, though with my backpack on I have to back into it and lean further back to close the door.

We sightsee in Paris for three days, and average, according to my wife’s pedometer, 15 miles a day on foot. There is a packet pickup the day before the ride starts and I set off in the rain through the Paris suburbs to St Quentin, where the ride starts. As far as I can tell there is not a single straight road in the SW suburbs of Paris, and I only saw 4 intersections where 2 roads cross at a 90 degree angle. Even though it is raining, I am on my bike, riding along the Seine toward Versailles.

Or maybe I am totally lost. The map that I printed from mapquest before I left is completely inadequate. What I really want is one of those Michelin maps that doubles as a tent if you need it to. I’m riding along wondering where in the hell I should turn, and look up to see another cyclist in a bus shelter, studying a map. Nobody else is out this early on Sunday morning, so I wheel up. He asks my something in French, which does not mean a thing to me (I know a tiny bit of German and French, more Spanish, and took 2 years of Latin in high school).

It turns out my savior is from California, and is much more prepared than me. First, he knows more french. Second, he printed the map and directions. We manage to make it to Versailles with only a few wrong turns, and as we roll along more and more cyclists join up. Soon I am in a pack of 30 or so and I really hope somebody knows where we’re going. Somebody does and we get to the sports complex where the ride will start the next evening. There are bikes everywhere, packet pick-up is a breeze, I even get a free waterbottle. The rain quits and I manage to make it straight back to the hotel.

Tommorrow at 8pm the ride will start.

PBP

September

I went to France 3 weeks ago for vacation. Well, that and a bike ride. Every four years the Audax Club ParisienParis-Brest-Paris, a 1200K ride from Paris, to Brest, and back. The ride has a long history, having been run the first time in 1891. There is also a history of long, organized bike rides in general, this type of riding is labeled Randoneering. To make it interesting (and depending on your personal level of machismo) there are time limits. Riders get a choice of 80, 84, or 90 hours. My personal level of machismo and the desire to squeeze as much into my once-a-decade European vacation led me to choose 80 hours. Since there are about 5000 riders, there are different start groups, and 80 hours went off first. An earlier start would mean an earlier finish and I would be able to meet up sooner with my wife and continue vacation. This decision would come back to bite me in the ass. runs

Coming from overseas with a bike and gear to do a 1200k ride is challenge enough, but to do PBP you have to qualify. Audax Parisiene requires that every participant complete a Brevet series: a 200k, 300k, 400k and 600k ride, each with time limits.

I thought that the brevets were very regimented, for what were essentially a few long rides with 30 or 40 participants. There are official start times, map sheets, cue sheets (at 32.6 miles, go left on Soft tire street. 41.9 miles go right on Old Fart road. continue straight at Boy Does my Ass Hurt Trail for 9.3 miles to 51.4 miles). Each ride has a series of checkpoints where riders have to get their “control” cards initialed with the time. There are not only time limits for each ride, but the controls are spaced roughly evenly and to make the Brevet count you have to get to each control point within a specified time window. The timing is such that you only have to average 9.2 mph (roughly) and can’t average more than about 20mph, which would be extremely hard to maintain with stops.

The series is required to prepare you for the rigors of a 1200k ride, the rule used to to be that you had to do two series in consecutive years to qualify for PBP. Because I have ridden at least 2000 miles a year for the past 30 years, and raced for about 10 years, I thought I was completely ready for PBP without these silly mandatory (and time consuming) rides. Physically I was, but I still had some things to learn:

First, Brooks saddles really are the most comfortable thing you can ride. I have heard this for ever, but never believed it. My first brevet was a 400k (250mile) ride - about 50 miles longer than I had ever gone at one stretch before. My legs were fine, but the roads were rough, and after about 140 miles it was painfully obvious that my trusty Flite saddle was just not the right thing. The monday after I got back I immediately ordered a venerable B-17 (honey brown). It truly is the most comfortable saddle I have ridden, and it is because it never bottoms out onto the shell like modern saddles do. From the very first ride it was no worse than my Flite, and by the third ride it was more comfortable.

Next, nutrition. Even before I started this adventure I had done some solo double centuries. My foods of choice were grape Koolaid, braunschwieger sandwiches, and oatmeal cookie bars. I have never like “engineered” excercise food bars and drinks, I prefer good old fashioned sugar, salt, fat, and artificial grape flavoring. Lots of people thing I am nuts when I expound on my on-bike re-fueling theories, but it had always worked for me. On a long ride I want food that is calorie dense, so I don’t have to constantly eat, or carry pounds of food. It is also a good idea to take in some salt to replace what is sweated out. Koolaid and cookies just taste good and all that sugar gives a pretty quick boost when you are tired, plus the oatmeal has a little staying power.

All this was good on shorter rides in moderate temperatures, but my 600k brevet was long and hot. Suddenly braunschwieger wasn’t sitting in my stomach too well, cookies got old after a while, and I had already lost my grape koolaid on a big pothole during an earlier thunderstorm. I got so tired that I literally laid down on the side of the road and took a nap. There were buzzards circling when I woke up, but I don’t think they were serious about me. Anyways, I did the second half of the ride pretty much on Gatorade. There is a place for plastic foods.

Third, ointment. It really does ease discomfort. I advise liberal use.

As you might guess, these brevets had a wide range of bikes. I saw everything from 25(?) year old Gitanes to all carbon Treks, all ti Serottas, and a surprising number of guys in full randonneur kit. It looked like several of them were riding and wearing the complete Rivendell catalog. The Rivendells and custom randonneur bikes were by far the best looking bikes at every ride.

By June 21 I had completed the mandatory rides, got my signed doctors note OKing me to do 750 miles in 3 days, arranged all the paperwork, and sent the whole thing off to Paris. I was ready to go.