PBP 2015 / Paris - Brest - Paris Audax

So,it is Saturday evening and I am sat on my sofa with a full belly after a big meal and I thought I'd do a quick writeup on my Paris-Brest-Paris ride.

It all started with a mad dash through London to catch the Eurostar I was late for. Luckily it was late too and so I was son safely whizzing towards Paris though was late for the bike check. On arrival around the velodrome it was amazing to see how many people, how many nationalities and many types of bikes there were. Our lateness for the bike check seemed unimportant when we arrived and after our lights being checked we registered and were out for the evening. We found some pasta and then a bar. All of a sudden the nationalities thinned; the bars were full, but only of Brits, Irish, Aussies, Kiwis and a scattering of Americans. We met an irishman on the way home, an "ancien" who had done this before. He walked with a limp, was at least 15 years older than me and told us that we was aiming for a sub 70 hour time.

The next day, we were in the 6:15pm start. Some people lazed in bed, some ate like their lives depended on it. We raced into Paris to buy a new mobile phone as mine decided to stop working.

We started well and headed off for the first control. We bounced between groups, chatting nicely with so many people, not bombing along but making good progress. At 140km we came across the first facility. No checkpoint but a stop for food. There were queues but fueled up we headed off for the first proper checkpoint. We hit Villaines-La-Juhel at 4am, 220km in. It was utterly amazing. Like a stop on the Tour de France, but in the middle of the night. We'd had a god run in. A bunch of greeks with big thighs had helped us through the difficult parts of the night, running one of the great, fairly long-lived trains. The train was generally stable but occasionally fell apart when overtaking other groups, or someone overenthusiatically broke off the front tearing us apart, or more worryingly when someone with no ability to ride in a straight line jumped in and scared us all silly. When the greeks dropped off for a cup of tea a couple of us tried to carry on the train but with limited success.

We had a sleep booked at Carhaix, which seemed a long way away at 526km but slowly we closed the distance, stopping for food, coffee and checkpoints, we hit the Carhaix checkpoint at 9:30pm. 27 hours of riding. For me, this is where I thought we had some possibility of finishing the ride. Somehow it took us another two-and-a-half hours of so to get to bed, but we were well fed and ready for sleep. Obviously every sleep ate into our average speed, and this first one was burning a lot of contingency.

The ride from Carhaix to Brest was lovely. A bit hilly but nothinbg awful, and a beautiful view down onto the clouds in the early morning. From here, everything became a bit of a blur. Lots of memories but little idea about where they came from. I think we saw a rider getting CPR over the hill somewhere here. I know that from Brest back to Carhaix I tapped out the hills with an ultra marathon runner from France who had done the ride 4 times or so before, and was a great help. We ticked through a good few kilometers together. The west end of the ride was much sharper hills than the east and so the riding was tough. We slept again at Qudeillac at 839km. A big room full of matresses and snoring and farting but a damn good sleep for three hours or so. I was very glad of my sleeping bag liner. We woke early and I think I had breakfast when I woke and then again half an hour later when Lu did, and off we wnent again. Only around a 250km day was in store, and a couple of really good trains for bits of it. One led by a group from Eastern Europe with phenomenal stamina and another right at the end of the day when I was spent, with us all sat behind a Japanese tandem who were better than anyone had a right to expect uphill and amazing downhill.

By the final day I was whacked, it was peeing it down with rain. I was more and more aware that I was destroying my ulnar nerve on my left hand and had worn a new hole in my behind. I was also very aware that if we had had more than one wet day things would have been very hard.I rode with a goat farmer, and then with an american woman, a veteran of the marathon des sables who we found getting cold in a bus shelter. Finally it was done, at 88 hours and 49 minutes,not a great time, but a god enough tine

The actual end was a little of an anti-climax, but it couldn't have been anything else. High points for me were the amazing people of france clapping, shouting "Bonne Courage" or "Bonne Route" from the side of the road, old women applauding, families giving out coffee and hope at midnight by the side of the road. The utterly stunning control at Villaines, where schoolchildren carried rider's trays to their tables, because riders were too tired to do so. The great variety of riders and the amazing, amazing support from back home and online.

I repeatedly told myself "never again" but even now as I sit here, squirming uncomfortably and with fingers that don't work properly I'm wondering about what next.