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I've never done it, can't be arsed to wait another 4 years until I'm 45 to work out if I might be up for doing it again, and I've not got anything else on that week in August.
I understand there's more exciting ways to spend 1200km but like you say, quite like the United Nations of audaxers aspect of it all.
Plus my dad's heard of it, so it makes explaining why I bothered to ride a bike in France for 84 hrs easier when we're all eating Christmas dinner later in the year.
honk
The big thing about it for me was that you are made to feel special for doing it. People in little Breton towns and villages clap and cheer you through at all times of the day and night. Truck drivers wait patiently behind while you crawl up hills. Afterwards the people in the bars around the finish are genuinely interested in what you have done.
Also it's got a bit of everything: time trialling, road racing in a high-speed peloton, some social riding / chatting and eating, and some slogging away on your own in the dark and wind and rain.
Downsides are