Paris Brest Paris (PBP) LFGSS 2011

The doctor who will never hide his face to the puplic?

Pup lick?

WTF? People talking about beards ... with 1200km of riding to do. Is this called disassociative behaviour? Avoidance? Burying your head in the sand? Something like that.

Good luck to any of the nutters who would consent to ride 1200km of their own free will. What their face looks like* is pretty immaterial.

*or whether they are able to grow a beard... is Audax pretty much a Men's club (capital M)?
Looking at the stats on the web site, it does seem to be predominantly males in the 40-60 age range.

No idea if Audaxers would exclude women though, don't see why they should.

Of course they don't. There's a few from our club who've done PBP before.

http://willesdencc.blogspot.com/2007/09/pbp-in-1980s.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/imagesbytim/sets/72157602057651406/

This is the beard to aim for..
http://www.flickr.com/photos/imagesbytim/1401473792/in/set-72157602057651406/

How long would one expect this to take? I see there are time limits of 80, 84 and 90 hours... But then on the agenda page they are talking about leaving Sunday evening and arriving Tuesday lunch time!

My intention is to enter the 90 hour and then aim to complete in around 80 hours. That factors in an average rolling pace of 18kph, food breaks and sleeping.

The Tuesday lunch time is when the expect the first finishers, which is 66 hours of riding, a continuous pace of 18.2 kph including feeding and sleeping. I'm not surprised at this given that the UK record for a 24hr TT is 525 miles or 840k. last year I completed a 600k ride in 37 hours, the fastest rider was about 10 hours ahead of me and had apparently taken a long break close to the finish because he didn't want to arrive at the organisers house (being the finish) too early and wake the dogs.

Nutrition is crucial on pbp

with beard

How long would one expect this to take?

Yes, the fast lot aim for sub 60h. Some aim for under 80 hours. Most just aim to finish. Ideally with more than a couple of hours to spare just in case.

If I finish I doubt I'll be under 85h. If I've got 15 hours left to do the final 150km then I'll have a 3hour kip and then do them.

Some example times on here for long rides:-

http://www.lesrandonneursmondiaux.org/homologations2011.html

There are a few very fast times on there. Like Joerg Kurzke who did London-Edinburgh-London (it was 1420km) in 65h25. That's averaging almost 22kph. The lead bunch did the first 720km up to Edinburgh in just 24 hours (that's a healthy 30kph average).

indeed some of them ride incredibly fast considered the distance and lack of sleep (I presume they don't do 'kips'). I just read that the fast lot in the 2007 PBP had an average of about 30kph: 44 hrs 50 mins... wow.

the PBP pdf brochure is here

The hardest part of PBP is like the hardest part of the marathon, the training. The actually event in both cases is an exciting adventure to enjoy and reflect on later. For PBP the qualifying can be a long, hard and quite lonely affair. To make things easier it is best to enter the qualifying events with friends, both for the company and the ease of logistics. For the actual event I believe it is easier to ride at your own pace and make new friends as you ride. The big difference is that during qualifying you may be one of 60 riders spread over 600k, for the event you are one of 4500 spread over 1200k.

I'm leaning towards a "yes" for this. Given the above advice, would anyone be up for getting a group together for the some/all of the qualifying rides?
goes looking for calendar

That's the general idea of this thread; see my 1st post.
It appears that there is a W London group being formed. It may be discussed on the Essex ride . Where are you?

the full calendar hasn't been published yet.

the full calendar hasn't been published yet.

All of the PBP qualifiers should be listed in the online calendar now as they had to be finalised by the end of September.

Look for any that say "BRM [PBP]"

Following on from your queries on the audax e group about qualification windows. Does [PBP] definitely make it a qualifier or is the subject to interpretation?

On the subject of training. I'm off to do a training ride in November of Sheffield, Scunthorpe, Cleethorpes, Gainsborough, Sheffield. Anyone up for the ride is welcome to join me.

That's the general idea of this thread; see my 1st post.
It appears that there is a W London group being formed. It may be discussed on the Essex ride . Where are you?
I'm based in Oxford, but happy to travel to cycle! When's this Essex ride?

All of the PBP qualifiers should be listed in the online calendar now as they had to be finalised by the end of September.

Look for any that say "BRM [PBP]"
Yup, look for the ones with the light yellow background.

OK, provisionally speaking, my qualifiers will be:

200k: Kennet Valley Run
300k: The Dean
400k: Severn Across
600k: Bryan Chapman Memorial

Back up 600k: Seething 600k.

Leaves plenty of opportunity to pick up any extras should failing occur.

what are the dates - too lazy to look them up myself...

Kennet Valley Run - 26th Feb Reading
The Dean - 26th Mar Oxford
Severn Across - 30th Apr Chalfont St. Peter
Bryan Chapman Memorial - 14th May Chepstow
Seething 600 - 11th June Norwich

I'll chat with you about them a bit more when I see you on Friday.

Also I think I may go out for one more Dunwich Dynamo.

This is the beard to aim for..
[url]http://www.flickr.com/photos/imagesbytim/1401473792/in/set-72157602057651406/

is that someone in the background riding PBP on a mtb?

Rigid frame with road 26's so kind of but not really.

No beard though so will probably be disqualified.

Kennet Valley Run - 26th Feb Reading
The Dean - 26th Mar Oxford
...
These two look good for me, nice and local! Will check out others later on.

Also I think I may go out for one more Dunwich Dynamo.
I have been planning to do next years DD for a while, it'll be my first :)