It all fades together in a way. The astounding highs and the bottomless lows. One old church at the top of a hill leads to another. Little sections of road go by unnoticed, perhaps until the return leg, perhaps never to be seen. It’s hard to keep the beauty in focus when you are running on empty.
There was never any question of whether or not I would finish, just what kind of shape I would be in at the end of it. I wasn’t being daft or overly cocky about the difficulty, I just knew in my heart that it was going to be completed. This was the big show.
Every story that I’ve read about PBP has lived up to its spectacle. The families lined up on every street corner, at every hour, cheering you on with “Allez! Allez!” and “Bon Courage!”. I had a grin about it from the start that still hasn’t faded.
Day One (plus the first night)
I went out with the 90 hour starters along side Christopher Gay, Dylan Carney and Chris Johnston. There were hundreds of us lined up in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. The 80 hour start had left just a few hours prior. They were sending randonneurs out in waves of a few hundred at a time. Our official start time was supposed to be 6pm, so we got in at 4 to line up. We didn’t leave until 7:30. It was like a line endurance test.
After the sketchy group start (rando’s aren’t exactly pack riders), we hit the suburbs of Paris to cheering crowds complete with lines of little kids to high five. I can’t explain how awesome the feeling was. Everyone was out just to see us ride our bikes and give us some encouragement. With the way the starts were staggered, these people where probably out clapping and cheering for 5 or 6 hours at a time.
The tentative plan (and why we rode the 600k straight through) was to ride through the first 525K into Carhaix for a sleep stop. This would get us a little bit ahead of the crowd at controls that were most likely going to be staying in Loudeac (449K).
The first night was tough. We had all been up throughout the day and subjected to very warm (this PNW resident might say “hot”) temperatures while waiting to start. Our initial pace was good, but the fatigue didn’t take that long to sneak up on us. Still, every time I would start to feel a bit down, we would get to a town with amazing residents either cheering us on or offering out free water that they stocked up on just for this event.
We were fueled completely on baguette sandwiches, croissants, shitty coffee and nervous energy. That’s all it takes to ride your bike through France.
The sun was finally up around 8am on Monday morning and we still had a whole bunch of riding ahead of us. I remember Day 2 being the hardest on the Cascade 1240k. You are just far enough in to hurt, but not even close to being done yet. We pushed through despite random bouts of fatigue that would hit us individually. It’s hard to explain why you might suddenly cut your speed in half for a couple of miles at 3pm. The highs and lows are always in waves. It’s all about the forward motion though. You can’t focus too much on the clock.
We were looking good at Loudeac. Huge crowds of families were lined up at the control in support for the riders and cheering us on. There was plenty of time to get to Carhaix without it being too late and all of us seemed really game to give it a run. About 5K outside of town, the clouds started seriously rolling in. Another 10K and the thunder hit. Lightening that started off in the distance ended up being very, very close. It was completely surreal. The roads were pitch black and covered in rainwater. France doesn’t lay down any reflective materials to catch our headlights, so every descent and turn were blind. It was one of the scariest experiences I’ve ever had on a bike.
There was a backup sleep stop in St. Nicholas (493K) that we planned on stopping at. It couldn’t have come soon enough. Thanks to the thunderstorm, the control was completely overwhelmed. I literally got the last cot and Chris and Dylan were directed to some sketchy air mattresses. We had an aggressive debate over the amount of time we should spend at the control. I was pretty convinced that I wanted to get 4+ hours of sleep. There was lots of confusion about when we needed to reach Brest and nobody was really thinking clearly.
Our sleeping arrangements had no blankets and no pillow but a paper towel lined across the cot (to keep it dry?).
Day Two
The timing ended up not mattering since the volunteer forgot to actually wake me up and my phone stopped working. Chris Johnston had to go back in and find me to wake up me. I grabbed my wet gear and hustled as fast as I could. A pastry was crammed down my throat and we hit the road. What a way to start a day…
There was a long and steady climb out towards Brest that was covered in a layer of heavy fog. The condensation was pooling liquid onto my arms and face. It should have been uncomfortable, getting even more wet, but I was enjoying it. The halfway point was coming up soon enough.
Brest was a bit of an anticlimax though. The run in went through an industrial zone and not too many people in town seemed very excited to see us compared to the last few stops. We spent more time here than we probably should have, but we all needed a moment to lay down again and kick the shoes off. It was a relief to get here, but there was still much ahead of us.
We stopped at a sausage stand on the side of the road for some warm food. They had run out of buns at some point and were driving out to get more. Once the girl finally came back from the store, they realized that the one thing she forgot to get was the buns. So the guy hopped in the car and peeled off. We didn’t know enough French to talk with them and they were just kind of staring awkwardly at the ground, probably embarrassed at the situation. We finally got out enough to say that we were okay with no bread. It was probably one of our longest food stops of the trip, sadly.
Service takes some getting used to here though. There is a habit of starting and finishing a complete order (payment included) before moving on to the next customer. Most of the time that isn’t a big deal, but when you batch fry an order of frites for each customer, things start to take a really long time. Being in the middle of a ‘race’, we were even more sensitive to it.
Our second sleep stop came up in Loudeac. Our pace had slowed considerably over the course of Day 2. Yet again, we were without pillows, but we at least had blankets this time around. I take the small luxuries as I can get them on these rides.
Day Three
Two and a half hours was our official sleep total for night number two. We couldn’t afford to take any more than that. We slipped back on the road under the cover of darkness. Every contact point was in pain. The stops just made it worse.
I remember little about day 3. I know that it felt like 3 or 4 different days to complete. We were covering old ground (as the ride was an out and back), but it felt kind of like a haze in each direction. We each had our moments of suffering off of the back, regrouping at times to make sure everyone stayed awake and alert enough to finish.
We eventually rolled into Villanies la Juhel (1009K) for our third and final sleep stop. We decided on another 2 and a half our stop sleep, which works out to about 3 and a half total at the control. That put us at a little less than 8 hours of sleep for the entire ride, not counting the day that we were awake leading into the start line.
Day Four
The goal was to roll across the finish line somewhere around 10am. This put the beginning of Day 4 in the pre-dawn hours again. We had to finish by 1:40, so this should give us a solid buffer in case of any mishaps along the way.
Once the sun started to rise, we found some lovely small roads passed the lush farmland around the outskirts of Paris. The only way it would have been more idyllic is if my ass hurt less. You can’t win them all though.
The final control at Mortagne was a simple in and out affair. We were smelling “home” at the finish line and were really starting to pick up our pace. Every stop light was a challenge.
Aside from the finish line, our sights were also set on somewhere to stop for a celebratory pre-finish beer. Nothing was open because a) France doesn’t seem to do anything in the morning and b) it was still morning. We eventually found a convenience store about 10K from the finish. They had a refrigerator unit that wasn’t turned on and a shelf of warm 1664′s (Kronenburgs).
We sat out on the street, drinking and heckling our fellow riders. Most of them seemed to appreciate it. A few of them gave us their icy cold Euro-stares. They were just party poopers though.
We hit the road again and the finish finally came. There was an amazing crowd there to cheer us on, a few of our wives included. It was a definite moment of choking up, but that might have been the beers talking.
Additional photos on Flickr
It’s been difficult to process my life these days. I haven’t had enough down time to put all of these things into words.
