Contact: Mark Wooldridge
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I had a great time at Paris-Brest-Paris 2003. If you want more details about the PBP ride in general you can check the RUSA website Paris-Brest-Paris. I also have a writeup from riding PBP in 1999 (Paris-Brest-Paris 1999).
My wife and I had a wonderful time in Paris before the start. We toured the usual museums (including my favorite, the Musee d'Orsay, shown below) and generally just roamed Paris and had a good time. We met Mike from Phoenix (also shown below) on the way to St Quentin en Yvelines from the airport. We were both hustling huge bike cases and heavy luggage through the train stations, occasionally losing our way and having to climb more endless flights of stairs. We eventually made it to St Quentin, though we were pretty tired. It would have been nicer if we had only had one transfer, but a closure on one of the RER lines added in a few more stops. Taking the wrong train added in a couple more, of course....
In my preparation for PBP 2003 I tried to "fix" some of the problems I had in 1999, losing a little more than 30 pounds and doing a lot more intensity training (thanks, Brazos Valley Cyclists, for the great ride schedule and friendly competition!). I didn't do much in the way of hill-work because of the necessity of travelling to places where there are actual hills, although my focus on intensity was intended to at least partly remedy that concern. I rode about 9300 preparatory miles in the year ending in August, and about 5700 miles since January 1, 2003.
I took the 90-hr start at PBP this year, beginning at 10 pm in the first group. After riding for the first 10-15 minutes, I stumbled across 3 clubmates in the pack: Dan (Fort Worth regional brevet administrator), Diane, and Russell. Riding through the darkness, I saw the Texas flag on the back of Dan's rackpack and started looking at the riders around me. I first recognized Diane, then Dan, and finally Russell. Happy to see familiar faces, I joined them and we rode together for several hours. We kept working our way through the groups on the road until we were near the front of the 90-hour group. Dan and Diane dropped back to take it a bit easier, but Russell and I rode together to Montaigne. Montaigne was the first control point, but in the outbound direction there was no official check-in, only food service. Russell split off to find his girlfriend who was driving support for him on the ride while I got a quick bite to eat at the control. By riding off the front of the main group there were no lines at all in the cafeteria, so I was quickly out and on the road. Unfortunately, I couldn't find Russell after I ate so I rode on by myself.
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I joined several other informal groups during the rest of the early morning hours and the next day, riding for a while with a guy from Austria. He looked uncannily like a fellow researcher of mine (even speaking with a similar accent) so it played some nice mind-games on me during the hours before dawn. I traded places with him throughout PBP, riding with him at least 4-5 times and frequently seeing him at the control points. Some of the groups had riders who spoke English well, although others did not. Everyone was fairly friendly, though some did not want unfamiliar riders in front pulling for fear of accidents. I did see a crash in this section, as an upright bike and a recumbent got tangled up in a fast pack. They crashed just a few feet to the front and right of me. I didn't see what happened, looking at them just as they impacted the roadway. We were past them in an instant, so I don't know how it ended up. I did see the recumbent at the end, so that rider must have been OK. My wife said the bike had at least some damage to the fairing, but I didn't get a chance to talk to the rider.
I slept for a couple of hours one stop prior to Brest in the Carhaix control point cafeteria. There wasn't a sleep area in this control so I just pulled out my jacket and curled up under a table. When I started this at 1 AM there were only a few other riders with their heads on their arms on the tables; when I woke up there must have been 30-40 other riders under the tables with me. The cafeteria had a unique floor-covering of cardboard over carpet padding that seemed comfortable at the time, although it gave a rather unique "crunch" underfoot when walked on with cycling cleats.
I continued on to Brest starting at about 3 am, getting there shortly after dawn. I got a quick meal there and started back. I felt good as I started the long ascents up to the Roc (20-30 km, don't know exact distances) out of the Brest area, meeting lots of riders still heading out. It was nice to be on the return leg of the ride!
I rode OK until the afternoon, when I started having some saddle pain and going through a "down" time. I was doing OK, but slowed down a lot. After a few hours of this I got to one of my bag drops and added a second pair of bike shorts which helped a _lot_ with the discomfort. A rider from Davis, CA, Tim, helped a tremendously with getting rid of the "down" time, inviting me to ride with him as he went past. I joined him and started a rather wild spell of fast riding that lasted for roughly 24 hours. A tandem from the UK and another US rider joined us. The tandem team (Aidan and Steve) was quite insane, descending as fast as they possibly could whether they were in a town with blind corners or it was pitch-black (on twisting, winding roadways!). I got up to 55 kph (35 mph) on some of the downhills in the dark, but usually dropped back a bit from Aidan and Steve on the descents with limited visibility.
I had my closest personal brush with crashing in a small village in this section. I was riding slightly behind Tim when we came to a turn. At least I saw the turn! Tim missed the course arrow pointing left and started straight across the intersection. I yelled "left turn" and turned left; the French rider immediately behind me didn't understand and tried to go straight across, hitting my body on the left side. He gave an amazing demonstration of quick reflexes (especially since he was 55-60 years old) and steered hard left into a quick u-turn and neither of us crashed. Obviously I should have yelled "gauche" instead of "left". I apologized profusely and we rode on after Tim reversed and corrected his missed turn.
Our group stopped in the Fougeres control and slept for 4 hours beginning around midnight of the 3rd night, even showering in the cold water showers that were available. It was nice to be clean, even if the water was a bit brisk. We then started riding again around dawn.
The 3rd day continued as fast as before. We were riding at speeds of 22-25 on the flats in some parts, an insane pace for me on a ride like this. Although I eventually started tiring and dropped off the group just after Nogent Le Roi, the last control, I was able to stay with the group for an amazingly long time (approximately 24 hours of fast riding). Although it wasn't all at 22-25 mph (more like 18-20 mph) we were moving much faster than the riders we were around. The only group that passed us that I remember was a Danish paceline that we later passed while they were stopped. I finally dropped off when I just couldn't hold our group's pace anymore. It was definitely "sit and spin" time for me as I rode the last sections.
Just at dusk I encountered an official check that I hadn't seen before. Several officials were at the side of the road checking to see that riders had their reflective vests on and that their lights were turned on. The riders around me were all waved over but I was able to go on since I already had my vest on and my rear lights were on; when the official yelled I flipped my headlight on and he waved me through.
Although I was nearing the end of the ride I was riding very slowly and I still had a bit further to go. I was getting sick and having increasing problems with my rear derailleur, although it wasn't thoroughly bollixed up until the last 3-4 miles. About 10 miles from the end I came up on a rider from Denmark who was having problems following the route markers. After I corrected him on turns several times I started talking with him and discovered he couldn't raise his head up to see the arrows. He was having a case of "Shermer neck" where your neck muscles just give out. He declared that I was "looking at a broken, shattered man." Despite this, he managed to finish with me, although I did have to talk him through some of the turns where he couldn't see the arrows.
In the last few kilometers I started having severe derailleur problems after I stood at a stop light to start again and heard an awful crunching noise from the rear of the bike. Following this noise my chain started skipping every time I put any pressure on the pedals--fortunately it was flat the rest of the way! [1st note: mysteriously, my derailleur worked just fine when I unpacked my bike back in the states--apparently it just needed a bit of quiet time so it could heal. 2nd note: the problem resurrected itself 4 weeks after PBP and turned out to be a stiff link in the chain. No idea why it went away and then came back, though. 3rd note: a week later I figure out what happened in PBP. I spun my pedals backwards to put my foot in the "10 o'clock" position at a stop and the chain shifted gears by 2 cogs--but of course the chain was crossed over a couple of cogs as I started forward, putting it in a bind. Diagnosis by the bike shop: derailleur pivot is worn out and the rear derailleur needed replacing.]
Although the course markings suffered a bit as we got back into St Quentin (the reflective arrows were replaced in many corners by painted arrows on the pavement that were hard to spot) I finally straggled into the gymnasium and finished at 10:50 pm on Thursday night, with my final time being 72 hrs 50 minutes.
I rode PBP in 1999, and had a wonderful time. That said, I had a few nice surprises in 2003. A lot of this was due to riding faster and being out in front of the large groups of 90-hour riders, rather than riding along with the large crowds as I did in 1999 (I finished in 87:57 in 1999 and in 72:50 in 2003).
Toilets:
- They were clean!
- They had seats on the toilets! In 1999 most of the toilets mysteriously had their seats removed.
- No squat toilets! Perhaps I just missed them, but I wasn't looking forward to trying to squat down and balance on _really_ tired legs.
- Easy access urinals were provided at one control point, since they were outdoors in the courtyard with no privacy shields at all.
Cafeterias:
- No lines. I don't think I ever waited in line more than 2 or 3 people.
- Soup availability. The soup was great and readily available since I now knew the French name: potage
- Kindness. At one control I was very tired and my normal slight hand tremor had increased somewhat. The woman running the cash register noticed it and voluntarily drafted another support worker to carry my tray across the room to a table.
Sleep areas:
- No line at the one that I used. I was able to pay, go take a shower, and come back to an available bed.
- It was quiet! Instead of a huge room it was about the size of a school classroom, limiting the amount of in-and-out traffic and snoring (I heard of another sleep area that only had 4 riders per room). Of course, this varied by control so YMMV
Snack area:
- Very friendly and accommodating service. At Tinteniac I asked for a grand coffee (cafe) at the snack/drink area. The woman helping me thought for a moment, then dumped sugar cubes out of a large bowl and, after asking if that was OK, mixed up a large instant coffee in the bowl. I then added about half the sugar cubes back, of course.
Hills:
- They got easier! Actually there were more hills than I remembered and the grades seemed longer, but I was able to get up them easier. I live in a hill-deprived part of Texas so hilly training rides are hard to come by. I instead trained with the local racers and did lots of middle-distance (40-65 mile) high intensity training with them during the summer. This was accomplished by at first simply trying to hang onto their pacelines and eventually working my way up to participating in the paceline rotation throughout their rides. This helped a lot with being comfortable riding closely with other riders and helped me to take advantage of drafting opportunities as well as providing surrogate hill-climbing intensity training.
Routing back into St Quentin en Yvelines:
- Although still not as direct as the departure, the route back into town seemed to make more sense and didn't seem to route us in such a zigzag manner. This was very frustrating in 1999 because we all knew the ride was way over distance and yet the route wound around all over town to no apparent purpose. In 2003 I still wish the helpful bystander that shouted out "2 km to go" at a turn near the end had realized that it was actually 6, though!
© Mark D. Wooldridge, August 2003.