Paris Brest Paris

On August 21, 2011, approximately 5,000 riders from around the world gathered in Paris to take part in the 17th Paris-Brest-Paris randonneur ride. Racing against the clock and their fellow riders, the PBP is basically a 1,230km test of endurance. It’s craziness really.

Amongst all those jerseys on the road was one that belonged to MEC’s very own Keith Nichol. This is Keith’s third PBP and like all the riders taking part, he had to qualify to get there by riding in a series of Brevets that ranged from 200-600km. When I asked how he finished this year his response was, “All of 76 hours and 23 minutes with three hours sleep, did you say crazy!?” Yup, I believe I did.

Here’s Keith’s PBP experience in his own words:

What is PBP? It’s a 1,200km ride from Guyancourt, just outside Paris, to Brest on the coast in Brittany, then back again. It’s run every four years and is older than the Tour de France. This was the 17th running and about 5,000 riders from 48 countries arrived to claim their status as ‘anciens’ or ‘anciennes’ on completion of the ride. You can elect to do it in 80, 84 or 90 hours, depending on how fast you want to ride, or how little you want to sleep!  

Ten of us from BC Randonneurs rode down to the start of the 80 hour group at about 1:00pm. It was stinking hot and we were in the third and last wave. We asked the officials to let us out the staging area to shelter in the shade while we waited, but still, we’d soon finished our extra water and were quietly melting. Finally, into the start pen for more waiting while stilt walkers and a mime entertained us. Then the gun went at 4:45pm and we were off, a bit anti-climatic, as usual. 

The initial rush was a bit too quick for me, so I just settled down to my own pace. Normally you start at ten at night so it was good to get the initial rather twisty section done in daylight — less crashes. Mind you there were still lots of broken lights and bits and pieces littering the road after the speed bumps. The cheering crowds at the side of the road were great, and once we got out of town they had tables with water, which was a relief as I had to fill my bottles three times before the first stop at Mortagne-au-Perche, 120km into the ride. It was so hot and sweaty I had to buy new gloves — my Castelli’s were a soggy disintegrating mess.

I was riding with a motley pack composed of some Americans, Danes, Germans, Italians and Russians; chatting to some and using signs and smiles with the others. But after the first stop I was pretty much on my own until I met up with Jeff, a fellow BC Randonneur, and we sort of rode together all the way to Brest. It was soon dark and between towns you just had the pool of light in front of you for company. All the towns were up and cheering us on with the bars and bistros open, many with cyclists fueling up already. The next control, Villaines-la-Juhel was as exciting as ever with people cheering us on, even at 2:00am. And going through a small town early that morning I happened to glance up at an intersection and saw a woman standing on a first floor balcony, dark evening dress and all. She nonchalantly indicated the correct direction and off I went, thinking it’s a bit early to be hallucinating!

The controls soon settled into a routine, get the control card stamped, then go to the bar and get a café noir, beer and whatever food they were selling — normally a baguette, cheese, and pain au chocolat. Sometimes if the queues weren’t too long it was a more filling meal in the canteen. The favourites from there were soup, mashed potatoes, haricots, Badoit mineral water and a bowl of coffee, no messing about. The number of volunteers to run this event is surprisingly about 2,000 people and they did an amazing job of keeping 5,000 hungry, tired cyclists going.

Daylight now. The pace picked up and the controls ticked by – Fougeres, Tintiniac, Loudeac, Saint-Nicholas-du-Pelem, and finally the penultimate control before Brest, Carhaix-Plougher. By now it was early evening so we ate well as we prepared for the big climb up and over Roc Trevezel to get to Brest. It’s not steep but it’s constant, and the road surface was really bad until you got onto the main road to Brest. The constant vibration and dodging the even rougher patches as they showed up in the headlight was tiring. We also had to layer up as it was getting colder, mistier, and more damp as we climbed. The descent down from the Roc was tricky as the mist was really thick and it was hard to follow the winding road. Several times I thought I had missed one of the direction signs and was relieved when one appeared in the haze. Crossing the famous bridge into Brest in the dark was an anti-climax, plus I was expecting the same control as in 2007 but instead we had to ride another 10km.

Brest control wins as the worst on PBP. We’d been on the go now for 33 hours and 618km but they had no beds, very little food, not even many places to park your bike. We did have a shower and changed into clean cycling gear which felt really good, and after a sort of meal we bunked down on the bleachers at the side of the hall. I set my alarm for an hour and hoped I would wake up.

Tune in tomorrow for Part II of Keith’s PBP adventure.