Jim Bradbury's 2003 Paris-Brest-Paris           Email

Official picture. Note serious expression.

After my first Paris-Brest in 1999, I sat down to write a chronological narrative of what happened. I soon gave up because it was boring, and I was a little hazy on the chronology anyway. Instead, I wrote about some general aspects of the ride. It was still kind of boring, but it had the virtue of being shorter.

This year, I remember a bit more about the actual ride, but I'm still too lazy to reconstruct the whole thing (and reluctant to inflict it on others even if I could). So, again I'm going with the episodic/thematic approach. If you'd like more general background on PBP and its history, check here (the RUSA site) or read the first part of my '99 report.

La Frousse
One thing I had forgotten about PBP, or Paris-Brest, is just how nerve-wracking the days before the ride are. Everyone has to be in St. Quentin (the French suburb of Paris where the ride actually starts) by Sunday for bike inspection. Most Americans are there two to four days sooner than that. Apart from sit around and talk to other nervous Americans, speculate about the weather and fuss over one's bike, there isn't a whole lot to do until the ride starts on Monday night or Tuesday morning (depending on which starting time you selected). Everyone is keyed up.

On the Saturday before PBP, I did a short "preview ride" led by the Davis Bike Club that was supposed to cover the first 20 kilometers of the course and back. I'd been warned that they tended to ride fast. Ever the prepared randonneur, I didn't take a route sheet or a map. I sort of figured they would provide something like that before the ride. Instead, I (and others) found myself struggling to keep the main body of riders in sight as they rounded corners increasingly far ahead of me. Finally, I watched as riders went in two different directions and I had to choose which ones I thought were going the right way. Soon, it was obvious that I was lost. I was not alone, however, and when another rider (Paul Ries) consulted the PBP route sheet, I decided that he was a good person to be riding with. Four of us set about following what we thought was the outbound route, although the mileage (kilometerage?) was getting suspiciously high. Then I recognized a distinctive barn that had previously been on the other side of the road. Somehow, we had turned completely around and were heading back to Paris without knowing it. If only PBP should go so smoothly! Sensibly, we stopped at a café for lunch.

Before getting lunch at the cafe on the pre-ride with Lisa A. and Janet from New York. (photo by Paul Ries)

The other exciting event "pre-ride" was bike inspection. This is by appointment, and I had selected 8:00 am as a good time to do it so that I would have the rest of the day free to worry about the weather and fuss over my bike. You ride your bike to the PBP starting point (a large gymnasium complex), and a French person checks to make sure that your lights won't fall off in the first ten kilometers, and that your tires are not threadbare. He then clears you to get your official starting papers. While I waited in the special line for foreigners ("strangers" the sign actually said), I looked over the requirements again: Reflective vest, rear light with spare batteries, front light with spare batteries and/or three spare bulbs. Three spare bulbs?!? I didn't have three spare bulbs. I had one light (generator powered). One spare bulb. One spare battery-powered light, and one battery-powered light that mounted on my helmet. Plenty prepared, but two bulbs short, and I was sure to get a literalist inspector. Fortunately, my friend Anurang was in line right behind me, and he had tons of spare bulbs. He gave me two, wrapped in tissue paper just like the one I already had. When I reached the lights inspector, I showed him all my wadded-up tissues (they could have had frog's eggs in them for all he knew), and he passed me. The reflective-vest inspector, however, was not buying my reflective triangle. "Non," he said, definitively. Rather than argue, I showed him the same pain-in-the-derriere runner's vest that I had used in 1999. This he labeled "O3"with a green marker to signify that it had passed. When I learned that my friend Elaine had persuaded her inspector to approve an identical reflective triangle, I went to a bookstore, bought a green marker, and retroactively approved my own.

I chose the Tuesday, 5 am (84 hour) start for a couple of reasons. First, because it makes a convenient distance (just under 300 miles) to ride to the town of Loudeac before showering and sleeping for a few hours in a hotel room. If I started at 10 pm on Monday night with the 90-hour group, I would get to Loudeac too early to fall asleep and would probably be better off going on to Carhaix (another 50 miles) before resting. Second, starting at 5 am meant that I wouldn't be forced to begin the ride by missing a night of sleep and then compounding that exhaustion over the next few days. Of course, all this assumes that one will be able to sleep the night before. Many 84-hour starters are too nervous to sleep the night before, so they start out tired anyway -- only with less time to complete the ride. I had arrived in France on Friday, so I was still experiencing some jet lag. I knew I had slept okay in '99, though, and I thought I could do it again. I had tried to reduce the jet lag before leaving home by gradually getting up earlier every morning for a couple of weeks. And as soon as I got to France, I practiced going to bed as early as I could. I also took an anti-anxiety pill on Monday night (not a sedative) so that I wouldn't stay awake worrying. Result: I slept at least five or six hours, which is downright self-indulgent by PBP standards.

Ready to go!

When I arrived at the start on Tuesday morning, I was one of 500 or so nervous, excited cyclists. We all started in one big pack -- no staggered starts such as they had for the much larger 80- and 90-hour groups. My initial plan was to keep my friend Elaine in sight if possible and not to get into any accidents. While waiting in the final moments, an elderly French lady official asked me in French where my reflective vest was. After a second's incomprehension (believe it or not, I don't know the French word for "reflective vest," but I think it started with a "b." Maybe she was saying "baudrier," which means "cross-belt"), I confidently stated "C'est ici!" and showed her the reflective triangle safety-pinned to the back of my Camelbak. She nodded her approval, which I thought was a good thing since the ride was about to start in a couple of minutes. I probably finished PBP an hour faster by not having to wrestle the other vest over my Camelbak every time I stopped or started at night. If I do the ride again, I'll probably buy one of the official French vests, which look like they'd be easier to take on and off than the flimsy runner's vest I own.

The first 100 miles or so of PBP are the least hilly, and they go quickly. Riding in a pack, it's easy to keep up a fast average speed without too much effort -- accidents were my biggest fear. Sure enough, not long after daylight, someone touched a wheel or something and crashed right in front of Elaine, who was right in front of me. I swerved to the right, off the road and onto a grassy shoulder. Elaine barely managed to avoid hitting the fallen rider in front of her. We stopped to help him up as the pack disappeared ahead of us, and Elaine tried to get his chain back onto his bike. He seemed a little dazed and quite upset, but not badly hurt. His bike, however, wouldn't be immediately rideable, as the derailleur was jammed into the spokes. We had to leave him to figure that one out on his own.

When we reached Mortagne, the first stop, Susan Notorangelo told us that many riders had arrived with "road rash" -- bloody souvenirs of crashes.

Elaine tries to fix the crashed bike.

Le Temps

Lots of people re-set their bike odometers to count kilometers for PBP, since that's how the route sheets are set up, and that's what the road signs in France use. I decided against that. I think more comfortably in miles and, more importantly, in miles per hour. Besides, I knew that I was unlikely to use the route sheet during the ride. In fact, I used it only once, when I saw some riders miss the course-making arrows at night and head the wrong way on a long downhill. I was sure enough that they were wrong not to follow them. But I wasn't so sure that I didn't want to double-check the route sheet. That was the only time I pulled it out. The other riders eventually realized their mistake; I saw their lights slowly working their way back up the hill.

Instead of a route sheet, I had a double-sided piece of paper attached to the map holder on my handlebars. One side showed the names of all the official "controles" in sequence, listed the closing time for each (my deadline for being there), and listed how far I had to go to get from there to the next control. Each morning, I reset my odometer to zero because I preferred to think of PBP as a series of daily rides rather than one impossibly long ride. I kept a close eye on my average speed (including time when the bike was stopped) so that I could estimate when I would reach each successive control and when I would be able to stop for the night in Loudeac (outing and incoming, first two nights) and Mortagne (third night). The other side of the paper was a list of things I needed to remember to do at each control, such as getting my card swiped, getting water, and checking my tires. By the second day, it's easy to forget things and since efficiency at controls is a big goal, the list would help keep me focussed.

The control at Villaines.

On the first day, with the easier terrain, fresh legs, and pack riding, my average speed started out very high (for me) -- something like 18 or 19 mph. The first 100 miles were covered in just over six hours. Although my average dropped steadily through the day, it was apparent that I would reach Loudeac earlier than I'd hoped -- probably before 1 am. I did start to tire out after 200 miles, though. Elaine jumped on the wheels of a pack of Scandinavian riders around mile 220, and I decided not to follow. I was using a heart rate monitor on this first day to make sure that I didn't overextend myself before the ride was half over. Still, 300 miles is a long way to go on any given day at any pace. By the time I reachecd Loudeac, I was ready for a break. Unfortunately, there had been complications with the hotel booked for me by Des Peres travel, and I had to wait for what seemed like an eternity to get ferried to the "alternative" accommodations, which turned out to be a sort of corporate "dormitory." I got showered and into bed around 2 am (after first having to put the sheets on it), but I had trouble sleeping. Other riders in the same building were making a lot of noise (the unmistakeable clatter of bike cleats on linoleum), so I got up around 4:30 and slipped out into the dark at 5:18 for the day's ride to Brest and back.

Le Paysage

The Breton countryside.

Day Two of PBP has the best scenery, climaxing with a long climb up the Roc Trévezel (wind-swept siteof radio tower) followed by a long, gradual descent into Brest itself, which is reached by crossing a bridge across the harbor. There's also some lovely riding through a Breton forest just before starting the "big climb." The climbing itself, though, is seldom steep. In fact, it was only on some short, steep hills west of Loudeac that I found myself momentarily wishing for a lower gear.

Most of the time, I rode through farmlands from village to village (Brest is the only really big city on the ride) with fields on either side of the road, which is usually edged with shrubs or trees. At night, I often couldn't see the fields, just the border shrubbery, so it felt even more wild.

I often had the feeling that I was watching a movie that was going by too quickly for me to catch every detail. PBP has a headlong, rushing quality to it. One is always focused on moving forward, never looking back, always focusing on the next goal -- and it's sometimes hard to appreciate everything that's flying past on the sidelines.

The one thing everyone does notice about the course is the hills. PBP has something like 35,000 feet of climbing (Mt. Everest is less than 30,000), almost all of it in the form of "rollers" -- a succession of small hills that grind you down. One good thing about rollers, though, is that they make it possible to keep pace with tandems (more on that later) when they temporarily slow down on longer climbs. None of these little hills are particularly steep or long by California standards, but they do add up. My favorite quote of the ride came from Anurang. After I caught up to him on the road into Brest, I told him that I was afraid the ride into the control was all uphill. "Dude," he said, exasperatedly, "It's uphill everywhere!" For the record, he really loved the whole ride and finished in good time.

Ask a French rider about the course, and the word you hear most frequently is "dur." Hard.

Tout Ensemble

Anurang reaches Brest! "It's uphill everywhere!"

For me, the biggest difference between this PBP and the one I did in 1999, is that I spent much more time riding with other people -- particularly in pacelines. On the first day, it was mostly a matter of riding with the pack. For almost the entire ride, other riders were within sight. And for a significant portion of the time, I rode with fast tandems (particularly Steve and Peggy Rex), which helped me boost my average speed. On the third day, I was riding with a small group following a tandem and joked that I was going to start marketing calendars called "The Tandems of Paris Brest." Everyone knew what I meant.

Besides the first 220 miles with Elaine, I also rode into Brest with my friend Anurang (who started with the 90-hour group), rode for a while with Lisa Antonio, and most days saw or rode with Lon Haldeman as well. Lon is an endurance-cycling legend and much faster than me, even though he was doing this as a "fun ride." He typically would start later than me each morning, catch me at some point during the ride (and probably slow down a bit), and eventually move on ahead of me so that he could finish the day's riding before dark. The last time he caught up to me was at the last control on the last morning, and we rode the remaining 50 miles into Paris together at my pace, which was largely governed by how much food I was able to eat. Insert energy bar -- see speed rise by 2 mph.

My favorite Lon quote as we finished: "I'm not saying I want to, but I think I could do it again if I had to."

Mangez!

You can't overstate the importance of food on PBP, and a food strategy is at least as important as how much you sleep or how fast you ride. I knew from my '99 experience that eating at the cafeteria restaurants of the controls would use up precious time, so I resolved to avoid that as much as possible. I also knew that it would be hard to predict what I would want to eat during the ride, so I brought too much of everything. Most of this food was in the two "drop bags" that were waiting for me in Loudeac and Villaines.

My main sources of nutrition were 1) liquid food made from powder that I kept in one bottle on the bike and mixed and drank from another bottle. It turned out that I didn't bring enough of this, and I had to buy some more at the penultimate control on the last morning (Mortagne). The French energy powder tasted much better than the stuff I ran out of, though. 2) a selection of energy bars: Power Bars, Cliff Bars, and Balance Bars. I ate all of the Cliff Bars, some Power Bars, and very few Balance Bars. I ended up preferring less-sweet bars. 3) packets of GU gel. Many of these had caffeine, which probably helped keep up my energy level as I had foresworn that substance for a month prior to starting. I also had caffeine pills, but I didn't use these until the last night and morning. I ran out of GU, too, and had to buy a very sweet French equivalent in Mortagne on the last morning. 4) Food I bought along the route: During the first couple of days, I bought food only in grocery stores (epiceries). I had brought along a small spoon (courtesy of Air France), so I ate a lot of yogurt. Also, bananas, rice pudding, bread, and at least one chocolate éclair (which I later regretted). I often bought water at the same time. This was all intended to get me in out of controls as quickly as possible by avoiding waiting in the meal lines.

A common site -- someone napping by the side of the road.

By the last day of the ride, though, I broke down and bought a big dinner in Villaines. It cost me at least one full mile per hour that day, but I think I needed the meat, so it probably was worth the time involved. I also ate a meal in Mortagne after reaching it on the final night, and I had a breakfast in Nogent-le-Roi on the final morning just before riding to Paris. That was a big breakfast, but it wasn't enough to fuel those last 50 miles; I still had to eat more bars and gel to make it in. At that point, you just can't eat enough. I had started to develop some mouth sores on the third day (these were at their worst while I was trying to sleep in Mortagne). This was despite brushing my teeth frequently. I asked Lon about it while we were riding into Paris and he said one doctor had told him that it was from a vitamin B deficiency and that eating meat might help. (Or, I suppose, taking supplements.) Lon said that he tries to eat a little beef jerky every hour to counterbalance all the "sweet stuff." Maybe that's why I was craving meat in Villaines. I didn't have the mouth sore problem in '99; maybe that's because I ate more "real" meals in controls that time. Anyway, if I do the ride again, I will take vitamins and jerky, because having a sore mouth complicates one's efforts to eat enough food.

Les Français

Ask any PBP veteran what makes the ride special, and he or she will probably tell you that it's the French people. As Lon Haldeman said to me on the last morning, you couldn't stage this ride in the United States. People would never tolerate 4,000 riders racing 750 miles on public roads -- much less support them as wholeheartedly as the French. In the U.S., we're conditioned to act like second-class users of the roads, but the French generally treat cyclists as equals, and they showed amazing patience when their progress was delayed by a pack of cyclists inching their way up a hill. (Another cool thing about French drivers: by and large, they drive cars. SUVs, monster pickups, and vans are not popular.)

Between controls we found lots of unofficial support stops. Sometimes this was just a table with a bottle of "eau gratuit" (free water) poured by a school kid. Other times, whole villages would turn out with snacks and coffee or hot chocolate. Not just during the day, but at three in the morning. People would clap and shout encouragement as well. There's really nothing like it anywhere else.

The French found creative ways to cheers us on.

I often had brief conversations with people as I bought food at a grocery store. I know just enough French to get in trouble. Someone might ask me what the race was and I would tell them "Paris Brest," which they always had at least heard of. "Irish?" one elderly gentleman asked me outside a market. "No, American." Saying you were American usually elicited a question about whether Armstrong would win a sixth Tour de France. I resolved that I must learn to understand spoken French better. As it is, I'll never know what that man was telling me about his son and a building in America.

One of my favorite questions for French riders was whether this was their first PBP. For many it was, although I met one guy who was doing his fifth or sixth. Lon and I finished the ride in the company of a few 60-somethings who were all on their first or second PBP. "They don't really get started with this until they're 60," Lon observed. Lon is my age, and I think this was his fourth PBP. He did it once with his wife Susan when she set a new women's record. He did it once on a tandem ("hard" was his entire response when I asked him how that was). And he did it in '99, again with Susan, at a moderate (for him) pace. Lon rides PBP with just one gear and makes it look easy. When he comes to a hill, he just stands up.

With Susan Notorangelo (Lon's wife) in Mortagne on the first day. She was waiting for Lon with a line-up of open Coke bottles.

Lots of kids lined the side of the road. After a while, I figured out that I did at least know enough French to tease the kids. One girl who gave me water had a temporary Canadian flag tattoo on her forearm. "You're Canadian?" I asked her. "Oh, no," she replied very seriously. "A Canadian lady gave me this tattoo with their flag on it." I thanked her for the water. "Paris is near here, yes?" I asked. "Oh no," she said, giggling. It was about 200 kilometers to go yet. "Would you like to sit down?" her grandmother called from a lawn chair under an umbrella. "No thank you, it makes it too hard to start up again!"

Another kid flagged me down to ask for a souvenir. I rummaged around in my handlebar bag but failed to find anything suitable "Crayon? (pencil)" he suggested. Wouldn't you know I left the Fisherman's Wharf souvenir pencils at home? I ended up giving him my race number from my handlebar bag.

Kids (and grandma) watching the ride go by.

La Chance

So I had what, for me, was an excellent PBP. Part of this was because of preparation (lots of riding at home, lots of hills, watching my weight, making endless lists), part of it was experience (in '99 I fell behind on time through spending too much time at controls and by sleeping through an alarm. This time, I brought three alarms. As a result, I never found myself riding so late at night that I was afraid I would fall asleep, as had been the case on my other two 1200K rides. Not finding myself in that position again was my main goal this time). And, I have to admit, a lot of it was luck. The weather was just about perfect. A little hot in the late afternoon and a bit chilly on the last morning, but nothing I couldn't handle. Light winds, with a tail wind for the most part on the return. And no rain. It couldn't have been better.

Chance also threw up some of the most memorable moments: The bike crash. The (bovine) calves that got loose and wandered into the road. The Frenchman who followed me on the last morning for miles because his light had failed. The hawk plucking a meal from a farmhouse shrub. Seeing another Californian lose the wheel of the fast tandem we were following because the mouthpiece on his Camelbak pulled loose, spraying him with water (I later learned he never found the darn thing; I always carry a spare for that reason).

A calf temporarily joins the ride.

When Lon and I reached Paris (St. Quentin) it was before noon, which is when I had told my wife was the earliest I would finish. "Well, in the true randonneuring spirit, we'll time it so that we get there right at noon," said Lon. That meant stopping at a gas station one kilometer shy of the finish for a Coca Cola. We rolled in right at noon, with the town clock chiming, although our official times were a little later since you have to go into the gym and find the right place to get your card swiped. It took me 79 hours, which is four hours faster than I rode in '99, but that doesn't seem so important. I'm happiest that none of those hours saw me miserable (although that last night into Mortagne still has the longest 20K in the world). I never doubted that I would get there or worried that I might fall asleep. When I finally reached Mortagne, I even got to have the experience of trying to sleep in an indoor soccer field full of mattresses (not terribly successful, although the snoring didn't bother me as much as I thought it might; there was so much of it that it sounded more like the ocean than like a college roommate). And after leaving Mortagne in the early hours of the morning, I got to watch the eastern sky slowly lighten while a French rider nearby said "I'm very happy." "Why not?" I replied in French, knowing exactly what he meant. "We have the moon and the stars."

A little French can go a long way -- 750 miles even.

At the finish line with Judith. Hearing her shout my name as I reached the finish was the single best part of the ride.