The Road to PBP (and other stuff)

It was a long time in coming, and I guess a couple more hours wouldn’t hurt; at the very least I was in a tunnel, so if the rain started I wouldn’t get soaked. Our New England contingent had agreed to meet at the PBP start area 2 hours before the 80 hour start of PBP 2007, but when I arrived it was already packed, with a long line snaking away from the starting area (and under said tunnel). Looking around for anyone I knew, I finally caught a glimps of the distinctive green, white, and yellow of some other New England jerseys behind me. I purposely hung back and joined up with them, and we slowly made our way forward to the start area. While our New England hero, Melinda, managed to join the first start wave, most of us were consigned to the second start group 15 minutes later.

It’s amazing how quickly two hours can pass, even when every minute spent standing in line is one more that could have been spent resting in bed under more civilized start conditions. Soon we were off! The 8am start meant we had good light…certainly enough to see all the unlucky blokes who got flats in the first 20km or so. We must have passed a dozen of the poor souls, every one making me more nervous — just the day before, on a short jaunt around Versailles, four of us had combined for 7 flats on a particularly nasty gravel stretch! But tonight our luck held and we sailed along amidst a large pack of riders, averaging a solid clip into Mortagne au Perche, the first feed stop. The countryside along the way was beautiful, with just enough light from a half-moon to see by. The roads in France are a dream — no potholes whatesoever! Unfortunately, they occasionally use chip-seal for long stretches, which can give you a solid, high-frequency shaking. Sadly, my GPS wasn’t up to this kind of abuse, and would turn off whenever we hit chip-seal. Oh, well. It was easy enough to turn back on during the smooth stretches. At Mortagne we filled our water bottles, and were back on the road in 20 minutes. After the stop, the road was much more empty than before, but I had a solid contingent of BBS pals: Chris, Dustin, Joel, Jeff, Chip, Max, and Glen from the 2nd wave start, and Bryan and Ted caught us from the 3rd wave.

Our pace slowed somewhat now that the pack had dilluted after the first stop, although Max kept things lively at the front. Max had gone through quite a saga just to get to the starting line (British Airways lost his bike, and he was riding a carbon fiber Synapse purchased six hours before the ride began). Apparently he was feeling good, or the bike really agreed with him. At one point he pulled the whole group away from me and Chip; I thought they’d eventually slow down, but we didn’t see them all the way to the first official control at Villaines. Actually, we didn’t see them at Villaines, either. But five minutes later they rolled in behind us, having gotten lost on a round-about and then losing 5 minutes looking for us before proceeding.

If there was ever any doubt, this control established that we wouldn’t be setting a particularly fast time — we burned 55 minutes, which sounds like a lot (and is), but it sure didn’t seem long at the time.

I honestly can’t remember when the rain started, but it was around this point. To be fair, it was really more of a heavy sprinkling than a rain, but the wind was whipping it at a good clip. I remember looking forward to sunrise, but I never saw the sun that whole day. By the time we arrived at Fougeres, it was 9am and we were thoroughly soaked. From there, it was another wet slog to Tinteniac, but our group was still firing on all cylinders. After another long stop at Tinteniac, we took off for Loudeac. And then things came a bit unhinged.

Suddenly everybody was riding at a different pace. Chip, who had been hanging back earlier, was suddenly the guy at the front. Max and Glen, our previous pace-setters, were out the back. I still felt good, but Max and Glen’s rapid demise made me wary. We let Chip, Ted, Chris, and Jeff go, and Bryan took charge of setting the pace for our slower group. I kind of yo-yoed between the middle and the back, trying to help folks through the rough patch. The road was long, and the pace was interminably slow.

Apparently it was more than just a rough patch. When we finally arrived at Loudeac, Glen had to abandon. I know he had been looking forward to this ride more than anyone (and had completed it very quickly in 2003), so this turn of events had to be disappointing. Max was completely wiped out as well. Chip chose to stay behind with him and see if extra food and rest could revive him. The rest of us set out for Carhaix.

The first bit of the ride was more disorganized group riding. Then we arrived at a secret control, and on our way out we managed to get a bit more organized. A pace-line developed, and pretty soon we were steaming along. I felt great through this stretch, and it was nice to make some time. At one point we mixed in with another group who didn’t seem too keen on us slowly catching up and then passing them. But one Irish guy from Scotland, John, seemed nice enough and we had a jolly chat. We would end up leapfrogging and riding with John all the way back to Paris.

By the time we arrived at Carhaix, it was dark. Much of my earlier excitement was now gone, and even the prospect of drinking coffee for the first time in a month wasn’t enough to perk me up. But we were hell-bent on getting to Brest before sleeping for the night, so off we went. I guess this is a good time to talk about elevation gain. Very little of PBP is flat, but none of it is steep (at least by New England standards, which can’t be that difficult). In fact, the most notorious climb of the whole route, Roc Trevezel, occured during this stretch — but since I didn’t know where the peak was, we actually crested it before I realized that we’d even started the climb. Not steep.

The final bit into Brest seemed to take forever, and I was in this terrible mode where every corner I kept hoping we’d be done — even when we had 20km still to go. But we eventually did make it into Brest around 3am. Ted decided to promptly turn around and head back to Paris, but the rest of us opted for an hour and a half of sleep.

I peeled off my sopping clothes and put on dry ones before falling asleep on a cot under a scratchy wool blanket. My feet looked like large, pale prunes after all the rain, and I was happy beyond words to get them out of those wet shoes. It seemed like no sooner had I gotten under the covers, but it was time to get up. Sheesh. After sitting for a few seconds, I quickly put my cold wet clothes back on — no sense going back into the rain with dry ones.

The rain this day was a little more patchy than it had been before — not enough to dry out, but enough to get a few glimpses of the Brittany landscape as we rolled back up Roc Trevezel. Unlike our lonely trip up the night before, the road was now teaming with bikers on their way to Brest. Most were from the 90 hour start group. Carhaix, when we got there, was awash with bikers. We got our cards stamped, and then quickly retreated back to the center of town to find food at a bakery, not willing to stand in the long lines at the control. This actually worked out well, and was our fastest control of the whole trip.

Now it was Chris’s turn to feel strong, and he shot off ahead of us. Joel was having some digestion problems, so we set a moderate pace that he could keep. To be honest, I was feeling pretty tired, too. Yet for some reason whenever it was my turn to pull, I would pull too strongly and end up ahead of the group. Well, there’s always something to work on, I guess. I spent most of the next couple legs in this odd yo-yo where I was either exhausted at the back, trying not to get dropped by our slow 20kph pace, or at the front trying not to go too fast.

At Loudeac we found out from Lynn, Jeff’s wife, that Chip wasn’t too far behind us. He was stamping out good time, but unfortunately was alone because Max had dropped out. We also saw Chris for the last time here, since he was heading out shortly after we arrived. After another marathon eating session (more than one hour, which was becoming our norm), we headed off for Tinteniac.

This was another fairly immemorable leg; I think that our second secret control occurred during this bit, and otherwise it was mostly a slow grind. Chip caught up with us at Tinteniac, and it was nice to see him again. The rain let up a little, so I checked my tires carefully for glass bits (all clear) and off we went into the dark.

This leg Dustin decided to unleash hell, and he led us on a blistering pace all the way to Fougers. I rode with him at the front for a while, which was fun, but then I thought better of it and dropped back. Just in time, too, because by the end of this leg I was beginning to bonk. I swallowd down two handfulls of chocolate espresso beans and some hammer gel, and fortunately got through it. But now all of us were a bit cooked. The group enmasse decided to spend the night at Fougers. Bryan, though, really wanted to go on to Villaines. Bryan is another really strong rider who had been purposely riding slow to stay with us and help us through our myriad rough patches, so it didn’t seem right to send him out alone. I reluctantly agreed to join him to keep each other awake.

The first half of the ride was a lot of fun. We both seemed to be perked up after the last stop, we took our time, rode side-by-side, talked alot, and the rain wasn’t bad at all. A few riders drafted behind us with bright lights that made it difficult to see backward, but when we asked them to tell us if there were cars coming up behind, they didn’t seem to know English, French, or German — the only languages I could possibly make myself understood in (turns out they were Italian). Not that I stood much of a chance in German, anyway. And the French would have been ugly.

The second half of the leg was a bit more challenging. The wind and rain both really picked up, and we ket stopping to adjust our clothes (never a good sign when you keep finding excuses to stop). I started popping espresso beans again, and somehow we made it to Villaines. Just three legs left! Unfortunately, the rain was really ugly now, and after a brief discussion in my lousy French, I learned that the prospects were not good for tomorrow, either. Greatly disheartened, I changed into dry clothes for another quick 90 minute nap. It seemed like no time had passed before Bryan was waking me up. I was really out of it, and almost slugged him. Then I remembered where I was, and what we needed to do. I steeled myself, put the wet clothes back on, and wandered out to find the biggest bowl of coffee available. Bryan took pity on me and found some chocolate croissants — he knew from our discussion the preceding night how crazy I was about them. I could have hugged him.

And then — a miracle! The bloody sun came out!!! Instead of the terrible slog I had envisioned, we had the best leg of the whole trip. Beautiful views of the French countryside surrounded us as we rolled along, and even a flat tire couldn’t dampen our spirits. A nice farmer watched us change my flat, and then invited us inside his farmhouse for coffee and biscuits. My broken French didn’t let us talk too much, but I learned that he had 10 cats, that his house was 200 years old, and that there had never been a PBP as rainy as this one (thank god). We finished the ride with a brisk climb up to the control at Mortagne au Perche, and with just the two of us we were able to keep our break time below an hour.

The ride out of Mortagne was just beautiful, taking us up and down some gorgeous forests. The we hit some flats, and Bryan (who had done almost all the pulling to this point) really started hammering. I held on for dear life as he powered us by rider after rider. Some of them managed to latch onto us, but none of them could help Bryan pull. After a really long stretch, I gave Bryan a short break, but after 5-10 minutes I was exhausted and he took over again. It was great to be flying along, but I could tell I was nearing exhaustion. We were battling a headwind for much of this leg, and the clouds were just scooting by. Finally, one of them decided to start dumping rain on us, and it started to POUR. It poured all the way into Dreux. We also had about two hours of vicous chip-seal as well. My hands and seat, which had held up fine throughout the whole ride to this point, gave up the ghost during this vibration-fest. After our stop at Dreux, I could barely sit down. Fortunately, things eventually go a bit numb and I was literally back in the saddle for the final leg.

The rain somehow fell even harder as we headed back to Paris, but by now it didn’t matter. We were going to finish! We passed John (the Irish-Scot) for the last time about a mile from the finish — he had blown out a tire (not tube — tire), but seemed to have the necessary spares. There was a raucas crowd at the finish when we pulled in at 9pm, and it felt great to hear their cheers wash over us. After turning in our brevet cards, Bryan and I parted ways to go to bed 73 hours after the saga began.

Unfortunately, my hotel had failed to keep a room for me. But in true randonneuring fashion, I was able to overcome the problem and shack up with some brilliantly nice guys from Florida (Tim and Jim). Tim had finished with Melinda in 56 hours — 17 hours faster than me. Chip, Dustin, Joel, and Jeff all finished around midnight.

The word on the street had the drop-out rate at 30% for this ride, about twice the normal rate.  So I’m thankful to have finished at all, and feel just fantastic — I’m not really sure why, so it must be the “overcoming adversity” thing. But if I do it again in 2011, I think I’ll work on my speed/stamina. A plot of my time shows that things slowed down drastically toward the middle and end.  I wasted a fair bit of time at the controls also (17 hours all told).  But mostly I’m just slow.