Another PBP ride report (are you sick of these yet?)
Ian Kizu-Blair
I've really enjoyed lurking and reading about everyone else's ride, so I felt like I had to contribute. Here's my report:
Coming into PBP, I’d been having lower back pain and back spasms that at certain times made me feel like there was no way I’d be able to ride, let alone finish. An excellent physical therapist at Kaiser helped me with some cupping and exercises, and I mainly rested my back after the 600k in May, only doing 5 rides between May 11 and August 18 when I started PBP. Going into the ride, my fitness was not where I hoped it would be, but my back felt pretty good, so I was cautiously optimistic. I also had already decided that if I had to DNF due to back pain, it was okay and that I was already doing great to be on the start line at all. Having the pressure off after completing PBP once before in 2015 changed the experience a lot, and let me enjoy the fun and absurd aspects of the ride a lot more this time. I'd say it was 92% fun, 8% pain, which as I gather is pretty far ahead of the curve 😅.
Ben, Irving, Nick I set off in Group M at 7pm and Carlin bridges up to us from his 7:30pm start after 70k or so. The initial riding is much less chaotic than 2015 since our group is released in a trickle, and I feel relaxed and happy to just cruise along. So nice to finally be on the road, and zipping through the towns and fields as night falls. Irving is channelling Brian Oei and flying down the descents, and before you know it we're in Mortagne. An efficient 10 minute water stop, and we’re back on the road.
In Villaines, there are 5 of us and only 3 children to carry trays, so Ben and Irving sadly have to carry their own. Attempted naps on the floor in the cafeteria are a bust as it’s too cold, so we move on into the wee hours of the dawn. We turn in a 14h09 300k into Fougeres, which is pretty quick for me, and I'm quite impressed to be there with Ben and Irving - guaranteed this is their fastest 300k ever. Carlin is consistently a bit ahead of us, and pushing on to get extra sleep.
In the morning, Ben, Irving and I group up with Ryan Thompson and he directs an excellent SFR pin distribution system whereby he calls out "Kids up, 2 on the right" and one of us gets pins ready to pass off to them. We give away probably 20+ pins this way and the kilometers fly by.
Our group begins to break apart in the sun and wind. Irving and I are together, and Ben is up ahead. He’s getting sleepy, so he stops to take a nap and half a caffeine pill, and I take off to catch up to Ben. I’m feeling strong and having fun trading some hard pulls into the headwinds with a group of Germans. I catch Ben and we roll in Loudeac together at 6:07pm for a 23h07 445km. We’re right on schedule but it’s harder in real life than it looks on paper. We grab our drop bags and roll to Hotel Les Routiers, my nemesis in 2015 when the shower only had scalding hot water and I had to beg for dish soap to clean myself. This time it is much more pleasant, and we brought soap. A cute black cat with a fleshy tumor on its head patrols the bar area for scraps. Fresh kit from my drop bag makes it feel like a new day, even though my alarm is set for 11pm.
We sleep for about 3 hours then head back to the control. Irving and Ben roll through and Carlin and I stop to grab food and fill bottles. We run into Alina from Germany whom we had met a few days prior in Versailles, and the three of us roll out of the control together around midnight. Alina is delightful to ride and chat with, and the kilometers are passing by quickly. She mentions how she’s enjoying riding at night in PBP so much, she might just sleep during the day. I’m starting to agree - less traffic, no wind, pleasant temperatures, and easy to ride two or three abreast and chat. Plus there’s so many lights and people on the road, I never really feel bored or sleepy.
We pick up Ben and Irving at a night food stand where they are eating mussels, and Carlin can’t resist running in to have some. He tells me about his salad days as a child in Maine eating sweet, sweet mussels straight from the ocean.
In Carhaix, David Wilcox and his friend Ryan inform me that it's the only control with pudding (using their speedster advance knowledge, being on the return leg already). Perfect - I eat several chocolate puddings.
We roll through the beautiful village of Huelgoat in the dark forest and wind our way up the long but shallow climb to the Roc'h. Swirling fond memories of passing through that area in 2015 with Gabe just after dawn, and mist rising off a lake. This year, all the mist is floating above the fields in the cold of dawn. Descending into Sizun, I am absolutely freezing and starting to microsleep. First time on the ride that I am feeling a bit desperate to get somewhere. In Sizun, Alina and I go into a bar to warm up and get tea, and promptly fall asleep in the back room. Carlin and Ben get pastries across the street and continue on. I sleep for maybe 30 minutes and wake up feeling great, then step outside to bathe in the warm sun. The sweetest sunlight in the world is the sunlight just after dawn on a brevet; there is nothing quite like it. You get to personally experience and understand that the sun is the source of all life on earth.
Onwards to Brest, and pretty soon we hit our first glimpse of the bridge, port and Atlantic. Then we are on the bridge; a place for a quick celebration of how far we've come. Last time I was crying uncontrollably (with joy) on the bridge while Gabe awkwardly was like, I'll give you a minute. This time, no crying but I'm still feeling emotional to be halfway done. Alina snaps pictures of Irving and I and then Alex rolls by on the Taggart Cycles he built (btw Alex wrote an excellent ride report, you should read it), so the four of us pose for a picture (funny since the four of us never rode together). On the trafficky run in to the Brest control, I slam on the brakes and skid to avoid a car; a good reminder to keep on my toes and stay alert.
At the Brest control, "the food... is excellent" as Dan B. puts it, sarcastically. Ice cold soup. Irving repeats this phrase to himself and giggles for the whole rest of the ride.
Carlin, Irving, Ben and I ride out of Brest together, and chat on the road with the Seattle crew of Kate, Jeff, Andy and Vinnie. Love seeing all the Seattle and San Francisco riders together, it's a nice morale boost. We’re the ones doing rando cosplay in our wool jerseys and constructer bikes with waxed canvas bags.
In Sizun, John French and I share a box of Snickers ice cream bars. Ice cream has been sorely lacking up to this point. I also buy little kid applesauce packets, which are like nature's GU shots. Easy to eat while riding.
My group has started to spread out on the road, as is natural after 600k; it gets harder and harder to match your pace with anyone else, and if your legs feel good, you have to keep moving. Carlin is dealing with knee pain and I feel really bad for him. Kate and I end up pacing well together, and she gives me a pecan butter packet. Definitely saving this for a low point later in the ride. On the long climb to the Roc'h, I cheer for all the SFR riders heading into Brest - Rob, Metin, Jerry. At the very top I run into Shawn and he pulls over to give me a hug and chat. Such a morale boost. He crashed due to another riders' error and is DNF'ing, but stoked to hang with Deb in Paris. Seeing on IG how Shawn vibes on Paris was a great part of the trip - wish I had hung out more with the vegan punx!
Time flies by on the highway to Carhaix with Kate taking big pulls, and before you know it we're back in Pudding Town. She splits off to find her Seattle crew, and I head off to Loudeac. Ben and I run into Dan B. and he has us cracking up telling the story of how Eric tried to do a burger eating challenge in the middle of Gamblers 1000k, and was only saved by the fact that the power randomly went out. Dan has a great handle on the humorous/absurd side of randonneuring, which I was able to enjoy much more in PBP this time versus 2015 when it all seemed so serious. I roll into Loudeac with Ben at 9:16pm, 1 minute ahead of our schedule which has us arriving at 9:17pm. Not too shabby, Kevin F. would be proud - I learned my scheduling from him on a 400k workers ride in 2015. We did apprx 330k in 21hrs since we last left. Shower and sleep for 3 hours or so, then back on the road at 2:17am.
Total rando blackout until we group up with the Rando Royalty in the morning on Wednesday. Mark Thomas, Cap'n John, and Vinne have an unthinkable number of 1200k's between them, and it was a pleasure to cruise in their mellow group into Fougeres (like, "no pressure, it's just another ride" vibes). We break off in Fougeres and I have a minor meltdown when the falafel place I went to in 2015 with Gabe is closed. Arrg, I wanted that falafel. We go off course to a grocery store that's playing "Everybody Hurts" by R.E.M. Too close to home 😖. All the food there is crap except I buy a jar of cornichons. A well-meaning French guy keeps trying to give us water outside, but all our bottles are full. He insists, so I let him fill my one bottle that's 1/2 full. Then he keeps insisting to fill other bottles, and it's like, Back Off Man. Thank You But We Need To Go. We head over to the control having wasted a bunch of time, and still needing to do stuff there. God damnit, I'm really seething at this point while rolling out my IT band with the foam ball I brought. Left knee is really starting to get sore. We chat with a nice younger randonneur from upstate NY while I angrily eat a chocolate pot-de-creme, then hit the road.
I need to ride by myself for a bit, to cool off and listen to music. Once I'm by myself, I wonder why I got so frustrated? Probably just fatigue. I feel great again almost immediately when I'm by myself, and enjoying riding my bike in France.
A huge peloton of about 25 led by a group of strong Austrians rolls by. I jump on the back, and spend a while watching the insanity. Sleep-deprived riders with questionable pack skills riding 4 abreast on open roads at 18+ mph, passing other riders who are going more like 10mph. Some of whom are riding right on the centerline, for some reason. I'm certain someone is going to die, but I can't look away. Too much entertainment value, plus the miles are flying by again. I roll by Andy and Jeff and chat with them. One rider gets a flat on a descent and pulls off left across traffic to the opposite side of the road. OK, that's enough for me, I drop back.
Soon enough Nate (bicipunk) and Jeremy (gallusdude) from Colorado roll-up on me. "I know you from the internet!" Super fun talking with them and Nate is visibly having a blast, riding so strong and blissed out on the PBP feels. Makes me happy. Eventually I have to let them go, they're too fast for me and they have places to go.
Then Carlin appears out of nowhere, which is really surprising since he was riding so slowly due to his knee injury. "It only feels good if I'm riding really hard, and surging a lot in a paceline" 😂 Well, whatever works, and I'm really happy he's having fun again. We ride that high straight onto a god-like Japanese paceline led by a guy and girl who are just unbelievably strong 900+ kms deep into the ride. I keep thinking I'm going to have to drop off, but oh man, my legs feel ridiculously strong too all of a sudden. All the training throughtout the year, all the rando experience, it comes together and I just ride the wave. Absolute exhilaration and total flow all the way into Villanes-la-Juhel. We rush through the crowds, then thank the Japanese couple. "Oh my god, that was amazing!! Thank you!" Other riders come up to thank them as well. Carlin and I even get a picture with them.
OK, back to business. We grab quick food and roll using my ball on the grass while chatting with Kevin Salyer. He tells us about Jack H.'s ride - damn, seems crazy but ask Jack if you're curious. Kevin looks like he's having a great ride - smiling and basking in the Villanes glow. We roll out of town and get the air topped off for our latex tubes (which actually seem to make a difference in comfort and speed, by the way). 55psi for me and 60 for Carlin.
The pace calms down on the way to Mortagne, and Carlin and I both have sore knees. We arrive in Mortagne at 10:38pm, having ridden ~310k in 20hrs. In Mortagne, we grab food and head to the Airbnb. A very old building in town on course. We read the instructions: "Key is hidden behind the shutters." Ok, first set of shutters. No key. Second set, phew here it is. We start trying to open the door. The key can rotate about 960 degrees in the lock, and the handle goes both up and down. WTF! We are rotating the key and jiggling the handle like crazy, but no luck. Carlin comments that it's like some sort of sick experiment where they make you do logic puzzles after physical exertion. And add in sleep deprivation... Some drunk teenagers come down the street and I desperately ask them for help. "Nous ne pouvons pas utiliser la clé parce que nous sommes des Etats Unis..." I say. They reply: "OH DES ETATS UNIS? COOOOL...." 😎 They go to work on the door. In french, they're like, "damn, this door is really old". But they finally get it open. Thanks kids! Carlin and I are flooded with relief, and rush insde. Very strange old place, with odd lack of furniture and a creepy prominent blackface sculpture. I shower and hit the sack. I think I get about 3 hours of sleep? Alarm at 2:30am, roll out at 3am. Oof. But only 120k to go.
Irving and Ben leave ahead of Carlin and I, and we manage to lock up the apartment and stash the key behind the shutters. We catch Ben up the road, and Irving has gone ahead. At some point, Ben asks if we’re sure we’re on course. Me: “YEAH BEN, DUH. There are people up ahead and people behind us, we’re definitely on course.” He mentions that his Garmin says we’re off course, but it’s probably just the course change. We stop to each have a half a caffeine pill, and Ben again asks if we’re on course. A few riders pass by us as we’re stopped, then no more. I’m still convinced that we’re on course but I can tell Ben is worried. We roll down a descent and see a rider coming back towards us who yells “Course!” and then we come upon a chaotic scene of about 20-30 riders all standing around in a village intersection. Uh-oh. It’s obvious we’re off course since there are no signs whatsoever at the intersection.
Riders are yelling in all different languages and Garmins are beeping in anger. People are panicking and it’s probably around 4am or so. OK, shit. I pull out my phone and I have reception, so I look up our location on Google Maps. Ben pulls up the course in RidewithGPS. Looks like we're about 5 miles off course to the south. I look up directions straight to Dreux. No way, it’s too far - 3hrs of off-course navigating at least. Carlin remembers that he saved a map of every graveyard on course, from when Greg M. emailed about getting water in graveyards. Yeah…. didn’t have to do that at all but now the graveyard map is coming in handy. I pull up directions to the nearest graveyard. Perfect, it is back on course several miles up ahead. If we go there we’ll still make forward progress, but only have to ride 5-6 miles before we’re back on course. I have headphones so I put them on and put on turn-by-turn directions. I take a moment to consider what a major triumph of technology this is before we set off into the night.
“In 200 meters, left turn onto Le Bois Du Loup (the woods of the wolf)”. These directions are creepy AF. We’re on very narrow, small farm roads winding through a very dark forest. There are maybe 6 or 8 riders with us? We hit a steep climb, probably the steepest climb of the ride. Adrenaline is pumping and I’m climbing too fast until the others ask me to slow down a bit. We're passed on the climb by a rider pedaling with one leg (the two crank arms are disconnected, and the second legs only makes small motions). Heroic effort by that guy. We emerge onto a ridge and twist and turn on farm roads and I’m feeling really disoriented, yet totally focused on the task at hand. A few more short climbs and all of a sudden we see the line of headlights from riders moving perpendicularly to us. “FUCK YESSS, WE’RE BACK ON COURSE!” It’s a huge thrill and high to make the right turn back onto the route. A couple Brits roll by and thank us for navigating, and just like that we’re back on our way to Dreux.
Maybe 10 minutes later we run into Irving, who’s been waiting for us. “Have you been waiting long?” “No, just a few minutes.” (It turns out he was waiting a really long time, but didn’t want to spook us by telling us). We recount our off-course story to him, then it’s off to rando blackout town for me again until Vinnie and Kate come flying by in the pre-dawn hours outside of Dreux. We hop on their wheels and cruise at the perfect pace until Mr. Charly Hands himself, Jon B. rolls through like a freight train and we jump on. It’s way too fast for me, but at this point, anything to keep the fun up is worth it. We’re blasting along the stone wall into the dawn, and it feels so good. The light is soft and the horizon is wide and it’s all quite dreamy. 11km out from Dreux we drop off the pace and slow roll into the control.
In Dreux, my mood is lighthearted. Vinnie is pushing his green beans and soggy rice around on his plate. “The rice…. is cold. I’m over it, man.” LOL 😂. His Di2 battery died and he lost shifting, but he somehow found someone with a Di2 charger in the middle of the night and gave it a bit of juice. This is the mechanical that every vintage rando cosplayer foresaw when they first heard "electronic shifting", and I'm giggling to myself. Kate, Irving, Ben, Carlin and I are hanging in the sun at the table. Irving bumps into Roy coming out of the restroom and Roy tells him “I just gave birth”, which has all of us giggling again. Then Rob shows up and he’s in a great mood, basking in all the time he’s banked up. I tell him he looks fresh, which gets a laugh (I think he wasn’t feeling as fresh as he looked). It’s hard to leave because, well, it feels nice to be this close to the end and just taking it in. But eventually the rando-timetable-gods force us out and we’re back on the road.
My knee is really hurting, and we’re riding slooow. All of a sudden I’m just ready to be done and off the bike. We pass a hairy man clad only in bibs holding a deodorant-type stick of something. Looking us straight in the eyes, he pulls forward his bibs and plunges the stick into the nether regions below. Ohh, it’s chamois cream. All social norms have pretty much flown out the window by now and it’s a do-what-ya-gotta-do situation.
The last bit through the forest outside Rambouillet is beautiful, but I’m having trouble enjoying it. My knee pain is the worst it’s been all ride, and I’m so ready to just be done. As we cross the cobbles into Rambouillet, I rally to summon some intense emotion for the finish line, but it’s thwarted by the sudden appearance of bumper-to-bumper car traffic and chaos rolling into the finish line. As we’re in the final stretch dodging through pedestrians and riders coming the other direction, a fellow soon-to-be-finisher rolls up next to us blasting “Thunderstruck” by AC DC at full volume on a bluetooth speaker. What the actual fuck. Then we hit more cobblestones and some sandy gravel before being ushered out the exit door to bike parking. Uh, that’s it? Did we finish? All I can do is laugh at the absurdity of the rando-insanity, and the finish, and the whole thing. The one thing about PBP is you can never control it, or make it be exactly how you want it to be, and pretty much all you can do is take it in and laugh or cry or park your bike and head over to grab a beer.
Deb is right there at the finish to give us all hugs - so good to see her. Then we park the bikes and Alina is there - she’s so happy and emotional and I remember the first time I finished crying on Eric W.’s shoulder. A really powerful memory for me and I’m so happy for her. Kate and I go into the tent to get our final stamp, and the guy next to us is sobbing uncontrollably because he finished with 10 minutes to spare. Wow. I’m somehow not feeling much at all, except relief that I don’t have to keep biking. I’m not feeling so social either - I've kind of hit a wall and run out of cheerfulness. I'd have much stronger feelings in the days to come, but right now it's kind of - flat.
Bryan is there to congratulate us, so cool after his hard effort to get Charly Miller again through pain and DNF thoughts. I'm jealous that he's wearing normal clothes. Then Rob finishes and comes to congratulate us. So awesome to see him and get to thank him for everything he’s done to get us there.
There’s a whirlwind of congratulating other riders, hugs, a beer, a grass nap, etc. and then all of a sudden it’s time to go catch the train. And just like that my 2019 PBP is in the books.
I was initially drawn to the ride by the history, but my favorite part of the actual experience is meeting the other riders who keep the history alive with their courage and enthusiasm. They're people who are willing to try something crazy just to find out if it's possible. You meet ordinary people who show extraordinary courage, and you also meet extraordinary athletes who are humble and down to earth.
I am especially inspired by the women I had the opportunity to ride with, who have to bring just a little extra courage to deal with condescension and sexist behavior during the ride. They were a blast to share the miles with and I hope that PBP and randonneuring in general can foster a WTF (Women, Trans, Femme) friendly atmosphere in the future.
I also feel lucky that I had the opportunity to ride PBP with Carlin, Ben and Irving, and that we were able to finish together. And we're still on speaking terms 😉.
Eric Walstad
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Charlie Martin
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Rob Hawks
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Megan Arnold
That's it!
On Mon, Sep 9, 2019, 2:11 PM Mark Thomas <ma...@muthomas.net> wrote:
Sausage wizardry.
Mark
Mark ThomasI won't add a write-up of the ride to this string. While my memories of it are vivid, in its aftermath I'm incapable of assembling them in any cogent temporal or geographic order. That might require a second go, and that will depend on how well I can ride at sixty-seven.
I do, however, feel compelled to discuss three topics. First,
Wizardry
I didn't use electronic navigation, but depended on Rob's assurance that I would always find an arrow or a set of tail lights ahead to guide me. This meant that sometimes at night I actually slowed down to keep a tail light ahead until -- after a curve or on an uphill, say -- I could see another farther out and take off after it.
On the third night I was flying down a long, non-technical descent and was apparently more comfortable descending in the dark than any of the riders ahead, because I was soon by all of them. Even though I could no longer see tail lights, I wasn't about to waste a good downhill, and so, seeing no opportunity for a turn, kept going.
Eventually I found myself in a sleeping village. Unlike in any other village at this stage of the ride, there were no bodies wrapped in space blankets in doorways or bus shelters. At the far end of the village I came to an intersection that would have had to be marked with an arrow, but saw none. I pulled out my spare light and shined it on every available surrounding surface: Nothing.
I turned and crawled back up the hill, and after a while saw a line of red lights and reflective vests climbing left, to my right. I joined them.
Through my own stupidity my Garmin had died much earlier, but I had tried to record the rest of the ride on my phone. To my surprise, after the end I found that I had succeeded. There in the record was the spur that represented my descent into the village, and there was the name of the village: Le Mage, or The Wizard.
I understood then how the turn had been hidden from me, and I felt lucky to have escaped further mischief.
Which brings me to the second topic,
The Mobility of Castles
Someplace on the outbound leg -- after Loudéac, I believe, but I won't swear to it -- I passed in the night a castle on one side of the road. It was not the famous fortress at Fougères, but some other. France has a few.
On the return leg, again in the night, the same castle was on the opposite side of the road.
It is scarcely credible that I was so ride-addled at that point that I couldn't tell left from right.
Nor is it quite credible that French workers, although consistently rated among the most productive on the planet, would during the vacances have accomplished the move.
Having demonstrated the operation of wizardry on the ride, I am personally clear on how the castle was moved.
The third topic is perhaps not entirely unrelated.
Sausage
I won't dwell here on the great Basque boudin noir I had in Paris or on my first acquaintance with andouillette in St. Quentin-en-Yvelines, because these aren't closely linked to the ride.
Instead, I will recall the baguette filled with three merguez sausages they were serving in the rain in the little courtyard across from the bike check the day before its start. Nowhere in my three weeks in France did I see a charcoal briquet. In the courtyard they had a pile of thick branches blazing, and from the pile they would from time to time shovel coals into a brazier, and that was how they grilled. The result was wonderful. Would that it had been available in place of the ubiquitous jambon et beurre throughout.
Then someplace on the return leg -- Mortagne-au-Perche? It was just a food stop and not a contrôle, as I recall -- there was on the one hand boeuf bourguignon, which at the moment seemed a little much, and on the other a galette bourguignonne that was like a triple-sized version of plogues or ployes, the Acadian buckwheat crêpes my beloved grandmère used to make, and a sausage -- I never got the name -- that had emerged from the same branches-then-coals process. The sausage went onto the galette, was slathered in hot Dijon mustard, wrapped up, and ... wizardry.
As a postscript, I think it was in Villaines-la-Juhel that I parked my bike, turned around to find a microphone in my face, and found I was being interviewed in French for the entire crowd.
Je suis vieux et je suis lent, I told them.
But I got it done.
Michael T.
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JinUk Shin
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Linh Nguyen
JinUk Shin
Brian Feinberg
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Sourav Das
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Benjamin Goldenberg
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Metin Uz
Looking at a map, I think you missed the exact same turn Ian, Carlin and I did. But you caught your mistake earlier and saved climbing through the Woods of the Wolf!We were also seduced by the extended, fast, downhill, with no riders to avoid and didn't want to lose momentum.
Rob Hawks
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gary.d...@sbcglobal.net
I also did my first PBP at age 63, and whether it’s my age or my fear of randonesia, I can’t stop writing down every recollection, every anecdote from the event, starting with how I got back into distance riding, and how I decided to do this incredible event, to the trip home. Every day was a new experience for me, having never attempted an international trip of any kind.
I love reading everyone’s reports as well. There are so many things I missed! Next time, in addition to control closing times, my cheat sheet will show crepes, castles, pastry stops.
As a postscript, I think it was in Villaines-la-Juhel that I parked my bike, turned around to find a microphone in my face, and found I was being interviewed in French for the entire crowd.
Je suis vieux et je suis lent, I told them.
But I got it done.
Michael T.
On Mon, Sep 9, 2019 at 9:27 AM Rob Hawks <rob....@gmail.com> wrote:
Great write up Ian. Every time I saw you, you were bursting with enjoyment of the ride.
> Dan has a great handle on the humorous/absurd side of randonneuring,
I totally agree, but in this case isn't rando stories that involve Marshall Erickson kind of low hanging absurdist fruit?
> .... while I angrily eat a chocolate pot-de-creme
Young man, respect the chocolate! Honestly!?!
> ... (I think he wasn’t feeling as fresh as he looked)
Warning! Warning! Understatement alert! ;^)
It really was a morale boost every time I saw all the members of the Boyz on the ride. Thank you guys!
rob
On Wed, Sep 4, 2019 at 3:33 PM Ian Kizu-Blair <iankiz...@gmail.com> wrote:
I've really enjoyed lurking and reading about everyone else's ride, so I felt like I had to contribute. Here's my report:
Coming into PBP, I’d been having lower back pain and back spasms that at certain times made me feel like there was no way I’d be able to ride, let alone finish. An excellent physical therapist at Kaiser helped me with some cupping and exercises, and I mainly rested my back after the 600k in May, only doing 5 rides between May 11 and August 18 when I started PBP. Going into the ride, my fitness was not where I hoped it would be, but my back felt pretty good, so I was cautiously optimistic. I also had already decided that if I had to DNF due to back pain, it was okay and that I was already doing great to be on the start line at all. Having the pressure off after completing PBP once before in 2015 changed the experience a lot, and let me enjoy the fun and absurd aspects of the ride a lot more this time. I'd say it was 92% fun, 8% pain, which as I gather is pretty far ahead of the curve 😅.
Ben, Irving, Nick I set off in Group M at 7pm and Carlin bridges up to us from his 7:30pm start after 70k or so. The initial riding is much less chaotic than 2015 since our group is released in a trickle, and I feel relaxed and happy to just cruise along. So nice to finally be on the road, and zipping through the towns and fields as night falls. Irving is channelling Brian Oei and flying down the descents, and before you know it we're in Mortagne. An efficient 10 minute water stop, and we’re back on the road.
In Villaines, there are 5 of us and only 3 children to carry trays, so Ben and Irving sadly have to carry their own. Attempted naps on the floor in the cafeteria are a bust as it’s too cold, so we move on into the wee hours of the dawn. We turn in a 14h09 300k into Fougeres, which is pretty quick for me, and I'm quite impressed to be there with Ben and Irving - guaranteed this is their fastest 300k ever. Carlin is consistently a bit ahead of us, and pushing on to get extra sleep.
In the morning, Ben, Irving and I group up with Ryan Thompson and he directs an excellent SFR pin distribution system whereby he calls out "Kids up, 2 on the right" and one of us gets pins ready to pass off to them. We give away probably 20+ pins this way and the kilometers fly by.
Our group begins to break apart in the sun and wind. Irving and I are together, and Ben is up ahead. He’s getting sleepy, so he stops to take a nap and half a caffeine pill, and I take off to catch up to Ben. I’m feeling strong and having fun trading some hard pulls into the headwinds with a group of Germans. I catch Ben and we roll in Loudeac together at 6:07pm for a 23h07 445km. We’re right on schedule but it’s harder in real life than it looks on paper. We grab our drop bags and roll to Hotel Les Routiers, my nemesis in 2015 when the shower only had scalding hot water and I had to beg for dish soap to clean myself. This time it is much more pleasant, and we brought soap. A cute black cat with a fleshy tumor on its head patrols the bar area for scraps. Fresh kit from my drop bag makes it feel like a new day, even though my alarm is set for 11pm.
We sleep for about 3 hours then head back to the control. Irving and Ben roll through and Carlin and I stop to grab food and fill bottles. We run into Alina from Germany whom we had met a few days prior in Versailles, and the three of us roll out of the control together around midnight. Alina is delightful to ride and chat with, and the kilometers are passing by quickly. She mentions how she’s enjoying riding at night in PBP so much, she might just sleep during the day. I’m starting to agree - less traffic, no wind, pleasant temperatures, and easy to ride two or three abreast and chat. Plus there’s so many lights and people on the road, I never really feel bored or sleepy.
We pick up Ben and Irving at a night food stand where they are eating mussels, and Carlin can’t resist running in to have some. He tells me about his salad days as a child in Maine eating sweet, sweet mussels straight from the ocean.
In Carhaix, David Wilcox and his friend Ryan inform me that it's the only control with pudding (using their speedster advance knowledge, being on the return leg already). Perfect - I eat several chocolate puddings.
We roll through the beautiful village of Huelgoat in the dark forest and wind our way up the long but shallow climb to the Roc'h. Swirling fond memories of passing through that area in 2015 with Gabe just after dawn, and mist rising off a lake. This year, all the mist is floating above the fields in the cold of dawn. Descending into Sizun, I am absolutely freezing and starting to microsleep. First time on the ride that I am feeling a bit desperate to get somewhere. In Sizun, Alina and I go into a bar to warm up and get tea, and promptly fall asleep in the back room Carlin and Ben get pastries across the street and continue on. I sleep for maybe 30 minutes and wake up feeling great, then step outside to bathe in the warm sun. The sweetest sunlight in the world is the sunlight just after dawn on a brevet; there is nothing quite like it. You get to personally experience and understand that the sun is the source of all life on earth.
Onwards to Brest, and pretty soon we hit our first glimpse of the bridge, port and Atlantic. Then we are on the bridge; a place for a quick celebration of how far we've come. Last time I was crying uncontrollably (with joy) on the bridge while Gabe awkwardly was like, I'll give you a minute. This time, no crying but I'm still feeling emotional to be halfway done. Alina snaps pictures of Irving and I and then Alex rolls by on the Taggart Cycles he built (btw Alex wrote an excellent ride report, you should read it), so the four of us pose for a picture (funny since the four of us never rode together). On the trafficky run in to the Brest control, I slam on the brakes and skid to avoid a car; a good reminder to keep on my toes and stay alert.
At the Brest control, "the food... is excellent" as Dan B. puts it, sarcastically. Ice cold soup. Irving repeats this phrase to himself and giggles for the whole rest of the ride.
Carlin, Irving, Ben and I ride out of Brest together, and chat on the road with the Seattle crew of Kate, Jeff, Andy and Vinnie. Love seeing all the Seattle and San Francisco riders together, it's a nice morale boost. We’re the ones doing rando cosplay in our wool jerseys and constructer bikes with waxed canvas bags.
In Sizun, John French and I share a box of Snickers ice cream bars. Ice cream has been sorely lacking up to this point. I also buy little kid applesauce packets, which are like nature's GU shots. Easy to eat while riding.
My group has started to spread out on the road, as is natural after 600k; it gets harder and harder to match your pace with anyone else, and if your legs feel good, you have to keep moving. Carlin is dealing with knee pain and I feel really bad for him. Kate and I end up pacing well together, and she gives me a pecan butter packet. Definitely saving this for a low point later in the ride. On the long climb to the Roc'h, I cheer for all the SFR riders heading into Brest - Rob, Metin, Jerry. At the very top I run into Shawn and he pulls over to give me a hug and chat Such a morale boost. He crashed due to another riders' error and is DNF'ing, but stoked to hang with Deb in Paris. Seeing on IG how Shawn vibes on Paris was a great part of the trip - wish I had hung out more with the vegan punx!
Time flies by on the highway to Carhaix with Kate taking big pulls, and before you know it we're back in Pudding Town. She splits off to find her Seattle crew, and I head off to Loudeac. Ben and I run into Dan B. and he has us cracking up telling the story of how Eric tried to do a burger eating challenge in the middle of Gamblers 1000k, and was only saved by the fact that the power randomly went out. Dan has a great handle on the humorous/absurd side of randonneuring, which I was able to enjoy much more in PBP this time versus 2015 when it all seemed so serious. I roll into Loudeac with Ben at 9:16pm, 1 minute ahead of our schedule which has us arriving at 9:17pm. Not too shabby, Kevin F. would be proud - I learned my scheduling from him on a 400k workers ride in 2015. We did apprx 330k in 21hrs since we last left. Shower and sleep for 3 hours or so, then back on the road at 2:17am.
Total rando blackout until we group up with the Rando Royalty in the morning on Wednesday. Mark Thomas, Cap'n John, and Vinne have an unthinkable number of 1200k's between them, and it was a pleasure to cruise in their mellow group into Fougeres (like, "no pressure, it's just another ride" vibes). We break off in Fougeres and I have a minor meltdown when the falafel place I went to in 2015 with Gabe is closed. Arrg, I wanted that falafel. We go off course to a grocery store that's playing "Everybody Hurts" by R.E.M. Too close to home 😖. All the food there is crap except I buy a jar of cornichons. A well-meaning French guy keeps trying to give us water outside, but all our bottles are full. He insists, so I let him fill my one bottle that's 1/2 full. Then he keeps insisting to fill other bottles, and it's like, Back Off Man. Thank You But We Need To Go. We head over to the control having wasted a bunch of time, and still needing to do stuff there. God damnit, I'm really seething at this point while rolling out my IT band with the foam ball I brought. Left knee is really starting to get sore. We chat with a nice younger randonneur from upstate NY while I angrily eat a chocolate pot-de-creme, then hit the road.
I need to ride by myself for a bit, to cool off and listen to music. Once I'm by myself, I wonder why I got so frustrated? Probably just fatigue. I feel great again almost immediately when I'm by myself, and enjoying riding my bike in France.
A huge peloton of about 25 led by a group of strong Austrians rolls by. I jump on the back, and spend a while watching the insanity. Sleep-deprived riders with questionable pack skills riding 4 abreast on open roads at 18+ mph, passing other riders who are going more like 10mph. Some of whom are riding right on the centerline, for some reason. I'm certain someone is going to die, but I can't look away. Too much entertainment value, plus the miles are flying by again. I roll by Andy and Jeff and chat with them. One rider gets a flat on a descent and pulls off left across traffic to the opposite side of the road. OK, that's enough for me, I drop back.
Soon enough Nate (bicipunk) and Jeremy (gallusdude) from Colorado roll-up on me. "I know you from the internet!" Super fun talking with them and Nate is visibly having a blast, riding so strong and blissed out on the PBP feels. Makes me happy. Eventually I have to let them go, they're too fast for me and they have places to go.
Then Carlin appears out of nowhere, which is really surprising since he was riding so slowly due to his knee injury. "It only feels good if I'm riding really hard, and surging a lot in a paceline" 😂 Well, whatever works, and I'm really happy he's having fun again. We ride that high straight onto a god-like Japanese paceline led by a guy and girl who are just unbelievably strong 900+ kms deep into the ride. I keep thinking I'm going to have to drop off, but oh man, my legs feel ridiculously strong too all of a sudden. All the training throughtout the year, all the rando experience, it comes together and I just ride the wave. Absolute exhilaration and total flow all the way into Villanes-la-Juhel. We rush through the crowds, then thank the Japanese couple. "Oh my god, that was amazing!! Thank you!" Other riders come up to thank them as well. Carlin and I even get a picture with them.
OK, back to business. We grab quick food and roll using my ball on the grass while chatting with Kevin Salyer. He tells us about Jack H.'s ride - damn, seems crazy but ask Jack if you're curious. Kevin looks like he's having a great ride - smiling and basking in the Villanes glow. We roll out of town and get the air topped off for our latex tubes (which actually seem to make a difference in comfort and speed, by the way). 55psi for me and 60 for Carlin.
The pace calms down on the way to Mortagne, and Carlin and I both have sore knees. We arrive in Mortagne at 10:38pm, having ridden ~310k in 20hrs. In Mortagne, we grab food and head to the Airbnb. A very old building in town on course. We read the instructions: "Key is hidden behind the shutters." Ok, first set of shutters. No key. Second set, phew here it is. We start trying to open the door. The key can rotate about 960 degrees in the lock, and the handle goes both up and down. WTF! We are rotating the key and jiggling the handle like crazy, but no luck. Carlin comments that it's like some sort of sick experiment where they make you do logic puzzles after physical exertion. And add in sleep deprivation... Some drunk teenagers come down the street and I desperately ask them for help. "Nous ne pouvons pas utiliser la clé parce que nous sommes des Etats Unis..." I say. They reply: "OH DES ETATS UNIS? COOOOL...." 😎 They go to work on the door. In french, they're like, "damn, this door is really old". But they finally get it open Thanks kids! Carlin and I are flooded with relief, and rush insde. Very strange old place, with odd lack of furniture and a creepy prominent blackface sculpture. I shower and hit the sack. I think I get about 3 hours of sleep? Alarm at 2:30am, roll out at 3am. Oof. But only 120k to go.
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jack holmgren
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Greg Merritt
> Dan has a great handle on the humorous/absurd side of randonneuring,I totally agree, but in this case isn't rando stories that involve Marshall Erickson kind of low hanging absurdist fruit?
Greg Merritt
On Tuesday, September 10, 2019 at 9:02:18 AM UTC-7, jack holmgren wrote:
And others will try at 70...at least!Excuse typos, sent from my mobile.
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Mark Thomas
I won't add a write-up of the ride to this string. While my memories of it are vivid, in its aftermath I'm incapable of assembling them in any cogent temporal or geographic order. That might require a second go, and that will depend on how well I can ride at sixty-seven.I do, however, feel compelled to discuss three topics. First,WizardryI didn't use electronic navigation, but depended on Rob's assurance that I would always find an arrow or a set of tail lights ahead to guide me. This meant that sometimes at night I actually slowed down to keep a tail light ahead until -- after a curve or on an uphill, say -- I could see another farther out and take off after it.On the third night I was flying down a long, non-technical descent and was apparently more comfortable descending in the dark than any of the riders ahead, because I was soon by all of them. Even though I could no longer see tail lights, I wasn't about to waste a good downhill, and so, seeing no opportunity for a turn, kept going.Eventually I found myself in a sleeping village. Unlike in any other village at this stage of the ride, there were no bodies wrapped in space blankets in doorways or bus shelters. At the far end of the village I came to an intersection that would have had to be marked with an arrow, but saw none. I pulled out my spare light and shined it on every available surrounding surface: Nothing.I turned and crawled back up the hill, and after a while saw a line of red lights and reflective vests climbing left, to my right. I joined them.Through my own stupidity my Garmin had died much earlier, but I had tried to record the rest of the ride on my phone. To my surprise, after the end I found that I had succeeded. There in the record was the spur that represented my descent into the village, and there was the name of the village: Le Mage, or The Wizard.I understood then how the turn had been hidden from me, and I felt lucky to have escaped further mischief.Which brings me to the second topic,The Mobility of CastlesSomeplace on the outbound leg -- after Loudéac, I believe, but I won't swear to it -- I passed in the night a castle on one side of the road. It was not the famous fortress at Fougères, but some other. France has a few.On the return leg, again in the night, the same castle was on the opposite side of the road.It is scarcely credible that I was so ride-addled at that point that I couldn't tell left from right.Nor is it quite credible that French workers, although consistently rated among the most productive on the planet, would during the vacances have accomplished the move.Having demonstrated the operation of wizardry on the ride, I am personally clear on how the castle was moved.The third topic is perhaps not entirely unrelated.SausageI won't dwell here on the great Basque boudin noir I had in Paris or on my first acquaintance with andouillette in St. Quentin-en-Yvelines, because these aren't closely linked to the ride.Instead, I will recall the baguette filled with three merguez sausages they were serving in the rain in the little courtyard across from the bike check the day before its start. Nowhere in my three weeks in France did I see a charcoal briquet. In the courtyard they had a pile of thick branches blazing, and from the pile they would from time to time shovel coals into a brazier, and that was how they grilled. The result was wonderful. Would that it had been available in place of the ubiquitous jambon et beurre throughout.
Then someplace on the return leg -- Mortagne-au-Perche? It was just a food stop and not a contrôle, as I recall -- there was on the one hand boeuf bourguignon, which at the moment seemed a little much, and on the other a galette bourguignonne that was like a triple-sized version of plogues or ployes, the Acadian buckwheat crêpes my beloved grandmère used to make, and a sausage -- I never got the name -- that had emerged from the same branches-then-coals process. The sausage went onto the galette, was slathered in hot Dijon mustard, wrapped up, and ... wizardry.
As a postscript, I think it was in Villaines-la-Juhel that I parked my bike, turned around to find a microphone in my face, and found I was being interviewed in French for the entire crowd.Je suis vieux et je suis lent, I told them.But I got it done.Michael T.
On Mon, Sep 9, 2019 at 9:27 AM Rob Hawks <rob....@gmail.com> wrote:
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Craig Hill
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