Paris-Brest-Paris: What To Do, Two Years Out
Paul G. Rozelle
The 21st edition of the quadrennial Paris-Brest-Paris is just over two years away. While that may seem like an eternity from now, in some ways it’s not. Here are some thing you can be thinking about and doing two years out:
Money. If budgeting and saving for PBP has not already begun, start now. It’s a lot of money under normal, stable circumstances, which doesn’t describe the current economic environment. Remember you’ve got to budget for currency fluctuations—$1 buys 0.90€ today, but it bought 1.00€ in 2023 and 0.70€ in 2007. All of your costs in France might be 10% less, or 30% more, depending on nothing other than the exchange rate. Did you factor inflation into your budget? Did you account for airfare volatility (I’ve paid anywhere from $800 to $1,800 for flights to Paris (CDG) under functionally the same circumstances over the years). Do you have to pay the cost of getting your bike and extra luggage there and back? Do you need to pay for a shop or mechanic to disassemble and reassemble—twice!—your bicycle for your travels? Are you planning on traveling with family or doing touristy things while you’re there? Coming up with the money to do PBP can be a significant hurdle to participation so lessen it by budgeting accurately and starting to save now.
Passport. In August 2027, will yours have at least six months remaining before expiration? If not, make a plan for renewing it well beforehand. “Well beforehand” should be at least six months at the absolute latest because it might take that long to go through the process. You don’t have to imagine drastically cut staff at the State Department and Post Office: those things are a reality now and are unlikely to change. You also don’t have to engage in a flight of fancy to understand that the government might shut down when your passport application or renewal is in the queue and that the queue gets a lot longer as a result, pushing up against your deadlines. That’s happened before. Multiple times. This is one of those things that you simply do not have a remedy for: no passport = no trip to France (or anywhere else). The absolute last thing you want to deal with in the run-up to PBP is government bureaucracy or spending your time trying to get help from your congressman or taking days off work and away from family to travel to one of the few places in the country that will issue you a passport emergently. Take care of this now.
Vacation. For those of us still working, block off whatever time you can conceive of needing or wanting to travel to PBP on your calendar now. Tell the boss that this is something that you are doing—not “planning on” or “thinking about,” but doing—and that you’re going to put in the time off for it and that you’re already starting to plan and organize your workload and schedule to ensure that it happens seamlessly and smoothly for you, your colleagues, clients/customers/whoever. If it’s on the calendar, it’ll happen. If it’s not, it won’t and someone will drop some meeting or project right in the middle of it and you’ll be behind the curve on trying to defend and take the time. PBP ’27 has been on my calendar since I got back from PBP ’23. I’ve already told people “no” when it comes to scheduling during or immediately after that time. As in, “No, I’m not agreeing to a case management schedule that has a federal civil rights trial starting September 7, 2027 (and that would have mandatory pretrial meetings and conferences when I’m going to be in France).
Changing jobs? Congratulations! When you get the offer, tell them before you accept that you’re in France for two weeks in August 2027. I’ve done this (for the Silk Road 1200 in Uzbekistan, of all things) and I’ve hired someone who did this (for a month of trekking in the Himalaya scheduled before she changed jobs). Just like the boss, hiring managers expect and appreciate people who are clear and direct about their needs.
The Home Front. You might know you’re doing PBP, but does your family, friends, and other people important in your life? Talk to them now. Share the experience with them and get them bought in and supportive of you and what you’re doing. It’s not just going to PBP, it’s qualifying for it, getting in shape, and spending some cash. These are “now” conversations and actions, not stuff to save until 2027.
The 2026 brevet season. If the ACP’s rules remain materially the same, there will be a prequalification/priority registration period which is based on the longest ACP brevet you rode in 2026. For some of us—here’s looking at you, Florida—those will be the next ACP brevets you do because the 2025 season is already over. Plan now for when and where you’re going to do those rides and make sure you’re got the money/time/training on board for them to happen successfully.
Are you even remotely considering riding PBP “for a time” or trying for Charly Miller distinction (56h40 or less)? If so, then training and preparation starts now and so do those family and work conversations. Getting in shape for a fast 1200K is a much greater time and possibly financial commitment than “just riding” (as if there was such a thing) a “normal” (what’s that?) 1200K. Are you going to have crew? Start identifying those people now so that you can work with them in the 2026 brevet season, which will be here before you know it. The amount of screwing around with your bike/fit/gear/nutrition/hydration to get things dialed in is significant and the sooner it’s underway, the less stress and anxiety you’ll have about it.
Skills development. Are you adept—meaning, can you do it when you are sore, wet, and tired?—at changing flats and tuning and adjusting a bike? If not, acquire those skills to a high degree of proficiency, which you have plenty of time to do if you start now. Learn how to correctly and confidently break down, clean, pack, and reassemble your bicycle all by yourself. Your LBS probably offers classes in all of this. Take them. If they don’t suggest that they do. Or pay a mechanic to teach you this stuff. (Do not just jump on the internet and try to learn this stuff yourself.) Learning these skills will significantly reduce your stress and anxiety, build confidence, and save you a bunch of money.
Navigation is a learned skill, too. You need to be an expert in using whatever GPS device you prefer. Meaning, you can confidently program, reprogram, load, toubleshoot, and reset it and you can do all this when you are tired, jet-lagged, nauseous, cold, and wet. You’ve got the correct map database loaded into it. You have no questions about how long it’ll run and when, where, and how you’re going to recharge it. And then, when the thing totally craps out or sprouts wings and flies off into a ditch, you can pull out a paper cue sheet and confidently read and navigate from it. It’s not enough—not even close—to load in a route that someone else created and then hit “start” and mindlessly follow the magenta line. That’s a DNF waiting to happen. Learn how to create the route yourself and follow along with a cue sheet you will never, ever, worry about getting off route again or be concerned when your electronics die.
Language. Parlez-vous? Even a few words of badly spoken French will greatly enhance your PBP experience. Invest a few minutes a day or an hour a week in learning the basics and a few key cycling phrases and in two years you’ll be a chatter box in the peloton.
Proselytize. For many, traveling and riding with others is part of the fun of randonneuring. Talk to your riding buddies—especially nonrandonneurs—about PBP and do what you can to gin up interest in it. I rode in 2015 with three guys I practiced law with. We all finished and had a blast. Two years before, none of those guys had ever done a brevet. Know some randos who only do perms or 200Ks? Your 2027 riding companions and travel mates are out there: go find them!
A bientôt!
Paul ROZELLE
jpeterd...@gmail.com
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Joshua Haley
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Samuel Thompson
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Pete Dusel
Cheng-Hong Li
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Kitty Goursolle
Mark Thomas
It is quite straightforward to get the OpenRunner routes into Ride with GPS, but (and this is a BIG “but”) that file doesn’t have cues either. There are basically three ways to get cues into the RwGPS route.One is to let RwGPS do it for you, with its autotrace features. The results are appallingly bad and in 2023 people littered RwGPS with PBP routes that were quite inaccurate and likely to get people lost.A second is to use manual trace in RwGPS to create a new route that follows the imported (no cues) route. If you do this carefully, the results can be quite good. If you trust someone’s care and attention to this process, using their RwGPS route may be minimally risky. But there is no guarantee that the route track of this route is identical to the route track downloaded from the official OpenRunner files, so errors in routing are possible.The third way is to add cues directly to the imported (no cues) route. I’ve done this by taking the official route sheet and just putting all the cues from that into the route. Or one could carefully parse the route, using street views as needed, to create a RUSA-style cue sheet with all the turns and other landmarks. Again, the product will be better or worse according to the care taken by the person who does it.
The first is to just use the (no cues) official GPS route. Your GPS unit will display a line showing the correct route and should alert you to when you are off-course. Combined with the road signage, this is a good strategy that is unlikely to take you off course by much. Many modern GPS units will also “route” to that track as you go along and provide cues for turns. The major advantage of this approach is that you are using the official track, so the line on your GPS is sure to be the correct one.The second is to find a RwGPS route with cues that you think you can trust. Know who did it (and preferably also how they did it). And don’t make assumptions from the route name. Someone can add “official” to their route name, but unless the route was created by the ACP (unlikely), there is nothing official about it. The advantage of this approach is having a route that works familiarly for those of us accustomed to RUSA-style RwGPS routes.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/randonneurs-usa/CAMRkC4La0POEcEJeC88ODYtvbGf0-SvkpZ1pxaHGZYjRiny8FA%40mail.gmail.com.
Dave Thompson
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Phillip Stern
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Gary DelNero
In 2019, I rode PBP in the 90 yr group and while I rarely rode in a group (one of my many mistakes), I never missed a turn and was almost always
within sight of other riders. The cue sheet is extensive and I never looked at it. A GPS device would have contributed nothing to a successful finish.
In 2023, I elected to try the 84 hr group to getter better sleep. It looked better on paper than it did in real life. I couldn't hang with the faster pacelines and rode much of it alone. Given the smaller group of trailing riders, I often had nobody in sight and was off the course several times for a variety of reasons. (That includes riders standing in front of an arrow at a water stop.) The extra time I spent wandering around the countryside contributed an albeit small portion to an insurmountable time deficit but also created dread about going into the third night with that possibility of going off course yet again.
My point is that if you think there's a good chance that you won't be in a group, and could be flirting with time issues that would compromise your ability get sleep or finish on time, I would recommend getting familiar with some form of GPS navigation before you go.
Gary DelNero
It is quite straightforward to get the OpenRunner routes into Ride with GPS, but (and this is a BIG “but”) that file doesn’t have cues either. There are basically three ways to get cues into the RwGPS route.One is to let RwGPS do it for you, with its autotrace features. The results are appallingly bad and in 2023 people littered RwGPS with PBP routes that were quite inaccurate and likely to get people lost.A second is to use manual trace in RwGPS to create a new route that follows the imported (no cues) route. If you do this carefully, the results can be quite good. If you trust someone’s care and attention to this process, using their RwGPS route may be minimally risky. But there is no guarantee that the route track of this route is identical to the route track downloaded from the official OpenRunner files, so errors in routing are possible.The third way is to add cues directly to the imported (no cues) route. I’ve done this by taking the official route sheet and just putting all the cues from that into the route. Or one could carefully parse the route, using street views as needed, to create a RUSA-style cue sheet with all the turns and other landmarks. Again, the product will be better or worse according to the care taken by the person who does it.
The first is to just use the (no cues) official GPS route. Your GPS unit will display a line showing the correct route and should alert you to when you are off-course. Combined with the road signage, this is a good strategy that is unlikely to take you off course by much. Many modern GPS units will also “route” to that track as you go along and provide cues for turns. The major advantage of this approach is that you are using the official track, so the line on your GPS is sure to be the correct one.The second is to find a RwGPS route with cues that you think you can trust. Know who did it (and preferably also how they did it). And don’t make assumptions from the route name. Someone can add “official” to their route name, but unless the route was created by the ACP (unlikely), there is nothing official about it. The advantage of this approach is having a route that works familiarly for those of us accustomed to RUSA-style RwGPS routes.
On May 24, 2025, at 11:45 AM, Cheng-Hong Li <chengh...@gmail.com> wrote:
The Openrunner routes can be downloaded as files of a chosen format. The files can be uploaded to other services like RWGPS, or to your GPS device. I used this approach and didn't find any problems in PBP'23. I download the per-stage files and upload them to RWGPS and then to my Garmin.
On Sat, May 24, 2025 at 10:57 AM Pete Dusel <pdu...@sprintmail.com> wrote:
Paul wrote:"Navigation is a learned skill, too. You need to be an expert inusing whatever GPS device you prefer. "
Tens of thousands have ridden PBP without a GPS, or looking at a cue sheet. The route is that well marked.The French cue sheet is a different style than US riders are used to, and takes a bit to understand and get used to.Be aware, ACP does not issue an RWGPS route. They use Open Runner, and any RWGPS route is likely one someone has transcribed, and perhaps added errors to, or didn't add enough control points and RWGPS picked a different route between control points.However, a GPS, while not really needed, is a great aid to keeping situational awareness of where you are, how far to the next control, etc.I have cue sheets from the last handful of PBPs. If there's any interest I can forward them on, or put them up on the web. In all my starts, I have yet to need to pull one out. Of course, your mileage will vary!The ACP 2023 site is still up, but it looks like most of the links are dead.
On Friday, May 23, 2025 at 10:36:55 AM UTC-4 Samuel Thompson wrote:
There is some great advice here Paul, thank you for sharing.I would also emphasise the importance of thinking about your training and preparation well in advance. Far too often I hear from people a too short period of time before a major event to be able to make a significant difference to aspects of their physical fitness which are most relevant to riding such a distance. I mention these physiological demands in the article I wrote for the Winter 2024 edition of American Randonneur on 'Preparing For Your First 1200k Brevet' (https://rusa.org/sites/default/files/2025-01/AR_Winter_2024.pdf).It is therefore never too early to start putting this into practice, whether we are talking about the purely physiological or complementary skills required to achieve a successful outcome. Putting yourself in similar situations you will come across in the real event will only build your experience and confidence, so that when PBP comes around you will not be coming across the unexpected (or at least know how to deal with the unexpected!).Bonne chance!SamuelOn Tue, 20 May 2025 at 22:25, Paul G. Rozelle <proz...@gmail.com> wrote:
The 21stedition of the quadrennial Paris-Brest-Paris is just over two years away. While that may seem like an eternity fromnow, in some ways it’s not. Here are some thing you can be thinking about and doing two years out:
Money. If budgeting and saving for PBP has notalready begun, start now. It’s a lot ofmoney under normal, stable circumstances, which doesn’t describe the currenteconomic environment. Remember you’vegot to budget for currency fluctuations—$1 buys 0.90€ today, but it bought1.00€ in 2023 and 0.70€ in 2007. All ofyour costs in France might be 10% less, or 30% more, depending on nothing otherthan the exchange rate. Did you factorinflation into your budget? Did youaccount for airfare volatility (I’ve paid anywhere from $800 to $1,800 for flightsto Paris (CDG) under functionally the same circumstances over the years). Do you have to pay the cost of getting yourbike and extra luggage there and back? Doyou need to pay for a shop or mechanic to disassemble and reassemble—twice!—yourbicycle for your travels? Are youplanning on traveling with family or doing touristy things while you’rethere? Coming up with the money to doPBP can be a significant hurdle to participation so lessen it by budgetingaccurately and starting to save now.
Passport. In August 2027, will yours have at leastsix months remaining before expiration? If not, make a plan for renewing it well beforehand. “Well beforehand” should be at least sixmonths at the absolute latest because it might take that long togo through the process. You don’t haveto imagine drastically cut staff at the State Department and Post Office: thosethings are a reality now and are unlikely to change. You also don’t have to engage in a flight offancy to understand that the government might shut down when your passportapplication or renewal is in the queue and that the queue gets a lot longer asa result, pushing up against your deadlines. That’s happened before. Multipletimes. This is one of those things thatyou simply do not have a remedy for: no passport = no trip to France (oranywhere else). The absolute last thingyou want to deal with in the run-up to PBP is government bureaucracy orspending your time trying to get help from your congressman or taking days offwork and away from family to travel to one of the few places in the countrythat will issue you a passport emergently. Take care of this now.
Vacation. For those of us still working, block off whatevertime you can conceive of needing or wanting to travel to PBP on your calendar now. Tell the boss that this is something that youare doing—not “planning on” or “thinking about,” but doing—and that you’regoing to put in the time off for it and that you’re already starting to plan andorganize your workload and schedule to ensure that it happens seamlessly andsmoothly for you, your colleagues, clients/customers/whoever. If it’s on the calendar, it’ll happen. If it’s not, it won’t and someone will dropsome meeting or project right in the middle of it and you’ll be behind thecurve on trying to defend and take the time. PBP ’27 has been on my calendar since I got back from PBP ’23. I’ve already told people “no” when it comesto scheduling during or immediately after that time. As in, “No, I’m not agreeing to a case managementschedule that has a federal civil rights trial starting September 7, 2027 (andthat would have mandatory pretrial meetings and conferences when I’m going tobe in France).
Changingjobs? Congratulations! When you get the offer, tell them before youaccept that you’re in France for two weeks in August 2027. I’ve done this (for the Silk Road 1200 inUzbekistan, of all things) and I’ve hired someone who did this (for a month of trekkingin the Himalaya scheduled before she changed jobs). Just like the boss, hiring managers expect and appreciate people whoare clear and direct about their needs.
The Home Front. You might know you’re doing PBP, but doesyour family, friends, and other people important in your life? Talk to them now. Share the experience with them and get thembought in and supportive of you and what you’re doing. It’s not just going toPBP, it’s qualifying for it, getting in shape, and spending some cash. These are “now” conversations and actions,not stuff to save until 2027.
The 2026brevet season. If the ACP’s rulesremain materially the same, there will be a prequalification/priorityregistration period which is based on the longest ACP brevet you rode in2026. For some of us—here’s looking atyou, Florida—those will be the next ACP brevets you do because the 2025 seasonis already over. Plan now for when andwhere you’re going to do those rides and make sure you’re got the money/time/trainingon board for them to happen successfully.
Are you even remotely considering riding PBP “for a time” or trying for Charly Miller distinction (56h40 or less)? If so, then training and preparation starts now and so do those family and work conversations. Getting in shape for a fast 1200K is a much greater time and possibly financial commitment than “just riding” (as if there was such a thing) a “normal” (what’s that?) 1200K. Are you going to have crew? Start identifying those people now so that you can work with them in the 2026 brevet season, which will be here before you know it. The amount of screwing around with your bike/fit/gear/nutrition/hydration to get things dialed in is significant and the sooner it’s underway, the less stress and anxiety you’ll have about it.
Skillsdevelopment. Are you adept—meaning,can you do it when you are sore, wet, and tired?—at changing flats and tuningand adjusting a bike? If not, acquirethose skills to a high degree of proficiency, which you have plenty of time todo if you start now. Learn how tocorrectly and confidently break down, clean, pack, and reassemble your bicycle allby yourself. Your LBS probably offersclasses in all of this. Take them. If they don’t suggest that they do. Or pay a mechanic to teach you this stuff. (Do not just jump on the internet andtry to learn this stuff yourself.) Learningthese skills will significantly reduce your stress and anxiety, buildconfidence, and save you a bunch of money.
Navigation is a learned skill, too. You need to be an expert inusing whatever GPS device you prefer. Meaning, you can confidently program, reprogram, load, toubleshoot, and reset it and youcan do all this when you are tired, jet-lagged, nauseous, cold, and wet. You’ve got the correct map database loadedinto it. You have no questions about howlong it’ll run and when, where, and how you’re going to recharge it. And then, when the thing totally craps out orsprouts wings and flies off into a ditch, you can pull out a paper cue sheetand confidently read and navigate from it. It’s not enough—not even close—to load in a route that someone elsecreated and then hit “start” and mindlessly follow the magenta line. That’s a DNF waiting to happen. Learn how to create the route yourself and followalong with a cue sheet you will never, ever, worry about getting off routeagain or be concerned when your electronics die.
Language. Parlez-vous? Even a few words of badly spoken French will greatly enhance your PBP experience. Invest a few minutes a day or an hour a week inlearning the basics and a few key cycling phrases and in two years you’ll be achatter box in the peloton.
Proselytize. For many, traveling and riding with others ispart of the fun of randonneuring. Talkto your riding buddies—especially nonrandonneurs—about PBP and do what you canto gin up interest in it. I rode in 2015with three guys I practiced law with. Weall finished and had a blast. Two yearsbefore, none of those guys had ever done a brevet. Know some randos who only do perms or 200Ks? Your 2027 riding companions and travel mates are out there: go find them!
A bientôt!
Paul ROZELLE
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