Paris - Brest - Paris (08/20-08/24/2007)
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| Beauvais Airport, Saturday August 18, 2007, 9:00 AM |
So, here I am. I just landed at Beauvais airport, 90 km north of Paris, one hour before another Ryainair flight arrives from Rome, with Tony and his friends. I never met any of them in person before; I am excited and slightly anxious. I pick up the carton with my bike, my duffle bag and sit around waiting for them.
 It’s easy to spot them: Tony, to make himself recognizable, is wearing his headlamp on his forehead. I would have recognized him among a million, but this simple, goofy act sets the tone of our encounter. Just like old friends, we hug and shake hands. He introduces me to Andrea and Elio (aka Cugio), we proceed to pick up their luggage (boy, they travel heavy!) and head out to the car rental place, where they have a van reservation. While Andrea arranges for the pick up, we hang around chatting and getting to know each other. They are friendly, warm and big jokers. This will make for an interesting adventure.
The van is rated for transporting 3 people, plus luggage. With a little Italian creativity and savoir-faire, we load all the gear in the back and Cugio agrees to act as a piece of luggage himself, and climbs in the back. I find out that we are actually going to pick up another friend of theirs, Piero, at Charles de Gaulle airport on the way to our hotel, so that will make for yet another extra passenger and who knows how many more pieces of luggage. I brought my GPS device and I install it on the windshield to show Andrea how to use it and understand how it gives directions. It will become Andrea’s faithful (and almost only) companion during the entire time... I agree to jump in the back with Cugio, leaving the newcomer Piero in front with Tony and Andrea. Without missing a turn, it doesn’t take long before we land in front of our hotel in St Cyr l’Ecole. There are people sitting around in the front courtyard, a group of Danish cyclists. We are loud, messy and unorganized in offloading the van - we quickly become a reason of entertainment for the Danes while we assemble our bikes and take possession of our luggage. There’s someone who has just lost something, someone else who needs to borrow a screwdriver, another who needs some tape, the borrowed screwdriver is claimed back by his rightful owner but by that time it had already changed hands 3 more times... Andrea tries to put us in line numerous times, at no avail, everybody’s doing their own thing and nobody listens to his instructions. He will soon leave with the van and wants to make sure that we know when to expect him back. He is the designated support vehicle, will be following us during the ride and provide us with assistance at control stops: cooking, carrying our drop bags, and giving us a place to rest/sleep at night. It’s a big responsibility! I let him borrow the GPS - we will have cue sheets and bright arrows to follow! It will surely help him find his way around. Andrea leaves with the van. We won’t see him again until Monday afternoon. With our bikes assembled, we proceed to check in. The 3 boys in one room. I will be sharing another room with Christine and Phil, who arrived in Paris directly from Boston a few days earlier. They will come to this hotel at some point, for now they are sight-seeing la ville des lumières. By early afternoon we are hungry and the only place we find open within walking distance is a hole-in-the-wall where we all order the same mixed salad and the same fruit salad. We are really starting to come together... It’s pretty cold here; the sky is grey, cloudy and menacing. The weather outlook is not promising for the entire week. Let’s hope the forecast is wrong.  Before it gets dark, we decide to ride our bikes to the start, just to see how far it is (for planning purposes) and to prepare ourselves for the day ahead. We will need to pick up our registration packet and we all have bike inspection scheduled. It’s a short 10 km ride. The Dream Team (Tony, Cugio and Piero) are wearing their mooh-uniforms. Really cool! I am in plain black cycling clothes. As we approach the stadium, we see an enormous amount of bikes and cyclists all over the place, people who, like us, want to check it out beforehand, who want their picture taken under the banner, plus all the cyclists staying at all nearby hotels coming and going from supermarkets, sports stores with their last purchases, and simply checking out the surroundings. The stadium Gymnase des droits de l’homme is a huge building on a wide rotary - the big banner in front of it is unmissable, and we take turns to stand under it for pictures. We also start noticing the first wacky apparati that people are planning to ride: a tricycle with regular drop-down bars and a classic Brooks saddle (with a basket mounted between the back wheels to hold stuff - plus if you ever get sleepy while riding you are not going to fall over!), a bright red suppository-shaped recumbent bike, complete with a fiberglass roof, a folding bike... not to mention the crazy contraptions to carry bags.  The one that struck me most was also the simplest: a piece of plywood (with rounded, and sanded corners, mind you) attached to the seat post, with a regular backpack screwed flat on top of it. I thought it was a nifty idea. Big groups showed up in their national uniforms. The whole thing started to sink in. I was here; I was just about to take part in something bigger than me, something new, something exciting, and definitely very, very crazy. The doubts I had all along about my physical preparedness, and my mental readiness also surfaced. But for now, I did not want to dwell on them; I was having a good time. I will confront those demons tonight, alone in my bedroom.
On the way back, I run into Larry Powers from Connecticut! I can’t believe it, we met on the 200k brevet in Westfield earlier in the season and on and off we saw each other at a few other events. With all the people around, I could not believe I would bump into someone I knew! We greeted each other cheerfully and wished a good ride to one another. Hopefully we will meet again at the start; his scheduled departure time is the same as mine. I catch up with the 3 boys and we take a small detour to go downtown. Piero needs to buy some reflective ankle straps. As we ride along, I spot two cyclists that are vaguely familiar. If you do brevets around Boston, it is hard not to come to know or hear about these two: Jake Kassen and Emily O’Brien to me embody what randonneuring is all about. I am a rookie; I look at them with amazement. I don’t know them personally, I just know of them, and I read their posts in randonneuring forums. They ride on "fixies" - fixed-gear bike that is - Tony is so intrigued that stops to chat with them. I will see them over and over again at controls during the ride, but right now I don’t know that. On the way back to the hotel Phil and Christine call saying that they just came in and are waiting at the train station. They took their bikes with them (they will be leaving them in my room), but will still be sleeping at their hotel in Paris. It’s so great to see them here; it feels like a long time since I left them behind in Boston! We decide to ride with them back to the start line, just so that they will also get into the spirit of things. Back at the hotel, new arrivals await. Tony introduces me to Piera, Pierluigi and Raimondo, whom he met at PBP in 2003. Piera and Raimondo will be riding, Pierluigi (Piera’s husband) will be their support vehicle. Later on, they will be joined by Francesco and Riccardo. Phil and Christine drop their stuff in our room then we all take the train to Versailles, just 2 stops away, to find a place to eat. It’s 9 of us sitting together around a long table in an outdoor restaurant. Apart from a few of them being long-time friends, we are all basically unknown to each other, united by a common thread, a passion, an interest, a fixation. That common denominator is what brought us here together and what makes our new friendship as warm as any time-tested one. English and Italian flow at the table, sometimes I get so confused that I start speaking Italian to Christine and English to Cugio. It’s only when they stare at me with blank looks that I stop my monologue and I start from scratch in the other language. The fact that we are in France does not help either... Dinner is so-so. It’s time to head back. We part from Phil and Christine on the train, they will continue to Paris. We get off by our hotel and decide to call it a night. Alone in my room, it’s time for me to confront my demons. I will spare the details. |
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| St Cyr l’Ecole, Sunday, August 19, 2007 |
| Everybody comes together in the breakfast room in the morning. I realize that all the customers in this hotel are randonneurs. There’s a vague feeling of camaraderie in the air, they all greet me in a friendly manner (especially the Danes we entertained the day before) and this creates a very warm ambience.
The rumors we heard earlier are confirmed. Due to bad weather, bike inspection has been postponed until the start time, so all we need to do is go to the stadium to pick up our registration packets. Francesco has arrived at the hotel, and like Piera & Co. he also has a car. We split into two groups and hitch a ride to the stadium. What welcomes us once there is a scene hard to describe. A huge indoor hall has been setup as registration check-in.  As you walk in, it’s difficult to understand where to go, so we ask around and some UK riders point us to the US desk. There are different lines for different nationalities. Of course, the UK queue was snaking very orderly around the desks. Christine and I are in the US line and when my turn comes, I get rerouted to the Italian table, since in my registration to RUSA I indicated Italian as my nationality. The Italian desk on the other hand is hard to miss: there’s not a queue in front of it, but a funnel of people elbowing each other left and right to try to get in front, of course it’s a funnel that keeps expanding on the sides and if you get caught and pushed to the middle, you’ll end up stuck there forever. I’m a pro funneler, so I steadily hold my position on the side inching forward ever so slightly but persistently. By the time I am in pole position, people who were at least 4 heads ahead of me, but stuck in the middle, are still there! As annoying as this is, there’s no way to teach an Italian how to queue up orderly, so you might as well play their game.  I quickly compare the contents of my packet with Christine’s (there was a mix-up in mine, I don’t want to end up with missing pieces) and we head out. I did not sign up for a PBP souvenir jersey - so much for my confidence in my abilities - but as everyone else, I get a souvenir water bottle.
Back to the hotel. Mission accomplished for today. We are left with a good part of the day to ourselves. Taking advantage of the 2 cars, it’s 11 of us now with Francesco and his wife Luisa, we go back to Versailles for lunch. We end up in a Spanish restaurant – a fourth language to reckon with, great! – where the service seems to take forever. I ask for a vegetarian dish and I get a big salad with anchovies, which I am happy to distribute among the other carnivores. The sky seems to open up a little here and there, but a few menacing clouds on the horizon do not promise anything good... We split in two groups after lunch. Those who want to stick around and do some sight-seeing and those, including me, who prefer to head back to the hotel and start preparing drop bags and bike panniers. We spend the rest of the afternoon organizing our stuff, splitting it into Ziploc bags, making calculations on what we will need to be self-sufficient from control to control. Tony is very calm and seems to be in command. Or maybe he is nervous but is good at concealing it. Here and there, we talk about how he sees the whole thing take place and I start making a mental image of his plan. I know that I won’t be able to ride the whole thing with them, but it’s good to know that at least I can start off with them and hopefully make it through the first night in their company. Riding alone does not bother me a bit, I am used to it, as I get dropped all the time - but it becomes a bit more worrisome at night. Phil and Christine leave their things in our room, fill up the closet with their gear and head back to Paris. For the evening, we all head back to Versailles for a quick meal at a local kebab place - where the only thing on the menu for me is a cheese sub. Oh well... all of a sudden bike food sounds very appealing. |
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| St Cyr l’Ecole, Monday, August 20, 2007 |
| I wake up abruptly: breakfast time is almost over!! I slept soundly and profoundly for about 8 hours. This is quite uncommon for me the night before a ride. I would normally freak out and not be able to fall asleep the night before... It’s a good sign. All that I kept repeating to myself over and over again must have worked, I ended up really believing it: “It’s not a race, it’s a fun (long) ride, there’s a time limit but it’s doable, I will be surrounded by lots of people in the same situation, I will meet lots of people, I am here with my new friends, I am here to prove to myself that I can do this”. I have trained as much as I could for this, I have devoted all my spare time - time that instead I could have spent with my family - to indoor spinning and outdoor riding. I traded weekends with my husband for lonely rides in all kinds of weather, turned down outings with my daughter for riding brevets all over New England and beyond. I want to do this ride, most importantly I want this ride to be OVER so that I can go back to the life I had before, so that I can spend a whole Saturday vegetating on the couch watching a Law & Order Marathon rerun without pangs of guilt because I am not out riding... I have asked a lot from my family, it’s time to give myself back to them. I don’t remember the last time that I cooked a meal for them.
Cugio and I offload our bikes from panniers and lights and go to the supermarket with empty backpacks to stock up for lunch. We don’t have bike locks so we agree that we will take turns tending our bikes. Cugio goes first and comes back with a full load. I go for a few extra items and we return to the hotel. It has stopped raining. We all enjoy an outdoor lunch sitting around a picnic table. Then it’s time to prepare our bikes and gear. I pick up a few good tips from the more expert riders, among them two that really will make the difference later. 1. No matter how waterproof your bike lights are, water will eventually seep in. Wrap them in plastic wrap, visibility won’t be impaired, but now they are totally sealed. 2. No matter how waterproof your gloves are, your hands will eventually get wet, and wet hands become cold and cold hands cannot use the brakes efficiently. Wear plastic gloves - the type you use in the kitchen - on top of your winter cycling gloves: they are waterproof AND windproof. Thanks Cugio for giving me a bright green pair! I did not carry my winter shoe covers with me, I am worried that the same principle for hands also applies to feet. I do have waterproof socks, but I think that tip #2 is still valid. My solution is to carry two little plastic bags and wrap my feet before wearing the shoes, to protect them from wind and rain. I use the thin bags that you normally find at the veggie section in any supermarket. We start worrying about Phil and Christine when they finally show up. They will have just a few hours to put everything together. I spent almost two full days loading and unloading my bike and my panniers to make sure that I have everything that I need and nothing superfluous. Am I being over-zealous? After my initial bike configuration, I go check on TCP and realize that, apart from Tony, they will ride a lot lighter than me. Not only are they faster as it is, they will also be lighter, and therefore even “fasterer”! I need to revisit my plan. I remove the handlebar pannier, which allows me to mount the lights on the handlebar and not on the fidgety T-bar extension, I attach my frame number directly to the front and manage to fit the absolute bare necessities in the back pannier only. Everything is neatly organized and divided, based on purpose, into Ziploc bags. Here’s my checklist:
Off we go then, riding the 10 extra km to the start. It’s 7:00 pm and it’s pretty chilly, but we are cheerful. As we approach the stadium, more and more cyclists join in. It’s an amazing scene. The stadium is packed, a huge crowd is gathered around. As it gets dark, our hi-viz clothes start shining in the night and flashing as cameras go off. It starts raining but it doesn’t dampen our spirits. We zoom by bike inspection, change quickly into rain clothes and head to the start line. |
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| St-Quentin, Monday August 20, 2007 10:50 PM |
| A firecracker goes off and so do we. The way out of the stadium is dangerous with so many bikes so close to one another. We follow Tony’s suggestion to take it slow, stay to the right no matter what and let people pass us on the left. It’s slightly downhill, ahead of us a stream of red lights, a snake of bright fluorescent vests. Absolute silence, except for the swish of the wheels - everything is still. It’s magic. We are just a few km into it and already we notice cyclists stopping on the side of the road, either changing clothes, checking their gears, and fixing the first flats. Oh boy, the road ahead of us is still long, how many flats will I get? Will I have any other mechanical problems? I don’t know the first thing about fixing my bike, or even finding out where the problem is if I get stuck. I start thinking that I am incompetent, definitely a bit nuts for being here, and surely clueless as to what the next 4 days will be like. The cyclists start lining up and the snake becomes a bit thinner and longer, by now we are more or less in single file and proceeding along at a steady pace. We have agreed to a specific order, with TCP leading, followed by Christine, myself and Phil closing the group. That way we will always know if anybody’s missing, and the girls will feel protected by the 4 boys. But hey, who will know if Phil gets dropped? He’s the last one in our group. Christine has an idea, and every 30 seconds she yells out his name. It’s the only sound in the night, it echoes everywhere as we pedal through deserted (and sleepy) villages. Phil? ... Phiiiil! ... Phil!!! Some villagers may still be hearing that today in their dreams. After some 50 km Phil has a minor accident with an Italian cyclist and snaps his chain as a consequence. Phil feels he should stop and help and is left behind. He reaches Tony via cell phone and Cugio and Piero ride back to go fetch him. Tony, Christine and I stay put for a while but since we were getting chilly by standing we decide to push on at a more moderate speed to give them time to catch up. We need to keep moving to avoid getting cold. It turns out that a German rider stopped and helped fix the chain, so it didn’t take them too long to catch up. Our first stop. A bakery along the road kept its doors open waiting for the cyclists to go by. It’s about 2 am by now, they are handing out coffee, water and little snacks. Inside the tiny store, there is an inflatable mattress with two kids laying on it, they are not sleeping but watching us bewildered through the window. The little girl is hugging her teddy bear. Piero, Cugio and Phil finally catch up, but Piero is upset because we didn’t wait and tries to explain that we need to stay together at all times. Someone steals my glasses. I’d like to think that someone picked them up by mistake instead, but the fact remains that I am left with no glasses. I am upset. We leave from there together but the pace gets a bit faster, they are trying to make up for lost time already. After about 100 km holding on to them, I decide to step back. This is not a pace that I can sustain over another 1100 km, I need to find my own pace, and save every ounce of energy I have for when I truly need it. No, it’s not time to burn it yet. I announce my decision and they press on. It’s only another 40 km or so to the first control, a food-only control. It rains heavily by now but having other cyclists around helps in seeing the road. |
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| Mortagne au Perche, Tuesday August 21, 2007 5:00 AM – 140 km |
| It’s pouring, and I am soaked to the bones, inside the hall I find Phil and Christine, no sign of TCP. I tell them that Andrea is waiting for us somewhere. I call him and find out that he is parked BEFORE this food stop, so the 3 of us decide to bike back a few 100 meters. We can’t seem to find him and I quickly realize that I am wasting precious time looking for the van. I bought some bars and I have plenty of water, I can get to the next control without assistance. Phil, Christine and I decide to press on, but I don’t last long with them. Their pace is a tad over mine and I let them go ahead. During my time alone, I have time to think and plan, and here’s when I come up with my strategy #1. The thought of riding 1220 km non-stop is mentally daunting, and I decide to reset my brain at every control, fooling it into believing every time that I am out for a 100 km ride. So, armed with this new certainty, I become convinced that I am just going to ride 80 km. |
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| Villaines la Juhel, Tuesday August 21, 2007 10:43 AM – 220 km |
| When daylight breaks, my strategy #2 kicks in: I am very good at fooling myself into believing that I have rested well the night before and that I’m ready to ride on. When I get to the control, I devise strategy #3: first get my brevet card (le carnet) stamped, second fill water bottles, third go to the bathroom, then eat, stretch and continue. But when I see the long line to the bathrooms I give up, after all natural bathrooms are aplenty on the roadside. I fill my bottles and get some more food. My mental checklist is all checked off, it’s time to leave. I am going for a 90 km ride now. Fun. I text Andrea, to tell him I couldn’t see the van so I am leaving and I will see him in two controls, maybe. Goodbye Villaines la Juhel, I didn’t see you but I am sure you are pretty. Fougères here I come. I feel chirpy. I don’t recall having climbed any major hill, I vaguely remember the elevation profile of each section between 2 controls as being a series of ups and downs, like the spikes from a heart rate monitor attached to a patient in fibrillation. Despite all of this, it has been pretty good so far. So I start dreading the monstrous hills ahead of me, I saw them on the chart, they must be hiding somewhere... Of course, it hasn’t stopped raining yet, but I don’t even notice it anymore. It was bothering me some during the night - especially with no glasses!!!, but now I can take it. At this point, I need to spend a few words on the road surface. Amazing. Perfect is an understatement. The French take really good care of their roads. There’s not one single pot-hole, not a single pebble or stone on the road, it looks like it had been entirely swept clean just the day before. The finish is a bit rough, but it’s perfect in wet conditions because it’s not as slippery as one would expect. Skinny tires have a pretty good grip. The few times I hold my head up to look around, the countryside is spectacular, lush green pastures with lazy cows grazing or resting. Farmland, little stone villages (they all look the same: pavé road going into the village center, the road goes up to a church that marks the mid-point, then starts descending to exit the village), I can’t tell one from the other. Each one is so tiny that with two pedal strokes you’ve already left it behind. Traffic is almost non-existent, the only people I see are the curious onlookers cheering us on: Bonne chance ! Allez madame ! Bravo ! Bonne route ! At times I feel so elated that I am moved to tears. I greet them all and I thank them all. I give passing high fives to children alongside the road, with their arms stretched out to touch me, and when I hit them they are more excited than I am. |
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| Fougères, Tuesday August 21, 2007 3:56 PM – 310 km |
| So far, so good. This is a no-assistance control for us. Andrea will be waiting in Tinténiac. The place is packed and the lines are pretty long for carnet stamping. There is a self-service restaurant and I decide that this is a good time for a sit-down meal. Amazingly, I spot two familiar faces in the crowd, Raimondo and Francesco who are riding with Piera and Riccardo. They’ve been here for a little while already. Piera is taking a quick power nap back in their assistance vehicle. We exchange a few words and they decide to keep me company while I eat. Broccoli soup, a fresh garden salad with hot baguette and juice. We sit at an empty table by the window overlooking the entrance to the control point. Riders coming and going all the times. There’s a sudden, albeit short, break in the clouds and the sun comes out. All in all I spend about 45 minutes at this control, it’s amazing how time can fly by. I cannot afford any more delays so I salute my fellow cyclists, I grab my bike, hop on and off I go. Of course, the moment I start riding, it starts raining again. Must be my bad karma. I don’t know where the others are, TCP, Phil and Christine must all be way ahead of me. |
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| Tinténiac, Tuesday August 21, 2007 7:34 PM – 364 km |
| First things first. I ride straight into this control to get my well-deserved stamp. Then proceed to spot Andrea’s van. He has mounted a pirate flag on the antenna just to stand out in the crowd of vans, cars and RVs that are parked everywhere to assist their riders. It doesn’t take me long to find it. The new rule is, he will park right AFTER a control. This will give us time to get in there, stamp our carnets, use the facilities and then move on away from the crowds to replenish, change and take a break. I had previously asked him to please buy some honey for me at the supermarket, so this time on top of the usual jelly sandwiches, I get to refill my honey flask, which will prove to be an amazing choice of food later on. Needless to say it still rains incessantly, and it’s dark again. I start losing the notion of time, I am being reassured that I am chugging along on schedule, that everything is OK. I can only make out the difference between day and night. |
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| Loudéac, Wednesday August 22, 2007 12:55 AM – 450 km |
| Soaked to the bones and a bit wobbly, I finally arrive in Loudéac where our first longer break with sleep stop. I’ve been riding for more than 24 hours by now, I think a break is well deserved. The massive gym where I get to stamp my carnet is buzzing with people coming and going. A strange odor permeates the place, a mixture of sweat, wet rubber, stinky feet and French baguettes. People are reserving a cot for a few hours, other riders decide to press on toward Brest (!!!), I move outside to spot Andrea’s van and I notice a few riders who take off in the opposite direction. They are already coming back from Brest, how’s that for a discouraging note... Back to the van, Andrea has arranged sleeping quarters for TCP and myself in the back, we waste no time in getting in and laying down. TCP waste no time in falling asleep - and start a trombone symphony in perfect sync. I start kicking left and right, doing the cat’s meow ... they stop for 2 seconds than start again where they left off. I lay awake for the next 3 hours, unable to doze off. The metal sides of the van make the noise reverberate, it’s unbearable, absolutely intolerable. Being sandwiched between them I am also unable to move. This one thing I didn’t come prepared for: sharing sleeping quarters with guys who snore like chainsaws. I quickly devise my strategy #4: never again sleep in close proximity to a bunch of tired men. We are up by 4:00am, I voice my complaints, they find it amusing. After gobbling down an excellent breakfast prepared by Andrea, by 5:00am I’m out of there, TCP linger around the van. I hear the Phil and Christine arrived a bit later and decided to sleep on the cots.
The only incident worth mentioning in this part of the route is a funny episode. I am riding along and it’s pitch black all around me, except for a distant red light that keeps appearing and disappearing in front of me. I think, oh boy, there must be a lot of ups and downs ahead of me, but as I get closer, I realize that the rider is actually swerving left and right unable to keep a straight course. He was in an out of consciousness but still riding! I am still too far away from him when I notice that he misses a left turn and continues straight, I yell but he doesn’t hear. So I decide to go off course myself and chase him down. When I get close enough, I yell out in English first, then in French to please stop, he doesn’t, instead turns around and looks at me in a daze, I tell him that he has missed a turn and to please follow me back. He gets on my tail and stays there for what seems like forever, never uttering a word. He’s Japanese. I wonder if he understood anything I said. |
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| Carhaix, Wednesday August 22, 2007 10:21 AM – 525 km |
| I don’t have much recollection on how I got to this control without getting off route, or what I did there. Clearly the stamp on my carnet proves that I did pass through. I’m in a fog, I was supposed to sleep 3 hours but was unable to, so I’ve basically been awake for 36 hours straight. I quickly leave this control and decide to press on to Brest, after all it’s only another 90 km or so. Back on the road, it doesn’t take me long to start feeling really tired. The rain has stopped temporarily, I come around a turn on top of a hill and the landscape opens up to a splendid view of the lush countryside. A low stone wall runs along the road, a perfect spot for a picnic. As I sit there eating away my sandwiches and watching the riders riding by, TCP come around the turn and greet me inviting me to join them. They don’t slow down, but I waste no time in getting on my bike again, well aware that there’s no way I could ever catch up with them.
A few of hours from Brest, I ride through one beautiful village whose name escapes me. It looks very pretty, with a wide square and a few open-air cafés, stores and a cute hotel. It may look even nicer to me than all the others simply because the sun is peeking through the clouds and for a brief moment everything seems to be more resplendent. I make a mental note of it, I want to stop here for a bit on my way back to Carhaix. There’s a long hill before the wonderful and scenic descent into Brest, I remember seeing it on the elevation map. I soon find myself riding next to a French cyclist who starts chatting away in French and tells me that he comes from this area of Normandy. He’s the president or someone high-ranked at ACP, tells me about this upcoming 12000km bike ride from Paris to Bejing next year arriving in time for the Olympics. I ask him if he’s planning to take part in it, and he says No, because in order to do such a thing one must hold down no job. His son is doing it, though, and makes more than a passing sarcastic comment on the fact that his son doesn’t work. Then he starts singing “Oh ma belle Normandie...” to me. To this day, I remember the refrain. I didn’t feel the hill and before I knew it I was on the bridge leading into Brest. |
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| Brest, Wednesday August 22, 2007 15:35 AM – 614 km |
| This is the point of return, half PBP is done - now comes the hard part. As one Italian told me while I was eating here: “Everybody makes it to Brest, but what takes you back to Paris is your head”. The faces I see around the place are no longer jolly and fresh. Most riders are tired, some of them are hard asleep on the tables, some others are stretched out under the tables. I don’t even bother finding a parking spot for my bike, I gently lay it down in the grass and take a mental note of its location to find it later. I need real food. My diet is getting more and more liquid as the ride continues, I find it harder and harder to chew bread. I settle for two huge bowls of veggie soup (I don’t even want to ask if it saw any meat as it was being prepared) and an omelet. I find TCP with the Movie Project crew who’s following Tony on his journey. They will be holding a short ceremony marking the landing of the American troops in Brest during Operation Cobra in 1944. Brest is where I make my first of possibly only two mistakes. As I’m sitting there resting next to Piero, feeling tired but otherwise OK, I feel reassured by him telling me that I can take it easy, because we’re all doing well timewise. I end up sticking around for almost 1 and a half hours, aimlessly wandering about without taking a nap. Shortly before 5:00pm I leave dead set on reaching that village before the stores close.
When I think back to that episode, I realize that I totally wasted precious time in Brest, time that I could have used in trying to get back to Carhaix earlier and going to bed sooner. After all, at this point I had been awake for 41 hours straight. By 7:00pm I’m riding through that village, the cafés are crowded and there are bicycles parked everywhere. I spot a fruit&veggie store, my mouth has been watering at the mere idea of fresh fruit. So I dash in and buy 4 tomatoes and 4 peaches. The store owner, a jolly French woman with ruby red cheeks, hands me back a whole bunch of coins as change, and I push it back to her, indicating that I don’t want it. She insists, telling me that I am owed the change. So I explain to her “que je comprends, mais la petite monnaie n’a pas de valeur et c’est du pois inutil sur mon vélo”, she gives out a hearty and loud laugh and takes the coins back. I head out to eat, and to the kids gathered around I must look like someone who had never tasted a tomato or a peach before. They stare at me from a certain distance, are they afraid or am I too stinky? I wonder... I reach into my pannier and take out the RUSA pins that I carry with me to hand out to kids on the route. It’s a tradition. I have 4 pins left, there are 5 children. I explain to them the problem and one of them after ascertaining the types of pins I have, tells me that it’s OK since he already has one RUSA pin. I am saved and all of them are happy. Across the street from the store there’s a public restroom with a very long waiting line. Thinking that I cannot afford to wait that long, I return to the fruit vendor and ask her if she perhaps could let me use her bathroom. She doesn’t have one but kindly leads me across the street into the hotel and explains my situation to the personnel there, who let me into their guest bathroom. It’s all marble floor to ceiling, spotless, with a sink as wide as a basin, no toilet stall but a real bathroom with all the amenities. I decide to take full advantage of this, getting fully undressed and basically taking a bird bath and washing all the parts of my body that I could reach. It was heaven, I felt immediately rejuvenated, I cleaned it all up as best as I could and left thanking the hotel personnel for their kindness, also secretly hoping that nobody else would need that bathroom for the next 2 to 3 hours... Back in the street, the rain was also back and I was clean and dry. No way was I going to get soggy again. I went back to the fruit store and this time I asked the lady if she could give me one plastic bag. She handed me a shopping bag and I explained that I needed a small one to make a new chaussette to wear inside my shoe and keep my foot warm. One had torn, the other was still OK. I showed her my foot wrapped in plastic and she gave out another of her loud laughs. I got my bag, wrapped my foot inside and waved good-bye to her. I think she thought I’m a little nuts. I want to come back to this place. With renewed vigor and feeling refreshed, I pushed on dead-set in getting to Carhaix in good time. |
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| Carhaix, Wednesday August 22, 2007 10:02 PM – 699 km |
| So far I’ve been adhering to my strategy #3 to the letter, and this control is no exception. As I stand in line, I bump into a jolly fellow I had briefly met on a 100-mile ride back in Boston, the CRW’s Climb to the Clouds. He recognizes me too, we exchange a high-five and we go our different ways. I spot Andrea’s van, get my quota of sandwiches and decide to keep riding in order to reach Loudéac for the second night.
I hear Piero behind me cracking a joke in Roman dialect, I laugh out loud and turn my head back slightly to make a comment, but there’s not a soul around me. I’m hallucinating. I know how it feels, I have experienced this before, but the first time I had visual hallucinations - in my rear-view mirror I had seen a peloton chasing me on the 600k - this time I was hearing things that weren’t there. I decided that it was time to take a 20-minute power nap. There was no shelter along the road, I pressed on to the next village and when I got there, the only shelters were a couple of phone booths in the square, and they were taken! In the middle of the square, someone had erected a sculpture of a horse and attached it to a wooden hay bales cart. I spread out my emergency blanket under the cart, set the alarm on my cell to 20 minutes later and laid down. It was wet and damp but I was somehow protected from the steady rain. 5 minutes went by and a group of French cyclists stopped right at the statue and started arguing about which way to go, a few thought you’d have to take a left, the others wanted to continue to the right of the statue. They did not notice me under the cart, otherwise I’m sure they would have tried to keep their voices down, but their arguments got louder and louder until I couldn’t take it anymore, I crawled out of my den and told them that the “right” way was "à droite". They looked startled, but thanked me and took off. I decided there was no point in trying to sleep for 10 minutes, so I wrapped up my foil blanket and decided to continue. What a royal waste of time that was. I met up with a Spanish guy who was riding alone. He told me that he got dropped by his friends, but that most of the riders he knew had given in because they were too cold to continue. So he was left all alone. When he realized that I could understand him quite well, our chatter turned into a very long conversation about anything and everything. He told me about the MGM back in Spain, about the brevets which are usually sunny and warm back home, we talked about nutrition, sleep deprivation, our respective countries, our families, our reasons (or lack thereof) for doing this. We spent about 4 hours together, and this was one of the most pleasant conversations I had along the route. He complimented me on my Spanish, especially after knowing that I had virtually never taken formal classes, but I am an avid reader of Spanish literature in original language. It must mean either: 1. he was too tired to notice my mistakes or 2. as I have demonstrated with German in my youth, I speak foreign languages much more fluently when I am drunk (lack of sleep shares a lot of similarities with being drunk). He was from Galicia, I never knew his name. I only know him as “el gallego”. Shortly before Loudéac there was a small but longish hill to climb, I started noticing that my heart rate monitor was detecting my heart rate as steadily declining rather than increasing despite the fact that I was exerting myself more to push up the hill. I looked at it for a while, I didn’t feel light-headed or anything, but this worried me. It kept going down, I didn’t know what it meant, but I didn’t like it. I told el gallego that I needed to stop because I was bonking, he offered me some almonds and nuts, I thanked him and said I was going to empty my honey flask in my mouth but that by no means he should wait up for me. I’d be fine. So he left. I licked my honey flask clean and in a matter of a minute or two I was ready to continue. I think honey saved the day (ehm, the night). |
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| Loudéac, Thursday August 23, 2007 04:50 AM – 775 km |
When I reached Loudéac, TCP were already there and sound asleep. Apparently Piero couldn’t stand the other two snoring so loudly, so he took up the front of the van and let them be in the back. I needed to get inside the van, I was cold, wet and my change bag was in there. I started knocking on the window. Nothing. So I knocked on the back door. Nothing. I banged on the window. Still nothing. I shook the van with all my power. Nothing. They didn’t budge. I was tired, but I only had my foil blanket with me and no dry clothes. I spread out the blanket on the sidewalk, then laid myself down in it on one side and started rolling in it. I ended up looking like a mummy tucked away against a wall, only partially sheltered from the rain by the abutting gutter that ran along the house roof.  The rain drops falling on my blanket sounded metallic, the floor was hard but I had no choice. Back in the school gym the odor was unbearable, I wasn’t going to sleep there... I must have dozed off for a while, but after a bit I woke up as my body was shivering. I couldn’t stop myself from shivering. I got up and still mummified hopped and sat down on the stairs of a nearby house. A cat was napping and made a run for his life when he saw me approach in such a menacing outfit. After another half hour of non-stop shivering, I couldn’t take it anymore, I got up and unwrapped myself, but kept the blanket over my head, whose sides started flapping in the wind - now I looked more like the Madonna with her veil. I went back to the van and knocked on the window again. This time Piero opened one eye and saw me, he quickly opened the front and I climbed in. I explained to him that I had been there for at least 2 hours unable to get in and he felt really sorry. It was no time for modesty. I got rid of my wet clothes and without having the chance to take a showers, wiped myself clean as best as I could and got into a fresh outfit. Piero didn’t care.  He could have been standing next to Claudia Schiffer naked and I’m sure he still wouldn’t have cared less. By the time all of this was done and I got warm, Andrea came back to the van announcing that it was time to wake up and get ready. Wake up from what I wondered... I told him my story, he had actually come by the van once and had seen me mummified under the gutter but thought better as to disturb me. TCP felt really mortified for what had happened, but I wasn’t angry with them. We quickly came up with a new rule that from now on my drop bag would be left underneath the van so that I could access it anytime. This proved not to be necessary, but it sounded like a good idea at the time.
Breakfast woofed down, it was time to head to Tinténiac. It seemed like I was there eons ago, but it was just one and a half days earlier, and I had no recollection of what the town looked like or where the van was parked. Because the rule was, the van would be in the same spot. I hoped that my visual memory would come to the rescue once there. Off I go then. Not long into this stretch, I ride by a bakery just opening up, whose pains au chocolat just out of the oven are way too tempting. The sweet aroma fills the air and I can’t resist. I buy 4 thinking that it’s a good idea to stock up for emergencies. They didn’t make it to Tinténiac, and I didn’t have an emergency. Along the way I meet up with Larry Powers (Agent Orange as we affectionately nicknamed him back in Boston during the brevet series - he rides a beautiful orange Rivendell and wears and orange rain jacket) and his friend Leonard Zawodniak, we ride together for a while, chatting about our children, my daughter entering her senior year in high school, the pressure of college applications... Heavy topics with 800km of riding on your shoulders. |
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| Tinténiac, Thursday August 22, 2007 11:50 AM – 860 km |
| I get my carnet stamped and proceed to locate the van. I find the spot but the van is not there. So I call Andrea and he tells me that he’s at the supermarket shopping. Did not expect me to get in so quickly. That makes me feel like a superhero. So I decide to lay down where the van is supposed to be parked, and sleep until he gets here. The grass is a bit damp but I’m not cold. I lay down and I’m out faster than you can say “nap”. I don’t know how long I slept, but when Cugio wakes me up, I find that someone had laid a sleeping bag on top of me to keep me warm. They’ve all arrived and lunch is ready. Pasta with pesto, my favorite. I can’t get enough of it, it is delicious. This is where I learn that Piero is having stomach problems and is being rescued by his daughter and girlfriend, who are also driving a support vehicle and following him along the route. Cugio gives him some heartburn pills.
I leave after lunch, ahead of the Dream Team who are waiting to see if the pills have any effect on Piero. I run into Doctor Mike, another fellow rider of the Westfield brevet series, who played an important role during a fall involving Phil and Christine back in Northampton. We ride together all the way to Fougères and along the way he tells me how he managed to complete all the qualifying brevets during the spring as he was biking from Florida to San Diego. He’s an anesthesiologist, and had taken time off from work to pursue this goal. I am very happy for him. We lose track of each other in the confusion of the control. |
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| Fougères, Thursday August 22, 2007 16:35 PM – 916 km |
| Andrea is ready with piping hot broth, sandwiches and refills. I have decided not to stick around and waste time. I feel good despite not having slept much but if I can get to Villaines la Juhel at a decent time, I have the last chance of sleeping a bit before the home stretch. I am literally in and out of that control in no time, ready to push on.
When it gets dark, the rain starts up again, and it is heavy at times, making my night vision all the more worse now that I am fatigued. The drops in front of my lights look line long silver lines flashing on and off, the country road is flanked by tall trees that kind of blend together over my head, making me feel like I’m riding through a dark tunnel. Truth is, the canopy is far from being so thick, it’s an optical illusion due to fatigue. |
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| Villaines la Juhel, Thursday August 22, 2007 22:39 PM – 1002 km |
| I arrive ahead of the others and dinner is ready. Andrea has been amazing in adapting the menu to my vegetarian diet, and I have a no-ham omelet waiting just for me. There’s also a delicious fruit salad. As the others start eating, I’m already done and ready to change into my last set of clothes. In order not to upset their digestion, I decide to move a little further into the woods to the back of the van to get undressed and while I do that I shiver so much that it makes the whole process twice as long. Back to the van, I create a den for myself in the front seat and ask Andrea to wake me up at 1:00 PM. That’s the time I figure I need to get going in order to keep my buffer of 2 hours below the time limit. Two and a half hours later, he wakes me up. My eyes do not want to open and focus, my eyelids are so heavy I need to push them up with my fingers. Andrea takes me to a nearby RV and introduces me to a bunch of Italians from Turin that he met the night before, and who will be leaving shortly. He has kindly asked them to keep an eye out for me on the road should they catch up with me during the night. I take some extra food, unload my camera since I haven’t used it once and I take off.
So far, I have had no trouble following directions, the route is very well marked both in and out. Now for the first time, I start getting confused and unsure as to where I am heading. My computer is a bit off compared to the cue sheet, and I can’t remember if it is ahead or behind the actual kilometreage. The rain is dampening my spirit a bit, the only consolation is in the fact that this is going to be the last night. I get to a turn and I’m really confused as to where I should go, so I ask a rider coming up to me if he could please tell me the distance on his computer. He turns out to be Belgian, so I repeat my question in French and he tells me not to worry and ride with him. So off I go with him into the night. He’s a very kind and talkative gentleman. All the time we stay together he calls me Señorita, and I call him Monsieur. We ride all night together, he’s having some brake issues and is very careful on the downhills, so he lets me go ahead down but every time asks me to wait for him at the bottom. Which I do. Then the conversation resumes. And I find out that he’s riding the PBP because of his two daughters. He tells me that one day one of his daughter was reading a newspaper and found an article about PBP and approached him saying: “Dad, read this, it sounds like something you could do”. He had never heard of brevets before, but always liked going on long rides alone. So he asked her: “Is this something that you’d like me to do?”. And that was it. He was sold on the idea, did the brevets and here he was, riding to please his daughters. There are million reasons why people do it, does it get any better than this? As we rode through a small village and morning was approaching, Monsieur decided that it was time for a coffee break. So we stopped in a bar, he ordered coffee for himself and for me, and then taught me how to dip bread into the cup and eat it soaked. It was delicious, and it perked me right up. I had weaned myself off of coffee 2 months before PBP, with the idea that the caffeine would kick in for real when I’d need it the most. And boy did it work! I loved it. One last push and we get into the next control. |
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| Mortagne au Perche, Friday August 23, 2007 06:06 AM – 1084 km |
| The new day breaking fills me with hopes that the end is near and that after all I might be able to complete the ride. I feel tired but fine. Only my feet hurt. They are swollen, partly from being enclosed in plastic bags for so long, unable to breath and dry properly. Andrea suggests that I should remove the insoles to slightly change the pressure points when I’m clicked in. The shoes feel immediately a little bigger and more comfortable. I remove the plastic bags and decide that I will rather have wet feet from the rain than wet feet from trapped sweat. I spend 13 minutes at this control. I lost sight of Monsieur, so I am leaving alone. I will be forever grateful to him for having spent the night with me.
Half-way through, I ride up to a peloton of Italian cyclists, hard to miss since they all wear the Italian uniform. I recognize one of them from the start of the ride and I get next to him. Soon all the others double-file behind us and leave us two in the front to lead. We keep a good pace and the rest of the pack clearly benefits from us being in front. We lead for at least one hour, unable to talk to each other while the others in the back keep yapping, and I get annoyed by the lack of camaraderie that they show by not alternating in front. So I detach myself from the group, resume a somewhat slower pace and I am alone again. |
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| Dreux, Friday August 23, 2007 10:40 AM – 1158 km |
| I have no idea where Andrea will be parked here, as we didn’t go through this place on the way out. However, the control being in a sports field, it’s not difficult to spot it. I first get my second-last stamp then proceed directly to the van to pick up some food. I make a split-second decision here. I am now almost positive that I can make it back to the start. I don’t need anything else from my pannier at this point, I have food and water with me. I take everything off my bike and get ready to leave. On hindsight, this was a mistake that could have cost me dearly. By taking off my pannier I didn’t realize at the time that I was also unloading all the necessary tools to repair my bike in case of an accident. I simply didn’t think about it, especially because so far I had been very lucky and had not even had a flat. Andrea had a secret plan. He hangs water bottles and sandwiches to the back of the van for the Dream Team, gets into cycling clothes and declares himself ready to ride a few km of PBP roads with me. So we leave together, Andrea with fresh legs and the exhilaration of riding on these roads, gladly accepting the applause from the crowds, as for myself, at this point I was probably crunched over my bike, with my eyes popping from the orbits. We must have looked like an improbable riding pair. He runs into people he knows from L’Eroica, rides a bit with them then catches up with me and rides along until I need to stop to massage my feet which at this point are cramping up. He then turns around to go back to the van, but not before complimenting me for the accomplishment, as if I were already there. Just 50 km more to go, one mama of a hill through a wooded forest, the last 10 km are brutal. Through town traffic, it’s all stop and go at traffic lights, which means unclicking and clicking my shoes every time. The pain is excruciating every time I click in, a few times I’m lucky to be able to pull up to a traffic light pole and grab it without unclicking. I get to the roundabout that leads into the final control and Phil and Christine are among the crowd cheering. They were notified of my approximate arrival time by Andrea, and were waiting for me. They unfortunately had to DNF in Brest. |
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| St-Quentin, Friday August 24, 2007 14:51 PM – 1227 km |
 When I get off my bike, I can hardly walk, I am limping and I notice that my hands are swollen on top, like two balloons ready to pop. How come I didn’t notice this before? Did it just happen? I didn’t know what to think. Christine was brave enough to come close to me and hug me, despite the odor that I am sure I was emanating by now, and walked with me to get my last stamp. I had done it. I had arrived. PBP was conquered, but I did not feel elated. I did not feel tired either. All the emotions I felt going into it, I had no emotions left for the after.  The arrival was somewhat of an anticlimax, only with time did I come to grasp the truly heroic effort that I made, that all of us made, to ride 1200 km in less than 90 hours.As I came out of the gym, riders kept pouring in, I heard someone call out "Señorita!" and I immediately recognized Monsieur’s voice. He had made it too, he was probably all the time just a little behind me, and I didn’t know. We hugged, we complimented each other and we went our separate ways. I went back to Phil still standing at the roundabout waiting for TCP to show up. They would arrive about an hour later, by which time Andrea was also back with the van. The Movie Project crew was in place to shoot Tony’s arrival. They made it too. We opened a Champagne bottle and toasted (and tasted) victory. My final time was 88:01. I had slept a total of maybe 9 hours in 3 and a half days, and spent another 10 hours off the saddle among various activities.My computer registered the following stats:
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| St Cyr l’Ecole, Friday August 24, 2007 5:00 PM |
| Back at the hotel, the first thing that I needed was a 5-hour long shower. When I got back into my room and saw myself in the mirror for the first time in 4 days, I could not believe my eyes. My face was swollen like a balloon, my eyes were just slits. I can’t even describe my hair. My hands looked like someone had baked a bun under my skin. My feet were wrinkly from being too long in the water, but also swollen out of proportion. My legs were shapeless cylinders all the way down to my ankles, which had disappeared. My face was covered with pimples that looked like white pustules, as I passed my hand over my cheeks, they felt like sandpaper. I think my body was on the brink of shutting down, everything was out of whack. I stayed in the shower for an eternity, then went to put on regular clothes and realized I couldn’t fit in my pants or in my walking shoes. We were going out for dinner and I had nothing to wear.
Things that went well:
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