Paris-Brest-Paris
Discussion
The oldest event in cycling kicks off on Sunday. It runs every four years and is the top audax event on the calendar. It's 'the race you can't win' and while it's officially a 1,200km audax there are hundreds of ultradistance racers vying for the prestige of setting the fastest time. That includes Björn Lenhard who posted the record time of 42h26m at the previous edition in 2015. Here's his translated write-up of that ride.
Apidura have written a great everything you need to know about PBP. And Dotwatcher.cc is the best central resource for following the event. I'll be carrying a GPS tracker for them so you can track my progress in real time. Most riders will be tracked in and out of the controls only, which are typically 90km apart.
I'm away with the first wave of vedettes (racers) at 1600 on Sunday afternoon and I expect it to go off ridiculously quickly. I'm hoping we'll make the turn at Brest by midday the following day, despite the headwind. Hopefully I can hang on to the peloton of fully supported riders but that'll be a challenge as I try and resupply and refuel at controls.
I'm packing light for unsupported. We expect to hit some weather in Brittany and the temps will get low overnight. I'll carry minimal kit and as much food as I can squeeze into the room that's left. There's decent baguette space on my aerobars, secured with bungees.
Dotwatcher.cc will have updates and I'll be posting most frequently via Instagram stories. Maybe Twitter. And eventually a write-up via the blog. Here's my write-up of London-Edinburgh-London two years ago, which is a close match for PBP.
Any other PHers riding?
Apidura have written a great everything you need to know about PBP. And Dotwatcher.cc is the best central resource for following the event. I'll be carrying a GPS tracker for them so you can track my progress in real time. Most riders will be tracked in and out of the controls only, which are typically 90km apart.
I'm away with the first wave of vedettes (racers) at 1600 on Sunday afternoon and I expect it to go off ridiculously quickly. I'm hoping we'll make the turn at Brest by midday the following day, despite the headwind. Hopefully I can hang on to the peloton of fully supported riders but that'll be a challenge as I try and resupply and refuel at controls.
I'm packing light for unsupported. We expect to hit some weather in Brittany and the temps will get low overnight. I'll carry minimal kit and as much food as I can squeeze into the room that's left. There's decent baguette space on my aerobars, secured with bungees.
Dotwatcher.cc will have updates and I'll be posting most frequently via Instagram stories. Maybe Twitter. And eventually a write-up via the blog. Here's my write-up of London-Edinburgh-London two years ago, which is a close match for PBP.
Any other PHers riding?
No interest in putting arse to saddle for a good few days. I had a short kip last night (woke up after 5 hours anyway) and then had a couple of lazy lunches in Rambouillet before driving home this afternoon.
Was fully planning to ride through without sleep but felt my body beginning to shut down so I did take a leisurely stop at Villaines with 210km to go and bagged a meal, massage and 25 minute nap. So glad I did. The pause did me good but I also bumped into a mate who was clipping in as I rolled out and we rode the last stretch together. That was an awesome final run. We absolutely smashed ourselves to pieces.
Cannot wait to write this up. There's so many incredible moments and stories to share. For now, I'm off to bed but I'll leave you with the Strava file https://www.strava.com/activities/2639673646/overv... (with about 35 minutes of 'recovering ride' reboot time in three doses, so it's a bit shorter than full distance).
Was fully planning to ride through without sleep but felt my body beginning to shut down so I did take a leisurely stop at Villaines with 210km to go and bagged a meal, massage and 25 minute nap. So glad I did. The pause did me good but I also bumped into a mate who was clipping in as I rolled out and we rode the last stretch together. That was an awesome final run. We absolutely smashed ourselves to pieces.
Cannot wait to write this up. There's so many incredible moments and stories to share. For now, I'm off to bed but I'll leave you with the Strava file https://www.strava.com/activities/2639673646/overv... (with about 35 minutes of 'recovering ride' reboot time in three doses, so it's a bit shorter than full distance).
My Wahoo froze and needed restarting three times. Given the length of the file the recoveries took a total of 35 minutes, so I'll have missed many of the full PBP Strava segments. I'm surprised I got that one though. I bonked shortly after this. I had to go so, so deep to hang with the crew-supported climbers on the first 400. My understanding of the course was way off. It's so damn lumpy.
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