Paris Brest Paris – Long Distance Cycling
After sharing my aspirations of riding Paris Brest Paris (PBP) with some of you on a few of the rides over the last few months I thought I would take up the call from Mark for some words and give a few more details about Audax riding in general, the event and give a brief overview of the qualification process I have now completed for PBP.
Audax riding differs slightly in various countries around the world. In the UK Audax is the Long Distance Cycling association and sits somewhere between the CTC and the world of Sportives. Events are available from 35 miles right up to 600 miles or more. Brevet Populaire rides occupy the space up to about 100 miles and anything 120 miles (200km) or over comes under the title of Randonee. There is a calendar full of events and you can also ride on solo events (known as Permanents) or you can even design your own route to ride and pick up receipts along the way or submit a GPX track post ride.
One thing to note about Audax in particular is that it is non competitive. There are no times on finishing lists (other than in PBP) it is all about finishing within the time limit of the ride. In most cases an Audax would allow a maximum overall average of around 20mph and a minimum overall average of about 10mph, this includes all moving and stopped time. Each event has specific controls that need to be visited and in the UK the route taken between these controls is a free choice, you do get a suggested route sheet but you are free to divert from this if you so wish.
Paris Brest Paris is run every 4 years by the Audax Club Parisien and is one of the oldest cycling events in the world. It was first run in 1891 and although it used to be a race the professionals used to compete it is now a Randonee for everyone and they have roughly 6,500 spots available for 2015. PBP is 1,200km (around 750 miles) long and goes from just south of Versailles on the outskirts of Paris to Brest on the west coast and back. The fastest riders will complete the ride in under 50 hours while the upper time limit for this ride is 90 hours, come back after that and you will not receive your medal!
There is a qualification process for PBP which involves riding a ‘Super Randonneur’ series of 200km, 300km, 400km and 600km (120 miles, 180 miles, 250 miles and 370 miles) all of these have to be completed with in set time limits of 13.5 hours for 200km, 20 hours for 300km, 27 hours for 400km and 40 hours for 600km.
My qualification rides were made up of a 200, 300 and 400km around East Anglia and a 600km ride through Wales which is one of the ‘classic’ rides of the Audax UK calendar and is also known as Wales in a weekend.
The 200km ride in early March was a reasonably new ride which started from Great Dunmow travelled up through Essex and Suffolk and crossed into Norfolk for a turn around control at the café in Snetterton Park. We had a good day for this ride although there was a tough headwind for the 60 mile home leg. I rode this mainly with a group of Essex Policemen who are part of a collective known as ‘The Flying Helmets’ we returned to Great Dunmow after 9 hours 30 mins so a good day out and well within the 13.5 hour time limit.
The 300km ride starts at 1 minute past midnight from Manningtree after an optional curry with other riders. A couple of pints of carb loading Kingfisher and a Lamb Biryani were a good set up for the run up to Burnham Deepdale on the North Norfolk Coast. Good weather overnight and favourable wind conditions meant that we quickly hit our first control point at Barton Mills and I ended up taking 90 minutes out for some coffee and a snooze in the McDonalds near Swaffham, no luxury spared in Audax!
I got to the coast just in time for the café to open at 7:30am and after a very filling breakfast I joined up with The Flying Helmets again for the leg back to Manningtree. Once again the wind played a role on the way back and the warm temperatures quickly became cold and the rain made things quite uncomfortable on the run to Wymondham. It settled again later in the day and we ended up back in Manningtree at around 4pm so again well within the 20 hour time limit.
For the 400km ride I had arranged to ride this as part of the ‘helpers’ ride before the actual event. It meant having to double check route details along the way and report back any findings at the end. With a 27 hour time limit this is the ride distance that is often thought to be the toughest of the lot as sleep can be difficult to fit in.
The route takes you to Ixworth, Halesworth, Acle, Wells next the Sea before turning back through Barton Mills, Saffron Walden and back to Manningtree. We left Manningtree at 8am and made good time up to Wells next the Sea on the North Norfolk coast. As we headed south we ran into solid rain at about 9:30pm near Swaffham and from there all the way back to Manningtree the conditions were wet and cold. I was back in Manningtree at 6:10am the following morning so once again comfortably inside the time limit of 27 hours. Three qualifiers down, one to go.
For my final qualifier I had entered a ride that had been part of what first got me interested in the world of long distance cycling after watching a video on line. The Bryan Chapman Memorial, an Audax UK ‘Classic’ runs from Chepstow, just over the Severn River in South Wales to Menai on Angelsea in North Wales and all the way back. The big difference with this ride to others I have done is there was an awful lot of climbing involved and the climbs in Wales although not all brutally steep have a habit of going on for a long time.
I left Chepstow on Saturday morning and made very good progress north. I was on top of Llanberis Pass at 9:15pm and then at the Menai control at around 10pm. On the return leg there are some sleep facilities at a Youth Hostel near Dolgellau which I arrived at just before 4am after some pretty serious mechanical issues. A couple of the helpers on the ride fixed my bike the best they could while I was sleeping and when I got up I just had to replace the wrecked tyre and cross my fingers that my spoke would hold up. There was about 130 miles to go from here and I got on the road at about 7 am which gave me 15 hours to finish the job.
The Sunday morning started with about an hours worth of climbing before a very fast descent and then onto some ground that I could settle into more of a rhythm on. About 30 miles into the leg I heard the first spoke go, at this stage I has glad for my 36 spoke wheels and I did some roadside adjustments to true the wheel well enough to ride on, there were no more chances for a better fix so this was it, the wheel had to last.
I made it to the next 2 controls so it was only the 50 miles to the end to go, I was getting more nervous about the wheel as it would have been a real disappointment if it was to go wrong now. There was one more big climb and a couple of smaller ones to go which were now my real concern. I managed to get through all of it and the wheel never got any worse. I rolled back into the finish control in Chepstow at 20:15, 38 hours and 15 minutes after I started, nearly 2 whole hours to spare and I had got 2 hours of sleep on the way!
My Qualification for PBP is completed, time for a few days off the bike to fully recover and then I will be starting my next phase of preparation, no more real pressure now just working on a few things to be ready for the big even in August.