Paris-Brest-Paris 2023 Ride Report
Sunday evening found me in Rambouillet lined up in the J group. The journey to Paris had seen no major problems. We rolled out, and my main objective was not to have a crash in the general chaos of the first few hundred kms. Later, I heard of a several crashes, but apart from one sketchy braking situation I got through to the first control at Villaines-la-Juhel unscathed. The control was chaos, and I left as soon as I could. By chance I met riders I had gotten to know on the qualifying brevets and rode on through the night to Fougeres, arriving there at 8am.
Riding that day would be very hard: the hills, heat and the huge distance ahead dampened my spirits immensely. I arrived at Tintineac very hot and angry, thinking I’d go to Loudeac and quit. The control was loud, hot, and rammed. I forced myself back out on the road toward Loudeac. The hills and heat were terrible, I was very glad for the stands set up by locals on the side of the road.
At Loudeac I wanted to quit. I’d booked a hotel there, so I thought I would sleep in the hotel and somehow get back to Paris over the next couple of days. I had an early dinner at the control and went to the hotel, which was pretty nice. I took a shower and fell asleep for 3 hours, waking around 9pm unexpectedly motivated. I decided to ride the night through to Brest.
The night ride to Brest was very nice. I had coffee and crepe by the side of the road multiple times. The locals were out in force, which was a beautiful thing to see. The Carhaix control was packed to the gills with cyclists sleeping on the cardboard covered floor. I had an efficient stop. There was some sort of col we went up, and going down it as the sun came up with many other riders was a great experience. The last bit into Brest took a long time — I remember stopping at a coffee tent set up by some aunties at a round-about and being very happy.
The Brest control was efficient, the way back to Loudeac was also nice. I got some tomatoes handed to me. I started chatting to people and met an american mechanic living in South Korea and tried to hang on to a Canadian rider’s wheel, which made me blow up 5km before Loudeac. I still ended up having a nice conversation over dinner with her at the control, then went to the hotel and slept 9 hours.
The last day was the most difficult. I left Loudeac at 8am. On the road I met Grishin from India, who warned me about trains and asked me if I was a republican or a democrat. We stopped at a supermarket and bought pickles against the heat, which at first worked out great. I distinctly remember the staff immediately opening a new register at the supermarket for me, and an older woman talking to us about the event. I am amazed at the public support for PBP. Climbing out of Fougeres, three boys refilled my water bottles and it was one of the purest human interactions I’ve had all year. I was faster than Grishin and soon met Nora from Malaysia and Steffen from Inzell. It was nice riding with them. At Villaines-la-Juhel night began, and having slept the night before and hence still having ‘power’ as Steffen put it, I left him and Nora to nap at the control. I had, however, developed stomach problems from eating too many pickles. Night riding and stomach problems together with the relentless hills was very tough. I stopped at a kebab place in a big town, used the bathroom and ate some fries for ballast. The kebab shop owner trying to close for the night was overwhelmed, everything except fries was long sold out and hordes of cyclists were either demanding food or asleep in his shop.
The hills on the way to Montaigne au perche were agony. People passed me continuously and there were fast and curvy descents. I saw a terrible crash: an Italian had fallen asleep in a group passing me on a descent and I saw him ride into the ditch cursing wildly. I don’t know how many people he took out, the group had stopped to assess the damage so I rode onwards to Montaigne au perche, arriving around 3am.
After 2 coffees, 2 flans, a bathroom break and a micronap I left Montaigne au perche. The hills were nightmarish, I was being passed by other riders constantly. As the sun came up things got better, but I got irrationally worried about my arrival time. I pushed on past roadside coffee even though I didn’t have enough food with me. On the verge of bonking, I asked a stopped rider if she had extra food and she very kindly gave me 2 granola bars which allowed me to roll onwards and into Dreux.
At Dreux I had breakfast with a nice fellow from Bristol who told me Adam Watkins had chickenpox, a foreshadowing of the YouTube drama that would unfold later. Noticing I had 44km to cycle in less than three hours, I irrationally abandoned my bags in the woods and made a sprint towards Rambouillet. I blew up 5km before the finish but with enough time to make it in the 90h limit. At the finish I met Nick from Connecticut, with whom I had ridden several of the qualifying Brevets.
In its darker moments, PBP for me was a bit like entering the painting “the triumph of death” by Pieter Breugel. The myriad of problems plaguing the riders, like the skeletons of death in the painting, were never far away. I saw cyclists asleep in precarious spots on the road, bad crashes, sufferers of electrolyte imbalance brought on by the brutal heat, and a fellow standing by the side of the road at 4am clutching his broken derailleur hanger in horror. But in the end, it seemed the ~8000 riders from around the world became brothers and sisters, sharing a camaraderie also seen in the subjects of Breugel’s paintings in the face of the ride’s difficulties.
Today, it seems that the general consensus is if an individual is deemed worthy, any problem they face is in principle conquerable through technology. In this context, I feel the cameraderie in the face of hardship central to PBP is increasingly lost. I will be forever grateful to PBP and the locals along the route for over 100 years of inter-generational celebration of this camaraderie (“fraternite”) with the international community. I hope PBP endures forever and I hope to back in 4 years.
