Stacy finished Paris-Brest-Paris in good form, still smiling and riding strong.
Chapeau!
There are two special categories that American Randonneurs can attempt to achieve. We each got one.
Stacy arrived in 89 hours 14 minutes which qualified her for La Société Adrian Hands.
My time of 55 hours and 11 minutes qualified me for La Société Charly Miller
Stacy is about an hour out from the finish with plenty of time to spare.
I (Greg) was able to finish PBP last night in 55 hours and 11 minutes. That meant I was able to achieve my goal of being able to join La Société Charly Miller.
Stacy is riding strong and is currently inbound from Brest. She is doing a much more sensible ride and will use much of the 90 hour limit to complete the ride. The slower pace allows her to sleep, and more importantly to interact with the other riders, the support volunteers and the local people along the route who come out to cheer and support the riders.
She also has time to take some great photos.
“Your biggest challenge isn’t someone else. It’s the ache in your lungs and the burning in your legs, and the voice inside you that yells “CAN’T”, but you don’t listen. You just push harder. And then you hear the voice whisper ‘can’. And you discover that the person you thought you were is no match for the one you really are.”
This summer Stacy & I will return to France to ride Paris-Brest-Paris. This will be our second time riding PBP, we rode it when it was last held in 2015.
We wrote a short blog post about our 2015 PBP experience.
First, as preparation, we will ride the 100 Cols Tour. This 4,100 km ride which includes all of the major climbs in France, has been described as the hardest bike tour in the world. And the most beautiful.
Having ridden it in 2015 we can say that the description is 100% accurate.
The 100 Cols website has a great description of the ride and instructions for those who wish to ride it.
After completing the tour, we will once again ride Paris-Brest-Paris, the world’s oldest and largest ultra-distance randonneuring event.
Paris-Brest-Paris, or PBP, is a 1200km (750 mile) ride that is held every four years and that must be completed in 90 hours or less. It is older than the Tour de France, and attracts thousands of riders from around the world.
This short video by Brooks is a great introduction to the event:
Unfortunately the date of the 600k we were hoping to ride, Terry Hutt’s “Triple Loop 600k” was the same day as Eroica California this year.
Fortunately Terry let us join him on the pre-ride the weekend before and we were able to finish qualifying for Paris-Brest-Paris by the end of March! Technically because of the way the rides are recorded we officially got credit on April 6th, but either way we were done, with the qualifying at least.
Woohoo!
Now we just need to focus on training for the rest of the spring before we head to France this summer to ride the 100 Cols tour, described as the world’s toughest and most beautiful bike tour, and Paris-Brest-Paris, the legendary ultra-endurance event.
We chose to ride Willie Hunt’s epic “Borrego Springs 400k brevet” as our third qualifying ride for PBP. We had an amazing tailwind this year for most of the ride – except for the last 20 miles or so into Borrego Springs at the finish where it was a brutal headwind.
A very enjoyable and tough ride.
The second ride in our “Super Randonneur” qualifying series was Willie Hunt’s epic Joshua Tree to Vegas 300k brevet.
This beautiful and audacious ride traverses the Mojave Desert from Joshua Tree CA to Las Vegas NV.
Conditions this year were pretty good, but it was quite cold at the start with a bit of rain and light snow in the morning.
In order to quality for the Paris-Brest-Paris 1200k Brevet riders must first complete a “Super Randonneur” series within the same calendar year as PBP.
The Super Randonneur series consists of a 200k, 300k, 400k and 600k ride that all must be completed within the time limit.
Stacy & I started our 2019 qualification with Terry Hutt’s Santa Ana River 200K brevet.
This was a fairly flat ride on familiar roads and trails, but the rain did make it a bit more difficult.
First qualifier done – Paris, here we come…
Greg and Stacy ride 