27 Hours Of Suck
The standard 90 hour approach to Paris-Brest-Paris is to ride 400km to Loudeac and sleep there for a bit, then ride 200km to Brest and 200km back to Loudeac to sleep again. Then, from Loudeac, one can ride to one of the intermediary controls, like Tinteniac or Villaines before pushing on to the finish at St. Quentin. On paper, this approached seemed fine. In a reality with 3000 other riders who were planning on doing the exact same thing, it practically begged for alternatives.
At Villaines, I caught up with Bruce, the stroke survivor who had ridden with me on many of the Boston brevets. Bruce wanted me to do most of PBP with him and Glen, and he planned to sleep at Carhaix, the next control after Loudeac, accepting a little more night riding to skip the congestion and crowds of Loudeac. The plan required us to ride for more than 24 hours, but if we pulled it off, it meant that we'd have shorter lines at each checkpoint and more time to sleep or relax. I called it the 27 Hours of Suck and 63 Hours of Bliss Plan, but for ease of reference, shortened it to 27 Hours Of Suck.
Another part of Bruce's plan was to have his wife, Julie, drive support for him. Julie had rented a minivan and was going to meet him at Fougeres and Carhaix, and he said that there was space in the van for Glen and I to sleep if we wanted it. I was a little leery about taking up the offer, as counterintuitively, having a support vehicle can actually make it more likely that one would abandon. One thing with brevets is that the organizers are perfectly happy to let riders abandon, but won't do anything to help them get home. They make it intentionally difficult to quit to encourage riders to push on, but if one has a support vehicle then this morbid incentive vanishes.
Still, mired as we were in ten hours of rain, the prospect of a warm sleep spot seemed awfully tempting, so I set out with Bruce and Glen from Villaines. We hadn't gone far before I realized that my second bottle of Sustained Energy had gone sour fairly quickly, and I feared that perhaps the entire bottle was tainted. There are amino acids in Sustained Energy that, in their first hour or so, work with the whey protein to give a rider steady energy. Over time, however, the amino acids form cultures that can cause the solution to go sour and cause intestinal pain in the rider. While I had a toothbrushing that I was using to scrub the bottles clean between changes, I suspected that I might have missed a few nooks that were leading to accelerated spoiling. So, dumping the bottle again, I figured that I'd have to switch back to "real food" which, in this case, meant French pastries and baguette sandwiches. I've had to make harder decisions.
Originally, when we discussed the 27 Hours of Suck, the presumption was that we would be holding a 13 mph average across the course. 13 seemed reasonable and was comparable to our speeds so far this season, but what we had not factored in were delays at the controls and the need to stop on the route. Glen was constantly fighting off sleep deprivation and needed to nap. Without a lot of food that I could take on my bike, I had to stop off at a restaurant between Villaines and Fougeres for lunch. By the time, I had arrived at Fougeres, it was well into mid afternoon and Glen and Bruce, along with Jake and Emily were ready to take off to Tinteniac. I would just have to catch up.
Before leaving, however, I dropped off my Sustained Energy packets with Julie in her minivan. While I was still a little leery about using the support van, and while I held on to all of my sleeping gear in case I wanted to sleep in Loudeac instead of Carhaix. I figured that there wasn't much harm in offloading supplies that had now become dead weight.
On the way to Tinteniac, I passed another patisserie and stopped off here briefly for some food to take with me. Chocolate croissants, I came to realize, fit perfectly in the pockets of a bike jersey, and when they were being sold for less than a euro each, it seemed like a fine idea to buy six and just stuff them in my jersey pockets. In that way, I suppose there weren't much difference from Clif Bars. Just, you know, a hell of a lot tastier. The patisserie was also the first on the route where I found a Paris-Brest, an almond and praline eclair made in the shape of a bicycle wheel, concocted by an enterprising baker in the early years of the ride.
I was munching on the remainders of the Paris-Brest when I heard a girl behind me call out, "mind if I hold on to your wheel? You look like you're putting on a good pace."
I said that was fine and that by asking, at least she was polite about it, most other folks wouldn't even bother with asking permission. I wiped a bit of smeared praline cream from the corner of my mouth and apologized about my shoddy table manners. She laughed and said that was fine, all things considered. Thus started a relatively pleasant 30 minute ride with a stranger from Minnesota who was also a first time PBP rider and had a dozen stories to share about road trips across the Great Plains. The rain had held off by then and this entire affair was beginning to feel like fun.
I arrived in Tinteniac in the early evening and reunited with Bruce, Glen, Jake and Emily. However, we were a little slow getting through the checkpoint, and the sun was setting as we headed out to Loudeac. The dimming light reminded me us how far we were falling behind on our schedule. The 27 Hours of Suck were starting to sound more like 30 hours, and if we were to push on to Carhaix, we wouldn't get to sleep until four or five on Wednesday morning. By that point, I'd had a total of 20 minutes of sleep since 9am on Monday. For the first time, Bruce started talking about bailing on the plan and just sleeping in Loudeac with the rest of the crowds. When he had done PBP 12 years ago, he recalled that the Loudeac-Carhaix stretch was the toughest of the lot, and he didn't look forward to doing that stage at night, with little or no sleep.
Still, we felt rather good as we set out, riding together for the first fifteen miles or so. The night had gotten chillier and I pulled off the line to put my jacket and leg warmers back on. The guys asked if I wanted them to wait, but I told them to keep on going and that I'd catch up. Little did I realize how complicated it can be to put on a jacket when you haven't had any sleep. After way too many minutes on that roadside, I figured that the guys must be a mile away by now. By this point, the 84 hour riders, who started 6 hours after us, were starting to catch up and we were being periodically passed by fast pace lines, yellow and red processions glittering in the darkness like comets in the night. While I doubted that I could hold on to their wheels for long, I hoped to use their draft to tow me up to where Bruce and the rest of them might be.
So, I waited for one of the express trains to pass me, and swallowing the last of my chocolate croissants, geared down, joined up and started flying. The Breton night flashed past, and in the distance, I'd watch the single red taillights of riders being reeled in by our five person line. However, none of those we passed out were familiar faces, and in the end I managed to make my way to Loudeac at a near dead sprint; a little earlier than I had planned but utterly drained by the experience and, still, no sign of Bruce, Emily or anyone else.
The control itself was a nightmare. Exhausted 90 and 84 hour riders were here, as well as 80 hour riders who had already been to Brest and were now returning. The crowds were insane, and the dormitories were full and desperate riders were sacked out in the middle of corridors and on cafeteria seats, trying to get what sleep they could while surrounded by the tumult of people trying to get through the control. Bruce found me after I had swiped through and waited in line for dinner, and I asked him where the others were.
"Dunno," he said testily, "they wanted to stop somewhere and I left them behind. I don't think they're going to make it. They keep on needing to sleep. They don't understand that we don't have time for that sort of thing."
"Sleep's not a luxury, Bruce. It's the difference between finishing this ride on a bike or in a stretcher."
We were all getting into dangerous territory at this point. I was already starting to micronap on my bike, and had seen others dangerously veering in to the oncoming traffic lane as they started to drift on their bikes. I wasn't going to begrudge any of my friends a 15 minute catnap if that was needed to keep them alive. But Bruce apparently didn't need as much sleep and was getting impatient with those of us who he had seen as holding him back. On that note, I asked him if he was going to Carhaix.
"Don't think so," he said, "it's too late for that, and it's best for us to take it after a few hours sleep and a little closer to daytime."
Julie was at Loudeac, thanks to an abandoned rider who could give her directions in exchange for a ride to the Loudeac train station, so we wouldn't have to take our chances with the free-for-all sleep arrangements in the cafeteria. Glen caught up to us as we were finishing dinner, and we got a shower, changed into tomorrow's clothes, then climbed into the minivan for two hours of rest. Julie had taken out a row of seats to let Glen lie down, but apologized in saying that I had to sleep upright in the center seat. I said that was fine, or at least I think I did. All I know is that I passed out pretty much as soon as I lay my head on that cushion.
420km finished. 29 hours spent. 61 hours remaining.