I started PBP in the third wave of 90 hour riders, at 2210 under a light drizzle of rain that turned the narrow tarmac until a slick, dark avenue of cold and danger. My legs felt weak, the crowd of 100 riders who surrounded me wore on my nerves. I kept on expecting one of them to do something stupid, go down and take out a dozen of us in the ( Read more... )

On Sunday, I rode out to Versailles, through the Bois de Boulogne, Parc St. Cloud and the Foret Fausses-Reposes, and from Versailles, made my way to the exurb of St. Quentin-en-Yvelines, to formally register for the 16th running of Paris Brest Paris. There is an unwritten tradition at registration, for all of the various clubs to coordinate their ( Read more... )

One of the features of the computer game, Civilization, is that the players have the opportunity to build various World Wonders to boost aspects of their population. Want to automatically learn the technologies of your neighbor? Build the Great Library of Alexandria. Want to increase the productivity of all of your cities across the map? Build ( Read more... )

At the registration building for Paris-Brest-Paris, there is a placard telling you where to go, as divided by nationality. Americans to tables E1 to E3. Canadians to E4. Filipinos to table E6 ... along with the Indians, Pakistanis and Malaysians ( Read more... )

It only took two days before I opted out of French food. I like French cuisine very much, but I figured that I'd get a fair amount over the next few days, and thereby had my gaze distracted by a sign promising the "exotic cuisine of Lebanon" just around the corner. The Lebanese place, unfortunately turned out to be closed for summer vacation, but ( Read more... )

I try to travel light. When I went home to Manila, baggage was a courier bag with a week of clothing and not much else. Japan had the wheelie and courier bag and that was enough to make me think that I've had it with suitcases. Travelling with a bike is not travelling light.

( Paris Day One )

apparently, there's also a fairly sizable music festival going on in the outskirts of Paris the weekend that PBP finishes; and it's totally on the way back to the city from where we finish. Bjork, Jarvis Cocker, The Arcade Fire, Faithless, MIA, UNKLE ... mmm, apparently, Mogwai goes on stage a couple of hours after the last rider gets in ( Read more... )