Paris - Brest - Paris

rodgers73

Although it is 3 years away, I've been thinking about this event and I wondered how easy it is to get an entry? Has anyone here ridden it? Did it take a lot of fingers-crossed to get a place or is there no problem getting in?

Just wondering as it's my favourite cycling daydream lately.

Bobbinogs

The YACF site is great for audax specific things if you haven't come across it yet. If you look down the first page you will see a whole section on PBP that covers pretty much everything:

http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=1201.0

This is their PBP overview link, which will give you enough reading material until the event itself! :

http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic ... sg511355.0

Might also be worth sending marcusjb a PM as I am sure he did it last time around and even wrote a really nice blog of the whole experience.

Cleat Eastwood

Some people off here did it last year - Vorsprung i think it was - i've just done a search and came up with these for you

viewtopic.php?f=40007&t=12798690&p=17177597&hilit=paris+brest+paris#p17177597

http://marcusjb.wordpress.com/2011/09/0 ... ectations/

so it looks liek its vorsprung and marcusjb


check out this thread too, has some info about PBP

viewtopic.php?f=40020&t=12794087&p=17130116&hilit=paris+brest+paris#p17130116

rodgers73

Cheers guys - plenty to digest there!

marcusjb

I see Cleat Eastwood linked to my blog on riding my first PBP last year - so there's a lot of my thoughts there.

Is it easy to get an entry? No-one knows what the pre-registration requirements will be next time (this time, you could register early if you had a 1000+km ride in the previous year, then a bit later if you had a 600km, bit later if you had a 400 etc.).

In the end the whole event was undersubscribed (they'd managed to expand the entry maximum to 6000 riders, but in the end there was just over 5000 - I guess the economic situation makes it harder to commit to flying over to Europe etc. for many entrants). So there were no issues getting a place. The UK traditionally gets a large quota available anyway - it has a large number of entrants with a very high finish rate.

Other than that - everyone needs to qualify by doing an SR (200, 300, 400 and 600) in the PBP season - so things really kick off in January 2015 for that.

If you can't wait three years - there's LEL (London-Edinburgh-London) next year - I'm planning to ride it (first time) - it's quite a bit smaller than PBP (about 5-600 riders?), slightly longer at 1400km, and you won't get people along the way cheering you on like on PBP!

PBP is the best thing I have ever done on a bike and I can only ever recommend it to others - it was amazing. Not saying it was easy or anything, but the cheering crowds and welcomes from everyone along the route makes every turn of the pedal that little bit less challenging!

rodgers73

Yes, PBP appeals over LEL due to the numbers involved and the crowd support. I'd find UK roads and the general indifference of drivers and locals too depressing to want to do that event.

I love the glamour of the more "historic" feel of PBP too!

spanielsson

I'm keen to ride the next P-B-P, something about the insane idea of riding such distance as one ride is right up my street!

I'll be reading the blog post on it this afternoon

marcusjb

rodgers73 wrote:

Yes, PBP appeals over LEL due to the numbers involved and the crowd support. I'd find UK roads and the general indifference of drivers and locals too depressing to want to do that event.

I love the glamour of the more "historic" feel of PBP too!

PBP is full of glamour - sleeping in dormitories with dozens of smelly, snoring, farting cyclists, realising that you smell like you've been rolling about in a rugby team's used jockstraps, sitting their trying to spoon food into your mouth, dribbling it everywhere, being unable to speak, getting to the point where all shyness disappears (applying arse cream in front of a crowd of enthusiastic French supporters and it not feeling at all embarrassing). The glamour just never ends!

But I can understand your thoughts on LEL - I have some worries about these things (people say it's much more self-contained - a little bubble - no-one along the route knows about it (unlike PBP where they all know about it, come out and cheer for you, bake you cakes, give you water etc.), all the controls are manned by other audax riders (and friends/family) rather than the locals etc.). Still - I have to ride it once I feel, just so I know for myself.

vorsprung

I've ridden LEL and PBP. PBP is by far the better experience.

On PBP every village you ride through regardless of the time of day has a cheery person waving, children give you fruit as you go by, there are marques to celebrate the event and there are many more positive up lifting things for you at all times of the night and day. The field is huge (5,000 last time) so there is always someone to ride with. Some say "I couldn't do an audax, there are signs on Sportives" - good news - the daddy of all Audax is fully signed

LEL by comparison is best understood with this little story:

I was in a small town in the midlands somewhere. It was about 11pm. I rode up the deserted high street. I'd lost the small group I was with. The route wasn't clear so I rode back again. As I did a drunken group came out of a pub. The woman in the group laughed and pointed at me. I wondered what was so funny. "He's...he's...got a light on his head" she brayed. I turned the bike around again, deciding that I had been right about the route.

I quite enjoyed LEL in it's own way but I don't think I will do it again.

There are some articles on my blog on PBP

How to enter PBP

A short report on one day during the 2011 event

..and a load more articles