The 17th running of the Paris Brest Paris brevet was the culmination of an 8 month long training effort. 4 years on from my last attempt at this ride in 2007, when I DNF’d after 900k at Fougeres on the return leg, I had returned to take on this course again.
This time however rather than just attempting to finish the ride within the 90 hour time limit I was trying to finish it within the 56 hour 40 minutes required to join La Societe Charly Miller:
“One hundred years ago, Charly Miller of Chicago was the first American to ride Paris-Brest-Paris. In the second edition of PBP, in 1901, he finished an excellent fifth place in 56 hours, 40 minutes. This was an outstanding achievement for an unsupported rider, especially when one considers the poor roads and bicycles of that bygone era. Though many of his opponents at PBP had elaborate teams of pacers and helpers along the route, Miller persevered alone for three days and two nights, non-stop. While other racers with better support threw in the towel, Charly Miller had to use all his resolve to overcome a disheartening amount of punctures and a broken bicycle in order to finish. Yet, even on a hastily borrowed replacement bike obtained 350 kilometers from the end, the 26-year-old still set the fastest speed over the timed final kilometer to the finish line in Paris! Not surprisingly, his heroic performance at PBP was very much appreciated by the French cycle-racing fans of the day. Moreover, Miller’s hardy athleticism and never-say-die determination is still an excellent model for today’s randonneurs to emulate no matter what pace they choose to undertake PBP or any other long randonnée. It wouldn’t be until 1975 that another American finished PBP, and it took till 1979 for someone (the amazing Scott Dickson on his first PBP) to do it as swiftly as Charly Miller did.
To celebrate this cycling hero, a list of Americans who have equaled or surpassed Charly Miller’s time at Paris-Brest-Paris and the year(s) they did it is maintained here. It should be noted that the modern route used by the Audax Club Parisien since 1979 is definitely hillier than the one Miller rode along the N-12 in 1901. The new course, though entirely paved, also varies in length from year to year and is a little longer than the original 1196 kilometers of dirt and cobblestones that Miller cycled. On the other hand, today’s randonneurs have vastly improved sports training knowledge and nutrition, not to mention far better equipment, lighting, and clothing. Indeed, their lightweight multi-speed bikes weigh half of what Miller’s single-speed did, so any comparisons shouldn’t be taken too seriously–if at all. With several exceptions, the riders listed had personal support crews meeting them at the checkpoints, too. Nonetheless, anyone going under 56:40 at PBP richly deserves their membership in this esteemed fraternity of fast American randonneurs and randonneuses. Chapeau!”
I’d decided to attempt this following a successful Spring brevet series when I ended up being able to maintain the pace during the SIR 300k of the sub group within SIR that had been training to attempt “Charly Miller” for the past couple of years. A 25 hour 600K further cemented the possibility that this was a realistic target. I rode a strong 1200k in Colorado in July and then went into taper mode leading up to PBP itself, focussing primarily on shorter high intensity rides.
Susan and the kids stayed in Seattle this time around and supported from afar via Skype and online tracking of my arrival at controls. This had the benefit of allowing me to be well rested leading into the event as I was able to sleep when I was tired and dealing with jet lag.
The plan was for 7 of us (Robin, Greg, Bob, Alex, Bill, Ben and myself) to ride together during the ride, supported at roughly every other control by Amy and Trudy. The couple of days leading up to the ride were occupied by a couple of training rides along the first 20 miles of the route, buying supplies for the support car and last minute tweaks to the bike to make sure it was all set up correctly. The afternoon before our start time I went out to the start to see the 80 and 90 hour group starts and then went back to the hotel for a nights sleep before getting up at 3:30 am in preparation for a 5 am morning start time in the 84 hour group. This morning start worked well for a number of reasons, firstly I got a bonus nights sleep before heading out and secondly it meant we didn’t need to wait for hours in 80+ degree sun before an evening start time as the previous days groups had to do.
The start (4 am, -1 hour to the start)
Jan, Michael and Ian were going to hang with our group for as long as they could to get some time in the bank.
There was a great buzz at the stadium as we waited to head off. At around 4:45am they let us through the control and stamped our cards. We set up near the back of the first wave and at 5 am rolled out with around 500 other people in our wave (the other 84 hour starters would go out in waves space 15-30 minutes apart). Unfortunately Ian just missed getting into our wave and so wasn’t able to ride with us at all on this ride.
1st Leg (St. Quentin – Mortagne-au-Perche, 87 miles)
It was still dark as we rolled out and we stuck to our planned formation, Robin and Alex in front followed by myself and Bob, Bill and Ben and then Greg in the rear keeping an eye that we were all together. Jan and Michael were hanging on the back. Our main goal at this stage was to take advantage of the draft from all the other people in the wave and make sure we all stuck together and didn’t have any silly accidents in the first crowded portion of the ride before things would naturally spread out. We quickly found ourselves moving up towards the front of the wave and settled in near the front. As daylight struck and we moved out into the rolling hills of the countryside things had spread out enough for us to start into our rotating pacelines. We soon had a good few people hanging on behind us as we rolled along and we periodically waved some of them up to the front to do some work while we took a break. Near the end of this leg my chain dropped and wouldn’t spin back on so we had to stop briefly as I put it back on. We soon caught up to the people who had passed us and carried on.
We reached Mortagne in good time and had our first rendezvous with Amy and Trudy. This was not a timed control stop on the way out to Brest so we simply refilled our water and moved on.
2nd Leg (Mortagne-au-Perche – Villaines, 50 miles)
We made good time on this leg as well despite a few mechanical problems, my seat needed to be adjusted as it started to tip up and my light rotated around into my rear wheel and needed to be tightened. These were minor problems and quick to resolve but it was still a pain to need to stop to fix them. The few cobble stone sections had obviously loosened things up a bit on the bike. On the plus side a squeak that I had been trying to diagnose for the couple days leading up to the ride vanished as soon as we had our first bit of rain. Ben also had the first, and only, puncture of the group on this stretch. It was a good opportunity to get a bit of food in and adjust layers while he fixed it.
We got into Villaines in 7:41 hours for 222km, a good time that put us about 2 hours in the bank for our target pace. We used up a bit of this time working on Greg’s chain as it had a dodgy link which we swapped out for a master link. Unfortunately there was some confusion over wether it was a 9 or 10 speed chain and the wrong size master link was put on initially and had to be forced off. It was raining at this stage and we were glad once we got moving again.
3rd Leg (Villaines – Fougeres, 55 miles)
This was a pretty uneventful leg, riding in the rain for the most part though not that heavy. We did end up latching on to a fast group for the last stretch despite previous discussions to ride at our own pace. I think this hurt us a little later in the ride but it’s tough not to take advantage of a chance to go faster when it comes up. We ended up reaching Fougeres in 11 hours and 20 minutes for 311k which gave us about 2 1/2 hours in the bank
4th Leg (Fougeres – Tinteniac, 33 miles)
A short stretch which went by quickly enough with a quick stop at Tinteniac.
5th Leg (Tinteniac – Loudeac, 53 miles)
On this stretch we rode into a very heavy rainstorm. As the skies started to open up an industrial shed appeared on the side of the road so we made a bee line for it and huddled out of the rain as we put our rain gear on. This was Colorado strength afternoon rain which hammered down on the steel roof of the shed impressively. While we waited for it to ease up the lead group, who had started the previous afternoon, went past on their return from Brest. Chris Ragsdale was right up there at the front which was great to see.
As the rain eased up a little we headed back out, aware that we were on the clock and that we’d ridden in plenty of rainstorms in the past in Seattle. We saw a chase group about 15 minutes behind the lead group and then a handful of individual riders as we rode along.
It was on this stretch that we came across the scene of a recent accident. We were waved to slow down as we approached a large truck on the other side of the road (in the passing lane) and were told that a very bad accident had occurred as we were waved through. A glimpse of a body shape under the front wheels of the truck was enough to give the impression that a rider had been struck and was unlikely to have survived. We rode on in a somber mood as emergency response vehicles passed us racing to the scene. (We discovered after the ride that indeed an american rider had been killed here).
We arrived in Loudeac at 22:39 at night and met Amy and Trudy in the cafeteria for some hot food. They had purchased soup for us as we had requested so we could get some real food in ahead of our night of riding ahead. We were catching up to the 90 hour riders at this point so it was great to be spared using up time lining up to get food. We still ended up having a relatively long stop here.
6th Leg (Loudeac – Carhaix, 47 miles)
There was a bit more climbing on this leg and we started debating whether to get a little rest in Carhaix before heading on to Brest as we would not have any option to change clothes and rest in Brest if people were tired there. Amy and Trudy were going to stay at Carhaix and get some sleep while we did the out and back. In the end we decided to carry on without any break which was just as well as we would have probably stiffened up if we had paused here.
7th Leg (Carhaix – Brest, 58 miles)
About an hour after leaving Carhaix, around 4am, Robin was feeling very sleepy so we pulled over so he could have a 10 minute ditch nap. Everyone lay down on the pavement on a side road, spread out rear lights to warn people we were on the road, and closed our eyes for a brief break. I’m not sure how helpful this was but the alarm soon went off and we got back on our bikes.
I had got some mud in my cleat so wasn’t able to clip in immediately. By the time I was clipped in the others had headed up the road. As I was catching up a rider coming towards me drifted onto my side of the road, blinding me with their light and then hit my left shoulder and hand hard. I managed not to go down. My suspicion is they had nodded off as this would have been an 80 hour rider well into their 2nd night of riding. I looked back and checked they had stayed upright and then rode on to catch up with my group who were waiting up the road. This reinforced the importance of sticking together in our roll outs as a group in formation would be safer in this kind of situation.
We climbed over Roc Trevezel in heavy mist/fog and descended into Brest in low visibility conditions. Once we hit the control everyone kind of scattered so Bob and I headed to the canteen to get some food as had been previously discussed. We had a quick bite to eat and headed back to the bikes. Tempers were getting a bit strained as pre agreed plans were getting changed and then not clearly communicated to the whole group. Communication within the group was starting to break down as the strain of a hard effort and lack of sleep started to take its toll. By this stage we only had about an hour in the bank (which would remain the case for pretty much the rest of the ride) and were no longer looking at the likelihood of getting any sleep stop. This strain escalated as we left the control into shouting on the streets outside the control. A recurring issue with our coordination was our departures from controls with staggered roll outs and then needing to wait for people down the road unsure of what was keeping them and how long it would be. On their side they would sometimes not be aware that everyone had left. It started to work a bit better once we agreed on times for each control and then let people do whatever they wanted within that time frame and tried to roll out more as a unit.
8th Leg (Brest – Carhaix, 53 miles)
We had a steady extended climb out of Brest and Alex did a good job of repeatedly reminding the group not to go too hard on the climb. We still probably went a bit hard but conserved enough energy so that people heading the other direction would later say they were wondering if we were hurting. In fact throughout the whole ride we tried to conserve energy on the extended climbs so we could push on the rollers and flatter stretches.
It was during this stretch that we saw many fellow SIR 90 hour riders heading down the hill towards Brest, following their sleep break the previous night.
We pushed a bit on the downhill stretch and arrived at Carhaix at 11:38am to connect back up with Amy and Trudy. Most of the team took this opportunity to change their gear but I decided to wait. This was a small mistake as the next stretch wasn’t very comfortable in my shorts (I guess 700k was the limit for the same pair of wet shorts).
9th Leg (Carhaix – Loudeac, 49 miles)
I’ve no particular strong memories of this stretch. There was a fair bit of climbing and my shorts didn’t feel to comfortable but it still went quickly enough.
It was along here that we started talking more about the pace needed to complete the ride in target time. I was looking at it as just 5 more 5 hour 100ks which seemed very doable. I was feeling good and the only real wild card was how my body would react to a second night of no sleep.
We reached Loudeac and met up with our support team again for a quick restock.
10th Leg (Loudeac – Tinteniac, 53 miles)
As we left Loudeac there was another breakdown in our departure, strong emotions and a temporary fragmenting of our group. I started to assess what would need to be done if our group broke up at this stage. I was feeling pretty good and confident that I would be able to finish as planned whatever happened but was pleased when we came back together to carry on as a group.
We hit a secret control on this stretch and I had the opportunity to give one of my SIR pins to a girl about Ashley’s age who was helping out at the control. I’d been sorry that one of the necessities of going for a fast time on this ride was forgoing stopping at any of the stands that supporters and well wishers set up along the route to provide riders with water, coffee and food. It was nice to see the delight on her face as she followed me to my bike for a souvenir which I dug out of my top tube bag (after a bit of hunting).
A quick 10 minute stop at Tinteniac and we were on the road again.
11th Leg (Tinteniac – Fougeres, 33 miles)
An uneventful leg with us reaching Fougeres at 22:08, just under an hour ahead of our must leave time for the control. This was the site of my DNF from the 2007 ride and it was a great feeling to be arriving here roughly 24 hours faster than in 2007 and feeling good (rather than nauseous, cold, wet, chronically sleep deprived and unable to hold my head up due to Shermer’s neck).
12th Leg (Fougeres – Villaines, 55 miles)
We left Fougeres with another person roped in to help with the rotation. Bob, Alex, Ben and myself were positioned at the back while Robin, Greg, Bill and this rider rotated at the front. I was feeling good and didn’t really see the point of bringing in a stranger and trying to train them at night rather than just doing our own ride and bided my time at the back with Bob while we waited to see how it would play out.
The new rider’s knee started acting up at our pace and they had to drop out after a bit. Alex replaced him but then Greg and him had to drop out of the rotation as fatigue started to take it’s toll. Bob and I moved in and we made good time over the ensuing steep “rollers”. I was feeling progressively stronger as the ride continued and was surprised that sleep didn’t seem to be an issue.
Unfortunately Alex fell off the pace during this stretch. This was a real shame as he had done a great job throughout the ride, both taking extended turns at the front and being the voice of reason on ensuring we didn’t go to hard up the many hills on the route.
When we reached Villaines Ben felt he wasn’t able to keep going without a longer break for some food and rest so opted to stay at the control while we headed out. I suggested he take a half hour or so to see if he could get some warm food in and then see if he could still finish in the target time as it was still possible with the buffer we had if he could recover a bit.
13th Leg (Villaines – Mortagne, 50 miles)
The five of us who were remaining then headed out. Robin, Bill and I got a good rotation going at the front and another rider ended up joining in. Greg was having significant sleep issues along this stretch and was having a tough time staying awake and holding a steady line. We slowed quite a bit for a while debating what to do and then opted for a 5 minute ditch nap to see if that would help. I wasn’t feeling tired and seemed to be in steady state so didn’t want to risk my body deciding to shut down if I closed my eyes. Thus I kept an eye on the time as the others lay down and then let everyone know when the 5 minutes was up.
We got rolling again and Greg wanted to join the rotation. I didn’t feel he was holding a steady enough line to be safe so dropped back while he was in it. That didn’t last too long and then he dropped back to the rear of the group again. It started to get light as we approached Mortagne and everyone who had been feeling sleepy noticeably improved. It’s amazing what the arrival of daylight will do to revive the human body. We arrived at 6:23 and had a quick stop.
14th Leg (Mortagne – Dreux, 47 miles)
This was a great stretch. It started with some steady climbing in the woods and ended with some nice fast pacelines for the last 20 miles or so. We had been catching various 80 hour starters as we’d been going along who were strong riders who had opted to get some sleep along the way. One guy got on the front and got the pace up to 24 mph for an extended period. Robin and I were feeling good so we kept it going once they peeled off. This ended up being our 2nd fastest leg of the ride.
We met Amy and Trudy once more at Dreux and basically knew that we had the ride in the bag bar some catastrophic failure. We also got the good news that Ben had recovered and was only about 30 minutes behind us at the last control having had the good luck to latch on to a couple of strong riders who towed him a good stretch of the way into Mortagne. I even had a chance to talk briefly with Susan as she called at this control as I waited for the others to be ready to go on. We rolled out at around 9:45 with around 4 hours to cover 40 miles.
15th Leg (Dreux – St. Quentin, 40 miles)
I was itching to hammer in the final leg but most people in the group were starting to hurt and the pace felt slow as we went along. Bill was slowing down, Robin’s knee was hurting and Bob’s neck had succumbed to Shermer’s neck so he was having a tough time holding it up.
We picked it up a bit as we got into the last 20 miles and then hit the stop and go traffic lights for the last stretch into town.
We finally finished as a group at 12:45, 55 hours and 45 minutes after we had started (and 55 minutes under our Charly Miller target time)!
Ben (below) came in around 10 minutes after us to join the celebration.
There weren’t to many people at the finish at this time compared to the crowds the next day to cheer in the bulk of the riders. Amy and Trudy, Chris and Ken were along (Chris having finished about 24 hours previously) so we had a chance to take it easy and then start replenishing our calories at the nearby food tent.
The only thing left to do was to get back on the bike to ride back to the Campanile. It was amazing how my whole body had started to stiffen up once we stopped. It was just as well we hadn’t had any extended rest stops during the ride as it would have taken quite a while to loosen up and get going again if we had.
14 hours of sleep later I headed back to the finish the next day and had the fun of cheering in the bulk of the 90 hour riders.
Final Thoughts
I was really pleased with how this 1200k went. I didn’t know how my body would deal with the second half of the ride at this pace, particularly the second night, but found that I kept feeling stronger as the ride went on. The morning start definitely helped having more sleep in the bank before the start of the ride. I only used a small amount of caffeine in gel blocks and the occasional half can of Coke and that seemed to be sufficient (combined with chewing gum thanks to a tip from Amy). I never felt even remotely as tired as I had done in 2007 or on the Cascade 1200 in 2010.
The team was not always in perfect harmony, particularly in the second half of the ride, but emotions can understandably get pretty raw under the pressure that everyone was under doing this ride. At the end of the day 6 of the 7 people in the original group completed the ride under the target time. Alex didn’t quite make it but still had a great ride. This was the culmination of a lot of hard work and organization, particularly by Robin who had led training sessions over multiple years leading up to this ride.
Amy and Trudy provided great support along the course and it made a huge difference to have them there to help us at selected controls. They were always ready to help out anyway they could and to send us on our way with encouraging words.
I feel lucky to have had the chance to ride with such a great group of people in the pursuit of this goal. Thanks Robin, Bob, Alex, Greg, Bill and Ben!
Track the frame number : 8261 (James McKee)
| Contrôle | Heure | Cumul | Intermédiaire | ||
| SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES | 22-08 04:59 | 0h00 | 0 km/h | 0h00 | 0.1 km/h |
| VILLAINES-LA-JUHEL | 22-08 12:41 | 7h41 | 28.7 km/h | 7h41 | 28.7 km/h |
| FOUGERES | 22-08 16:20 | 11h20 | 27.3 km/h | 3h38 | 24.4 km/h |
| TINTENIAC | 22-08 18:47 | 13h48 | 26.4 km/h | 2h27 | 22 km/h |
| LOUDEAC | 22-08 22:39 | 17h39 | 25.4 km/h | 3h51 | 22 km/h |
| CARHAIX-PLOUGUER | 23-08 02:58 | 21h58 | 23.9 km/h | 4h19 | 17.6 km/h |
| BREST | 23-08 07:44 | 26h45 | 23.1 km/h | 4h46 | 19.5 km/h |
| CARHAIX-PLOUGUER | 23-08 11:38 | 30h39 | 22.9 km/h | 3h54 | 21.8 km/h |
| LOUDEAC | 23-08 15:34 | 34h34 | 22.6 km/h | 3h55 | 20.2 km/h |
| TINTENIAC | 23-08 19:35 | 38h35 | 22.5 km/h | 4h01 | 21.2 km/h |
| FOUGERES | 23-08 22:08 | 41h08 | 22.4 km/h | 2h33 | 21.2 km/h |
| VILLAINES-LA-JUHEL | 24-08 02:27 | 45h27 | 22.2 km/h | 4h18 | 20.4 km/h |
| MORTAGNE-AU-PERCHE | 24-08 06:23 | 49h23 | 22.1 km/h | 3h56 | 20.6 km/h |
| DREUX | 24-08 09:27 | 52h28 | 22.2 km/h | 3h04 | 24.4 km/h |
| SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES | 24-08 12:45 | 55h45 | 22.1 km/h | 3h17 | 19.7 km/h |
| Kilomètres parcourus: 1230 | |||||
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