Riding to extremes

The Paris Brest Paris was first held in 1931, and over August 20/24 2007, 4,000 took part., and one such person to ride the 2007 edition was Londoner Sarah Northall, (Kent DA/London Phoenix CC), a past London Cyclo Cross women's champion and regular Three Peaks entrant.

My first attempt to question Sarah about it (over breakfast at the St Germain Café at Crystal Palace), went something like this: 'What on earth made you do something crazy like this?'

About two weeks earlier Sarah had completed one of the toughest challenges a randonneur can set themselves; the Paris-Brest-Paris randonnée. The present day event is a mass ride based on the original Paris-Brest-Paris which was a stage race predating the Tour de France and then known as the hardest cycling race in the world.

Last preparations & paper work

Final bike check

All ready and rearing to go

Sarah & Gary intrepidly taking to the road to begin their momentous journey

The modern Paris-Brest-Paris randonnée is 1125k long and has to be completed in 90 hrs.

Sarah gave me a disconcerted look; "what do you mean, crazy?"

I knew I'd said the wrong thing and tried my best to make amends; 'I mean, erm, you are the only person I know who's ridden these extreme distances...' - (the longest distance I had ever ridden myself was 210k on the Paris-Roubaix, and that nearly killed me).

‘...alright, let me rephrase this - how did you arrive at your decision to ride the P-B-P?’

‘I didn't, really. Gary offered to give me lifts to the preparatory rides and so I went along.’

As inscrutable as the Sphinx, I thought, I may have to review my interviewing technique here.

Fast forward a week. Same place, same breakfast (coffee and croissant). I tried a new approach, a trip down memory lane.

‘This wasn't the first time you had done a long distance endurance ride, I remember you cycled across France and Spain, while on holiday some years back - so endurance rides were not unknown to you...’

It worked! Off she went; 'Yeah, that was about five or six years ago Cherbourg to Barcelona in nine days, about 100 miles each day. And a little while later I did the Dunwich Dynamo 200k night ride. I rode 400k though, because I rode the whole way back too '.

The Route to Endurance/Prep Rides

You get an idea what a tough sort of a person Sarah (who has successfully ridden the Three Peaks Cyclo-X a few times) must be, demanding more of herself than most! Most of the others on the Dunwich Dynamo had taken the bus back or ridden to nearest railway station. She alone was riding the 200k back home the following day, on her own, into a strong headwind, overstraining her knee in the effort. As if to mitigate this huge effort she added that she did so ‘after having a nice breakfast’.

Although some would say that this was ample proof of Sarah's ability to endure long distances in the saddle, for the the P-B-P it would not have been proof enough. Every aspiring candidate has to adhere has a strict preparatory plan in order to be admitted to the "Big One".

There are several qualifiers, specially designated Audax rides, which you must have completed by a certain date, the first being a 200k ride.The next step up the ladder is a 300k ride, then the 400k, and finally the 600k.

If you miss any of the qualifiers, you get penalised - you'll have to do the next higher distance twice instead.

Sarah didn't miss any of them, but did a 1000k event, the Paris-Strasbourg-Paris, anyway, to keep a mate (another Gary) company, who'd missed the 600k due to a broken hip. They had a bit of luck with the weather this time round - ‘it was very hot on that one and completely dry!’

Once they crept into someone's front garden for a kip under cover of darkness - it was a lovely night - and were surprised by the residents returning late from a party. Being true French cycling lovers, the nice French couple didn't get their shot gun out and tell the two trespassers to vacate their property, and set the dogs on them, but instead asked them in with the offer of coffee & saucisson sandwiches and a lift to Strasbourg - sadly this part of the offer had to be turned down.

Aren't the French totally lovely people? Picture two hapless, unfragrant cyclists here, sleeping rough in your garden on a dark and pendulous night. Would you have asked these people into you home? Be honest!

After this particular ordeal was completed, Sarah began asking around if anybody knew about any comfortable saddles, as saddle sores were beginning to become the greatest hardship faced by the endurance rider.

She tried several, including an expensive Specialized Jett women's saddle, but ended up buying a wider and more padded Specialized B gel instead. The problem with trying a new saddle is, that and pressure points often only manifest themselves after an hour or two in the saddle. (That's why I think shops should allow you to have a saddle for a trial period of several days, before you have to make a decision to buy it). I'm pretty certain though, that the saddle that will be absolutely kind to your bottom, no matter how long your sit on it, hasn't been invented yet! (After all, you can even get bed sores from lying in bed for too long).

Paris-Brest-Paris (P-B-P)
The P-B-P has been held five times in the last twenty years (every four years) and for the previous four times the weather was fine. This year, however, it was raining for two days out of three, and that made everything just that much harder.

Sarah's special equipment consisted of a bike rack with a pannier on top, containing a change of dry clothes, although the wet weather meant that a lot of the time they had to ride in damp clothes anyway. She also had a second pair of spare shorts which were following her around in a support car belonging to friends of a friend of Gary's from Paris. These kind people also ferried around the group's sleeping bags, tent and other accessories. They put up/took down their tent for them. Without their help and support life would have been a lot harder, Sarah said. Apparently a bottle of the finest Scotch is presently on it's way to Paris as a 'merci'.

Those who couldn't even call these smallest of luxuries their own had to bed down on mattresses laid out, dormitory style, in rows on village hall floors by the organisers. Mind you, the sleep stops lasted only three to four hours each night anyway, hardly worth crawling into a sleeping bag for.

Sarah's group originally consisted of a Parisian, Jean-Lou, ‘on an enviably comfortable-looking’ recumbent which he had designed an built himself (apparently the P-B-P isn't subject to UCI rules) who was at times followed closely by another Parisian (Claire) on a road bike slipstreaming in his wake, and for ‘a heavenly 60ish k’ by Sarah and Gary. Unfortunately they lost contact with the two Parisian riders at the feed stops and only caught up with them at the two night time camping stops. A little while later they were joined by the other Gary from London, who, being a faster rider, had set off from the start in Paris several hours after them, but had been sick (as in throwing up) since and was grateful for some more relaxed-pace company. He was warmly welcomed by said company, presumably as long as he rode behind everybody else.

Sarah & Gary had arrived the start (and first feed stop) at about seven o'clock in the evening hoping to start the ride day with a wholesome meal offered by the organisers. This was available for £8-50 on top of the £75 start money, but the queues were so substantial, that they decided to give them a miss and try their luck at one of the local cafés instead, some of which stayed open for extended hours to cater for passing cyclists for the duration of the P-B-P. In adddition some boulangeries and patisseries also stayed open late, attracting the riders by wonderful smells of fresh croissants wafting into the road. The official feed stops were spaced apart about every fifty to eighty kilometres.

I asked Sarah, what special energy foods they had eaten in preparation and en route to give them maximum nutritional value for this feat of endurance. To my surprise they didn’t eat special high powered high performance food stuffs, but quite ordinary things such as ‘ham sandwiches, cheese sandwiches & ham & cheese sandwiches and 'oooh! those naughty French pastries', and, as a small concession to healthy eating, apples and bananas and Torque energy bars (‘those lovely raspberry & apple ones’) to be eaten on the hoof, or pedal, as the case may be.

At a feed stop, having survived a wet ride & a puncture & still smiling!

Last picnic before reaching sunny Brest

Posing on Brest Bridge

Warming up with a hot cuppa after arriving (slightly damp) for the second night at the camp site at LLoudiac, half way back to Paris.

During the day and unbelievably throughout the night, although in slightly reduced numbers, those nice French cycling-loving locals also proved very supportive to the exhausted riders, providing sustenance by dispensing water, tea and coffee and cheering the riders on their way with many a 'bon courage' 'allez-allez' and clapping enthusiastically.

So they cycled on and on and on, through the rain and more rain, through the night, through the night in the rain, pedal stroke after pedal stroke. The route was way marked, but not marshalled all the way, although there were marshals in the streets near the controls and all traffic was halted for the first few k at the start - ‘very exciting!’. Generally the roads were quiet and the French drivers took good care to drive safely around any cyclists. In order to allow riding during the hours of darkness a vital part of the equipment for the P-B-P are head light torches, a bit like miner’s lamps, so you can see were you're going in the dark and you're also able to direct the beam at road signs and reflective route-markings which were on the signs and fences etc, and downwards to see the route sheet, distanceometer etc.

One sticky night time moment came when Sarah's chain came off and got wedged between the chain wheel and the chain stays, and while one Gary helped her free the (extremely recalcitrant) chain, the other Gary rode on into the night oblivious to what had happened. When he realised that he had lost the other two in the unpenetrable darkness, a whole saga of desperate mobile phone calls ensued, until finally they were happily reunited once more.

I asked Sarah about the worst moment of the whole experience, and it wasn't that, or the fact there were no showers to be had en route, or having to ride in damp clothes or her increasingly sore and numb body parts - it was when she realised that the large brown things on the road were in fact slugs that the continual rain had brought out onto the tarmac where they had duly been flattened. Their slimy remains were attracting other slugs who proceeded to eat up their flattened comrades, before being turned into slug pan-cakes themselves. Yuk!

Looking on the bright side, I also asked her what her best moment was - 'The ride over the last hills into Brest!' was the prompt answer and the wonderful views as they were approaching that half-way point of the journey. It was a nice sunny day (the only one) before the rain returned once more in the night.

And it wasn't all gritted teeth and stiff upper lips either - there was some humour to be had, such as seeing the Australian contingent sporting t-shirts traffic warning signs 'with kangaroos (depicted) for the next 1200km' on their backs. Among the other international participants with amusement value was also a (very stereotypical) Japanese couple, pedalling vigorously and always smiling!

Another good moment, Sarah said, was meeting people from the prep rides at the feed stops and along the way - I suppose there must be a lot of camaraderie among those fellow randonneurs; you're a member of an elite long distance endurance club where they may not know your name, but they sure know how you have suffered.

And the suffering must have been almost unbearable at times; in the early daylight of the last day, Sarah said she burst into tears of exhaustion from the huge effort and had to be coaxed into carrying on by the two Garys. Which she subsequently did, reaching the finish in Paris with several hours to spare (she completed it in 81 hrs).

Sarah described to me her feelings after reaching the finish in Paris as having happened in three stages; first being overcome by euphoria, followed by a feeling of anti-climax and depression, and, after a week, while at home cleaning her bike, thinking to herself; 'Oooh, I might do it again!'.

Having completed the 200, 300, 400 & 600k she had already earned herself the right to bear the title ‘Super-Randonneur’. Apparently this is not the highest title on offer, there is an even more eminent level of Randonneurness! Sarah didn't know any details, except that to achieve it, she would only have to cycle the laughable total of another 1500 kms worth of randonées by the end of the year. 'I might give it a try!' As soon as she can sit on a bicycle saddle again, and the feeling has returned to her fingers and toes, I'd say! (As a concession to comfort she intends to put gel pads under her bar tape in future). And the year after next there's the London to Edinburgh to London- and after that, who knows?

Sarah's friends have called her demanding hobby many different things - 'an addiction', a 'very self-indulgent thing', 'those silly long rides', or 'a form of escapism'. Call it what you will, but I bet Sir Edmund Hillary and Scott of the Antarctic were accused of very similar things by their friends! It's the stuff that heroes are made off, and 'chapeau' to those heroes of the long-distance randonnée!

Paris Brest Paris website - www.paris-brest-paris.org/EN/