A Barrows Abroad: The Runup

My first attempt at Paris-Brest-Paris is in the books. I say first, because I sincerely hope it won't be my last. The bottom line is I finished the 1,200 km (762 mile) course in 88 hours 45 minutes, which is inside my 90-hour time limit. I have my finishers medal and will have my name added to the big book of finishers going back to 1891. I could have ridden it faster I suppose, but doing a fast time was never the goal. In fact, doing PBP at all was not even on my mind in June.

To register for PBP, you must qualify. To qualify, you have to have ridden a “Super Randonneur” series of rides, a 200 km, 300 km, 400 km and a 600 km. Easy enough, except that randonneuring has become popular worldwide. So this year, for the first time in history PBP filled to capacity. 7,600 riders pre-registered! Effectively, since I had not pre-registered, it would not be possible for me to do PBP this year, even if I qualified. Or so I was told.

My goal then for 2019 was a full Super Randonneur series, to get experience with the longer distance rides, and particularly to work on the feeding aspect of things. I had finished 2018 with an abysmal performance on a 200 km ride around the South loop in Yellowstone Park. I got lost (on a loop, in a park with basically only one road) and then ran out of gas and ended up finishing last. By a lot. It was not a confidence boosting way to end the season, to say the least. It left me wondering if I was cut out for long distance riding at all, and PBP, the granddaddy 1200 of them all seemed very far off indeed.

Fast forward to the end of June 2019. The series is a wrap, we had completed the 600 the evening before. I had ridden each one well, and in fact felt better after the 600 than I had after some of the shorter rides. I was staying with with our regional organizer at his home in Belgrade. We were commiserating over a cup of coffee and watching Women's World Cup on TV when he metioned that registration for PBP had reopened. Some 1,600 pre-registrants had not completed their series.

Yellowstone R. South of Livingston. Tip of Absaroka Mtns. on Right, Crazys in the distance. On the way to the 300 km ride

Lane just shy of White Sulphur Springs, on the 300 km qualifier

At first I didn't seriously consider it. I didn't think I could or should afford it, and besides, time was not on my side. I would have just a month and a half to arrange getting myself and a bike to Paris. But on the long drive home it occurred to me that the guys I had been through thick and thin with on our qualifiers, for various reasons, may not do another PBP. Who knows where any of us will be four years on? If I wanted to do this thing with my friends, it would have to be this year. The rest of the drive was occupied with abstract planning and scheming about how I would sell this crazy plan to the family.