They say it is the most fun you can have on the bike, and I think they are right, even with all of the rain. I finished the 16th running of PBP in 87 hours and 22 minutes. Most of the time it was either raining or threatening to rain. We only had one good day, Wednesday, with sunny skies and warm temps.

My brevet series to qualify for PBP was fairly eventful. Although I did the 200k (125 miles) and 300k (180 miles) without a problem, it took more than one try to get the 400k (250 miles). Since starting long distance cycling in 2003 I have had stomach problems whenever I went beyond 8-10 hours. It was only on my final attempt at a 400k that I managed to figure out what the problem and the fix was. In short, my stomach gets acidic, and only consuming a milk-based product will calm it. This is easy to do in the U.S., where I can find milk and Starbucks's Fraps in any gas station mini-mart. Who knows what and where I would find the equivalent along the PBP route in France. Armed with my newfound knowledge about my stomach problems, I completed the 600k (375 miles) brevet out of Casa Grande, Arizona with few problems. To date it was my longest ride ever. PBP is a 1200k (750 miles) event. The actual distance is 1224k, plus I had some "bonus" kilometers, giving me a total of 1240k (770 miles).

The wife and I arrived in France on August 11th, a full 9 days before the event. It gave me plenty of time to become familiar with another culture and language. Once the start of PBP came around I was quite comfortable doing the basics in French. As I suspected, the key to communicating in France is learning how to be polite. They are very big on it there. You can get away with not knowing a lot as long as you make an effort to use French, and as long as you are polite.

I booked our hotel at an Ibis in Versailles. It was on a recommendation by Dale Brigham, a fellow I met on the cycling forums at bicycling.com. The location worked extremely well for us. The area itself is quite nice, there is an RER station right across the street, and the PBP start in Guyancourt is less than 10k away. The Palace of Versailles is right around the corner.

Packing and shipping my Bacchetta Corsa took a bit of work. In the end I had to use two cases: a regular bike case for everything but the frame, and a SporTube for the frame itself. I could have used a tandem case for the entire thing, but the case itself weighed 38 pounds empty. Each of my cases fully loaded weighed just shy of 50 pounds, the limit at which they start to charge you. When checking in at the airport my wife had one case and I had the other. At the San Diego airport they didn't even bother to weigh the cases. They did charge an extra $80 for the bike case, but not the SporTube.

Both cases showed up at the Charles de Gaul airport, slightly battered, but there. There were several horror stories about lost bike cases, the worst being a case that still hasn't been found, days after the event. A rider has only a few options if their bike doesn't show up: they can not ride, they can rent a bike, or they can buy a bike. None of those options are ideal, because your relationship with your machine is very important, and you don't want to start a new relationship just before a ride of this magnitude.

On the Saturday before the ride I got a chance to preview the first 35k of the ride with the Davis Bike Club. Although learning the start is not that important (because I will be doing it in the dark, with a bunch of other cyclists), I did get a chance to see the roads, and I got a feel for the final 35k. This helped because near the end of PBP I recognized the roads from our pre-ride.

Here are a few pics from the pre-ride:

The last two are from the turn around spot, 35k from the end of the PBP. On the right in each photo you can see my Corsa. In the last photo you see Bruce Taylor with the big grin on his face. Here are two more from the return trip:

On the Sunday before the ride I had to head down to the start to pick up my stuff, and to get my bike inspected. This is probably the only ride where they check your bike for lights, and you for a reflective vest. Lights can be minimal. Heck, some people even use flashlights clamped to their bikes. Me, I am using a pair of Cateye EL-530 LEDs. This is the first time that the PBP people are allowing LEDs headlights as the primary means of lights. They also dropped the requirement to have spare bulbs, which doesn't make sense with LEDs. What stuff you ask? Here, I took a picture:

The most important thing is the jersey. I am only doing this for the jersey. However, I have a funny thing about event jerseys. I only want them if I have completed the event. This means I had to finish PBP. Nearly as important is the brevet card at the lower left, and the magnetic card to the left of the water bottle. At each control we had to get our card swiped and the book stamped. Miss one, and you don't get credit. The "tubular wear" thingy is a buff-like piece of headgear in a French theme. I paid an extra 5 euros for it. While parked outside my bike attracted the company of a smaller version Corsa:

It looks to be a medium Corsa with 24" wheels. The woman riding it (I saw her wheel it in) must have short legs because the seat is fairly far forward. Contrast that with my bike, where the seat is almost all of the way back on a large frame. Yes, I am 6'7".

You always see some odd stuff at PBP. Here are a couple of rowing machines:

Instead of turning pedals, you push the foot pegs out on the boom. That draws the cable that goes around the pulley at the front on its way to the rear wheel. Then mumblemumblemumble (I haven't a clue as to how this works) and the bike goes forward. Just like that. Oh, and the rider can also pull on the handlebars to give extra force. The bike on the right is a back-to-back tandem using the same type of propulsion. A back-to-back tandem is rare enough without doing a Rube Goldberg-inspired system on top of it. I don't know how they did, but considering that I am writing this, chances are they probably beat me. Life is like that.

In the week before the start it had rained on and off. The possibility of riding at least part of PBP in the rain made me think about my experience in the rain on this particular bike. I had none. Since buying the bike in August of 2006 I had put maybe 6000 miles on it, and had never once ridden it in the rain. After this event I can say otherwise.