Even in Kyoto

Okay, first of all, don't get too excited - it's more like Tour of Three Bakeries, With Repeat Visits on the Way Back. Still, a nice concept for a 200k permanent. In case I haven't mentioned this here before (or in a long time), "permanents" are randonneuring routes that can be ridden at any time, with prearrangement with the route owner.

Last spring, I kicked off the pre-Paris-Brest-Paris randonneuring events in April, when I drove out to Nebraska City to ride in the Nebraska Sandhills Randonneurs' 200km brevet. I continued to ride with the Nebraska gang through the spring, completing all of the qualifying rides for Paris-Brest-Paris by mid-May. Once June rolled around, I decided to keep going, so I drove out to Ames, Iowa, and got to meet a number of the Iowa Randonneurs, and also got to see my first ElliptiGo riders. Then, in July, SK helped me put together a gnarly mixed-terrain Overnight 200k that circled around Lincoln. Then there was August and Paris-Brest-Paris itself.

By that point, I'd ridden a brevet every month for five continuous months, and got to thinking about one of the awards offered by Randonneurs USA, the R-12. To earn the R-12, all you have to do is complete one ride per month of a minimum distance of 200km. Well, the Nebraska Sandhills Randonneurs had two more brevets scheduled for the early fall, first a 400k and then a 600k, so why not? For good measure, I also rode a 200km Arrow with the gang. Those events carried me through October. But what to do for November? Eventually things got down to a "last chance" effort. After scrutinizing the various permanent options listed by the San Francisco Randonneurs, I settled on a route called "East Bay to Davis," and scrottie joined me for a jaunt out into the California unknown that involved a detour to see Napa Valley and then some crazy climbing through the mountains out to Davis.

December's ride happened in Arizona, another permanent, the End of Pavement 200k, shortly after Christmas. Finally, in January, I was able to join the San Francisco Randonneurs for the Pierce Point 200k, another leg-buster with some impressive hills and lovely scenery. S came out with me for the Two Rock - Valley Ford 200k in February, and then I was looking to finish the twelve months out on the Russian River 300k.

When we had to bail two-thirds of the way through the 300k two weekends ago, I started to think about and look around for a make-up ride. With a better sense of the local geography as compared to last November, I narrowed the options down to either a repeat of the East Bay to Davis 200k, or something out in the direction of Marin again called the Tour of Five Bakeries. I wasn't feeling especially excited about doing either route as a solo ride, so I sent a message to the San Francisco Randonneurs to see if anyone else would be interested. I received a single enthusiastic reply, from a rider who was up for the Tour of Five Bakeries, so that sealed the deal. R and I made arrangements for an 8 am start, which would hopefully give me enough time to catch the first BART train from El Cerrito and then ride 15 miles from Embarcadero out to Mill Valley.

I was nervous about running late, but wound up reaching the starting point with ten minutes to spare, just as R pulled up. Phew! To top it off, a third rider appeared! She'd made her own arrangements to complete the permanent on her own. It's always nice just to know someone else is out there.

The ride started with a nice loop through some rolling hills out to Tiburon, which was most likely included in the route to bump the mileage up to the correct distance. No harm in that! From there, we rejoined roads that have quickly become familiar. But let me show you the elevation map, to give you some sense of things:



You can see the rolling hills in the beginning, up until somewhere around mile 20. The big spike past all that (mile 25-ish), plus the subsequent spike near mile 40 are two hills that bracket a lovely stretch of road that passes through Samuel P. Taylor State Park. I experience somewhat mixed emotions along this section, however, because that's the area where S and I wound up riding 15 bonus miles during the February 200k. So I enjoy the redwoods and smooth pavement, but also feel a slight twinge of panic.

This time, we didn't have to make any turns, and by shortly after 11 am, we found ourselves among the hordes of cyclists at Point Reyes Station. People were out in full force on their Saturday training rides. Time for bakery stop number one, Bovine Bakery. I devoured a slice of quiche and most of a giant raspberry scone wedge.

Then it was time to wind along Highway 1 and on up for the second stop at Tomales Bakery. I wasn't feeling especially hungry, but got a lemon bar and stuck it in my trunk bag as a snack for later. The Tomales Bakery also appeared to be popular with cyclists, to judge by the crowd outside.



I also discovered that the "NOT A BANK" wifi network that my phone had detected during S's and my impromptu visit to the Continental Inn must have come from the bank-shaped building next door to the Continental Inn, which had a large "NOT A BANK" sign up at the top, about where one might expect to see the name of a bank. Another B&B, apparently.


The center building, here.

From Tomales, it was time to face that fateful stretch of road again, the section between Valley Ford and Tomales where the state trooper had pulled us over on the 300k because the conditions were too gnarly. In the elevation map, you'll notice five spikes between miles 60 and 80. Those hills. Those are the ones that we struggled up in the dark, in that wild storm, where things got so bad that S had to pause and take a break, panting, halfway up the hill.

They took some work this time, but weren't so bad, really, with sunny skies and only a faint breeze. And at the turnaround point, another bakery!

I was feeling ambivalent about baked goods at this stage, but to my delight, this bakery also sold beautiful loaves of artisanal bread. I picked up a loaf of rosemary-garlic bread because it reminded me of S and his loaf of rosemary bread he won't stop talking about, and of all the other times that he and I have been out on brevets and have picked up amusing food items to haul home.

Then we turned our noses around for the return stretch.

We skipped the Tomales Bakery on the return. It wasn't a control and neither of us wanted more baked goods at that moment. Instead we just carried along until we got all the way back to Point Reyes Station. Somehow, by then found I had a renewed appetite for another baked good, this time a peanut butter bar washed down with a carton of chocolate milk. Refortified, I tackled the first climb on Sir Francis Drake, then the second one, and even that last hilly bit up and over Camino Alto to the end.


The End

For me, it was a fast 200k, clocking in at 10 hours and 25 minutes, despite the leisurely bakery stops. Hopefully R enjoyed the pace, too, which gave him plenty of time to look around while I huffed and puffed my way up the hills.

Regardless, it was a relief to finish out the R-12 series. What an adventure it has been!

So, Saturday was the February 200k brevet, and it was a doozy of the sort where the main thing that scrottie and I had to look forward to, after a certain point, was simply the feeling of relief of having finished the thing.

But let me back up.

Earlier in the week, I sent an e-mail to the list to inquire about bumming a ride over to the start. Another rider responded to let us know that we could make it to the start on time if we caught the very first train down at the West Oakland BART station. Well, okay. The West Oakland BART station is about a 10-mile ride from home. Since scrottie often has a hard time waking up at the ass-crack of dawn (okay, more like somewhere in dawn's colon), plus navigating over to the BART would cover new territory, I figured we would need to budget some extra time, just in case. S wasn't too keen on having to get up extra early, but after some discussion, he reluctantly agreed to the plan.

Saturday morning, we got up, I made coffee and breakfast sandwiches, we saddled our steeds, and we headed off towards the BART station with a decent time cushion. Better to have a little extra time so we don't have to rush, after all.

It was a good thing we had that decent time cushion because somewhere in West Oakland S rode over a nail. One of those nails that plows through the tube and then tattoos the far side of the tube with about 15 additional stabby little holes. I guess the Bontrager hardcases don't have a good Kevlar lining after all? He's interested in ideas for better tires again - they have to be under 25mm because of narrow clearance. We also managed to do a bunch of flailing in the process of fixing the flat, but somehow, in spite of all that, we STILL made it to the train about 3 minutes before it was due at the station. Phew. Only had to put on a little hustle to get there.



That meant we were able to follow a couple of other riders from the Embarcadero station over to the start at Crissy Field, and make it to the start on time.

...not that making it to the start on time made that much of a difference. I could almost hear the RBA's announcements about things to pay attention to on the route. Almost. People towards the back were talking loudly and rustling all of their plastic baggies. Then we took the pledge to not do anything stupid, ate a few bites of our breakfast sandwiches, and set off behind the back of the horde of 100 or so riders.

We'd checked the weather the night before, and the prospects looked amazing - no chance of rain and a high of 70 degrees. However, we had failed to account for the fog. It's probably time for me to look into some of those anti-fog coatings one can get for one's eyeglasses, because some of those early downhill stretches were pretty terrifying, navigating around slower riders on unfamiliar curvy, foggy roads. On the other hand, I do love the sound of the foghorns out by the Golden Gate Bridge.

Eventually, by somewhere around Fairfax, the fog started to lift and we reached a point where we were riding along at a steady pace in a clear section on our own. It was starting to look like a lovely day. I had reached the bottom of the first page of the cue sheet, so I asked S to keep tabs on our route on his GPS instead of pulling over to flip over my cue sheet, and we carried along quite happily through the forest up until my Rando Senses started tingling. I was starting to wonder about the point where we needed to split to the east towards Petaluma on the lollipop-shaped route.

Inspection of the cue sheet plus my GPS suggested we had missed a turn about 7.5 miles back on Nicasio Valley Road. Well, shoot, argh, et cetera, cue mild panic. I had the sense that we would still be able to make it to the first control before the control closed, but there went any hope of a comfortable time cushion during the early stages of the brevet. We turned our bikes around and nosed back through Samuel P Taylor State Park and headed up and over the next hill at a more urgent pace.

Having a tight deadline can really suck the fun out of a bike ride, oof. We made it to Petaluma about 20 minutes before the control closed, in definite need of additional calories. We left the control right as it closed, which meant continuing at a solid pace up to the subsequent control, at Valley Ford. We got to Valley Ford with about 45 minutes to spare, which we used up again in refueling before heading back to the south towards Point Reyes Station.

When I pulled in at Point Reyes Station, I turned around and discovered that S wasn't behind me. Oh boy. I hadn't heard him shout anything about stopping, so I figured he must be just a moment or two behind me. I went back to the corner where Highway 1 descends down a big hill and waited for a minute or three to see if he would appear.

Several minutes later, no S. Oh dear. Now what.

After waiting another minute or two in a state of slightly tired befuddlement, it finally occurred to me that if he'd stopped due to another flat tire, he might be out of spare tubes and in need of a tube from me. Time to climb back up the hill to find him. Fortunately, he was right there, at the top of the hill, working on his his jerry-rigged rear derailleur which was giving him some trouble*. It turned out that he'd lost his taillight after hitting a bump on a prior curvy downhill corner, so he'd fallen behind in tracking it down, and meanwhile a zip-tie that had been holding his rear derailleur in place had broken, compromising his ability to shift.

Not a good situation given the California terrain.

Given how close we were to the control, he was able to coast on down the hill, and then after a lengthy and desperate search for a bathroom he managed to get things fixed up with some baling wire again.



I was glad to get more calories from the bakery, and then once again we set off right at around the time the control closed. No rest for the wicked.

We made it to the end about an hour and a half before the final deadline, and felt a welcome sense of relief. It would have been nice to have had more time to enjoy the ride and scenery**, but all things considered, I'm satisfied with just having survived that one.

Then we hung out at the finish for a few minutes until the last two riders pulled in.



This is A, who completed her first 200k ever, on a nice, solid cruiser, wearing some pretty cute shoes. Her brevet training consists of hauling along a two-year-old and six-year-old on this bike. Most of the other riders told her she should get a different bike. I just think she's a total badass, and a rockstar for doing her own thing. She seemed to be managing all the hills just fine, and she was totally jazzed at the finish.

One more month to go, and then I'll have completed an R-12 and will focus more on things like rowing a bike camping. In the meantime, maybe it's time for some bike maintenance, and time to make mental note to do a better job of previewing brevet routes when riding in unfamiliar regions.



*This is the second Campy 8-speed rear derailleur where the piece of metal that holds the set screw in place has sheared off. Campy doesn't make these anymore, so they can only be bought used, so it may just be the case that someone else abused the derailleur at some point.

**As much as one can, given the annoying volume of traffic out here.

Today has been an "organize the calendar" sort of day. I'm not big on New Year's resolutions, but at the same time this is a good time of year to take stock of things and think about plans for the upcoming year, including changes. I am not sure about how to organize this list of things I am wanting to organize, but here it is:

-Short-term: Finish bike hook installation (probably the weekend I get back to town - Jan 8).

-Schedule a piano tuner (S gave me the Gift of Tuning, hurrah!)

-Figure out rowing in the Bay Area. A big thank-you to dichroic for passing along a couple of lists of the area rowing clubs. Starting point: Berkeley Paddling and Rowing Club (closer), if not that then Lake Merritt (8.7 mile bike ride one-way).

-Finish out an R-12 award (i.e. ride at least a 200km brevet each month for 12 consecutive months; I have 3 more months to go). Once I finish this, I plan to focus more on rowing, with occasional recreational bicycling thrown in for fun and profit (e.g. more picnics and bike camping).

-Come up with a plan for creative projects. sytharin and the housemates are somewhat keen to get ceramics operations up and running, which is something that makes me dream of gas-fired kilns and learning to mix up glazes. These two dreams are impractical for the here-and-now, plus I have other, non-ceramic creative projects that I wish to attend to (specifically, quilting and knitting). Hence the need for more of a plan for creative projects. The best solution may be just to schedule Crafternoons with RAC. That should also help us figure out how I can best help her with gardening projects, too. I can see why people use shareable calendar goop for this stuff, although I am tempted to continue rebelling with my paper and text files.

-Academic to do (condensed version): make a schedule for the conference in Portland next week; push forward the leafcutter manuscript (which doom level have I reached, again?); make a semester plan; analyze data and write manuscripts; start new experiments; polish job application materials.

-Get back on track with tracking spending. As mentioned elsejournal, I'm particularly interested in doing some detailed grocery accounting. In part this should help me figure out which items I wish to buy where in the grocery landscape of the Bay Area, and in part I am intrigued by the idea of comparing grocery spending here against grocery spending elsewhere (Lincoln in particular), and in seeing what I eat over the course of a year. Lincoln groceries won't include the occasional foray to the farmer's market, but those trips were pretty occasional and mostly for pecans and fruit bonanzas, because the grocery co-op did such an awesome job of selling locally-produced foods.

Edited to add:
-Develop the Bike-Friendly Fridays coffeeshop agenda for the East Bay.

I think that covers the major bases.

There has been some discussion recently among the randonneurs about demographics in randonneuring. I was pleased to discover that there's a breakdown of RUSA membership on the RUSA website, along several different axes, including age and gender. Hm! Eighteen percent women, as compared to the 5% participation rate by women at Paris-Brest-Paris. Of course, not everyone who joins RUSA actually rides in brevets, but it's a benchmark, at least. I believe that at some point the PBP organizers will provide more detailed participation statistics, so we can see whether the US participation at PBP reflects the RUSA membership. If so, this would mean that it's other countries who aren't bringing in women participants. I suspect the reality lies somewhere in-between, but that the US is doing a comparatively good job on this front - of course, that's not to say that we couldn't do better.

So, how does that compare to rowing, my other favorite sport (and, admittedly, first true love)?

Well, a website seeking to help people interested in monetizing the sport* declares that we've gone from 43% of the population as Master's rowers (ages 27+) to 75% Masters between 2004-2008. But note that participation in the sport has also grown, from 177,500 persons (+/- 9%) to 220,000 persons (+/- 9%). While things aren't broken down by both age and gender, it looks like the gender ratio has remained constant between the two surveys, at 55% men and 45% women.

So, wow. This supports my sense that rowing has done WAY better in the gender-balance department than long-distance cycling.

On the other hand, rowing is still overwhelmingly, tremendously white and privileged. But I'm pretty sure that cycling for sport is, too. This last link does a nice job of talking about good reasons to push for improving diversity in rowing, and many of those reasons are equally applicable to cycling.


*I mention this because there are so many potential sources of bias in this report. A quick skim of this site suggests they're trying to be transparent, but it would be useful to see how their numbers compare to USRowing's numbers (which I can't seem to find after an admittedly quick search).

This one deserves a more poetic write-up, but, busy.

-scrottie's rear shifter lever broke off about 20 miles into the ride (4 am start time meant we went to bed at 11 pm and got up at 3 am, oof). Campy shifters. Right before we hit the steepest hill section. So he had to reach down and pull up on the cable to get his bike into a low enough gear to not completely die when going up the hills. He pulled in some cable when we reached Pawnee City, then pulled in a little more cable when we reached O'Dell, and finished out the rest of the brevet single-speed style, beast mode. Even when he can't spin as much as he'd druther, he can keep up a good clip.

-Pre-brevet sleep deprivation (not just the night before, but the whole week before) meant we were so exhausted we took a lot of naps during the night on the return section between O'Dell and Pawnee City.

-We saw two "Corn Devils" - dust devils that didn't have dust in them, just dried-out corn stalks swirling around in little magical circles. Lots of corn harvesting going on.

-Were those some sort of cluster sunflower all along the sides of the roads, or some other kind of plant? Very pretty.

-On the return between Pawnee City and Falls City, all of the opossums decided that it would be fun to play chicken with us. S and I were riding side-by-side, S towards the center line. A possum came across from the far side of the road, and S barely managed to yell out and swerve around it. It kept going. I just held on for dear life and ran over it, I think just with my rear wheel. I don't know how it fared but we did just fine. I now owe myself a possum spoke card (I make hand-drawn spoke cards for people who hit animals while bicycling).

-Man, it was so great to be out biking in the Nebraska countryside. The weather was gorgeous. A little bit of headwind. Beautiful and quiet out there, with respectful drivers.

-Those s'mores pop tarts from the grocery store in O'Dell tasted amazingly good.

-I don't think I'm going to do the 600k in two weeks. The 400k didn't make my lingering PBP ailments any worse, but it didn't make them any better, either (handlebar palsy and foot metatarsalgia still problematic). Work is too crazy. My body deserves a break.

-S got a camper about two weeks ago, but I didn't want to post about it until he got official plates. It's a Dolphin from the late 70's (early 80's?). Princess TinyHome. It smells slightly of cat pee, leaks, and is so far past the point where it needs maintenance work done*, but we slept fantastically the night after the brevet and it was super convenient for making coffee in the morning. I love it.

Edited to add...

-This brevet happened on International Speak Like a Pirate Day, mateys! I dressed in my finest pirate cycling garb, complete with vest, cutlass, and pirate socks, and growled slanderous things all day long. None of the townspeople really seemed to notice.



*But the engine is fine! So it's ahead of the curve compared to when Princess TinyCar showed up, heh, and feels a bit less dangerous to me. I can see why S is attracted to these vehicles.

There's a national e-mail listserv for randonneuring, and it's kind of amusing to know a thing or two about subjects that were hotly discussed just prior to PBP as compared to subjects hotly discussed afterwords. Before, a group of people were all "ZOMG GPS route!!" twitchy about things - largely, it should be noted, the PBP newbies who hadn't yet experienced the marvel of all of the route signage. Not a peep about the route after PBP concluded. Instead, following PBP there have been several different discussion threads about various aches and pains and their sources, particularly from those for whom the aches and pains turned into ride showstoppers.

It's useful for me to make note of what hurt and what didn't so I can keep thinking about what things could stand to improve, and how.

Prior to the start, my left Achilles tendon was starting to feel a little sore, I suspect as a result of all of the walking around I did as a tourist. I was concerned that it would wind up getting much worse over the course of the ride, but then it gave me no problems whatsoever. Phew.

Instead, it was my left big toe that was unhappy at first, and I don't entirely know why. It started to feel sore fairly early on, and stayed that way, getting neither better nor worse regardless of whatever else I did.

My lower back was fine after I adjusted my seat at 300km. My upper back and shoulders suffered more. I tend to have some troubles with my right levator scapulae after long rides, and this ride was no exception (it's a muscle that runs between the inside top of the shoulder blade to the neck, to help hold up the shoulder). It has been less than happy, but no worse than it has felt after a 600k. I think it must be doing extra work to help hold up my head. It would probably be helped the most by me being more consistent about shoulder strengthening exercises.

During some of the spring qualifying brevets, you might recall that I spent a lot of time trying to stand and jam my way up the hills, but found that this led to really sore, creaky knees. During PBP I figured out that I had been trying to stand and climb too fast, in too low a gear - when I shifted up more, I was able to stand and climb much more comfortably. While it wasn't especially fast, standing helped give my body crucial relief on the long climbs. I am glad I figured that bit out. I did eventually start to feel the effects of this in my knees, but at some point during the ride someone commented that everyone's knees would feel sore by the end, so I didn't think too much of the knee discomfort. This knee pain also resolved very quickly after the ride and was never as severe as it had been during those spring brevets. In contrast, it took a day or three for my right knee to feel normal again at the lower patellar attachment point - the spot that started to trouble me during the last 40 miles. I think I must have torqued it in a strange way at some point while it was already fatigued.

I'd mentioned in a previous post that I'd experienced problems with saddle sores. This was a hotly discussed topic on the listserv, where someone pointed out that a useful starting point is to distinguish between different kinds of sores. In the past, I have had persistent saddle sores caused by bacterial infections, which are terrible and annoying. I concluded that leather saddles don't agree with my skin, and haven't had any problems with that variety of saddle sore ever since. Some people also identify chafing as "saddle sores," and I've had my fair share of experiences with chafing as well, but that wasn't the main problem in this case. In the present case, I experienced discomfort from "pressure point" sores - the skin under my sit bones wore through, and fairly quickly. There are three things to consider on this front. The first is that I haven't been able to get in the right sort of consistent mileage needed to build up good butt callouses. The second is that it might be that the saddle that has served me well for years, the Selle Royal Respiro Athletic, is slightly too soft for me now. So I might need to go back to saddle shopping again. Third, maybe it's time for new bike shorts, too. I did apply Lantiseptic frequently, but it didn't seem to help much with this kind of butt soreness.

One of the factors that contributed to my DNF for PBP 2011 was handlebar palsy, which continued to plague me afterwords for over a month. This time, I have it again, except only in my right hand, not my left, and it's not as bad as in 2011. Someone on the listserv speculated that it was common to have a worse case in one's non-dominant hand, as one is less likely to move that hand around as much. I felt like I moved my right hand around plenty, but I have to wonder if it experienced more awkward/uncomfortable stretch because I did so much shifting going up and down hills. The interesting thing about the handlebar palsy is that people have been all over the board in reporting what has worked for them to alleviate the problem. Some people prefer extra padding under their bar tape; this adamantly did not work for me. Others prefer well-padded gloves, but one person commented that for him the thing that helped more were "sticky" gloves that provided a better grip. Yet others noted that they'd benefited from developing more core strength to keep weight off their hands, but another approach adopted by many has been to raise their handlebars higher. In my case, I think better cycling gloves and more consistent work on core strength will make the difference. I'm relatively pleased with the outcome on this front, all things considered, and I think better bike fit was a big contributor.

After the ride, one other problem cropped up: metatarsalgia, also known to cyclists as "hot foot." At first I wasn't exactly sure what was going on, but the balls of my feet felt inflamed after walking around post-PBP. After discovering that "hot foot" was just another way of saying "metatarsalgia," I thought back to the last time I'd experienced it, back in the years when I first switched from marathon running that one marathon to bicycling. Here, again, I'd gone from a lot of walking to bicycling, so perhaps it was no surprise that metatarsalgia had flared up again. Something I read noted that in cyclists it's often caused by nerve compression, which made me realize why, the last time, my mother's advice to stretch out the sole of my foot with an old tennis ball had worked so well. I've been applying the tennis ball, while also generally trying to keep my weight off the balls of my feet, and it seems as though this is allowing things to gradually heal. I don't know if I'd attribute this flare-up entirely to the transition from lots of walking to lots of cycling. It might be that I need to do something about my cycling shoes (related to the sore big toe), but I'm not sure yet.

You'll note that I haven't mentioned any of the leg problems that cropped up after that 300k brevet in June. Zero troubles on that front. It's just everything else that's just a little less than comfortable. :-)

Stage 13: Loudeac to Quedillac (839 km complete)

Onward I went, to distances no rebeccmeister had ever traveled before. To be honest, I don't remember much from this leg of the trip, and from this stage forward the order of events gets hazy due to the sleep deprivation, general exhaustion, and discomfort. The controls are also generally more frequent from Loudeac on back to account for this.

I reached Quedillac while it was still dark, and I think I looked around this optional service stop and decided I didn't need much (a trip to the bathroom, perhaps?). Maybe a plate of pasta. There were riders sacked out all over the place, including sleeping in chairs around a firepit outside. Now is as good a time as any to mention something else that I'll discuss more in a separate post, one of the major aches and pains that cropped up: saddle sores. In my case, I developed pressure point sore spots under each sit bone. Regular treatment with Lantiseptic seemed to help keep things at bay, but the sore spots made it hard to sit correctly on the saddle. One of the things I really like about my bike saddle, however, is that it's possible for me to sit in several different postures on the thing. To relieve my poor sit bones, I spent a considerable amount of time doing what I call "riding pretty" - scooted forward on the saddle, which forces me to sit even more upright. It's not especially ergonomically efficient, and after long periods it's hard on my back, but it allows me to keep moving. I also scoot back and rest my weight on my thighs when coasting down big hills.

Stage 14: Quedillac to Tinteniac (865 km complete)
There are so many different beautiful aspects to the French countryside. As the sun came up, we passed through an area where the houses were just sublime. I particularly liked these two:




Even my camera was getting sleep-deprived and blurry-eyed.

One interesting thing is that we passed by no small number of new houses, constructed to match the general aesthetic of the traditional French countryside homes. They look so snug and inviting that I can understand why some Americans try to emulate this look, with varying levels of success.

A fellow cyclist and I also marveled at the wide range of colors of hydrangeas:



I guess there's enough variation in the soil chemistry to turn these from a somewhat dull "grandma" flower into a colorful mix.

The two times of day when I start to feel the most sleep-deprived are sometime around midnight, and sometime right after the sun comes up. When I reached Tinteniac, I decided it was time for another nap. I went through the food line upstairs and ate while chatting with a couple of Americans, then found an empty spot on an ultra-thin yoga mat downstairs and rested for 45 minutes. Do these naps count as sleep? I'm not so sure. They were helpful, but not exactly high quality rest.

Stage 15: Tinteniac to Fougeres (919 km complete)
Again, thanks to sleep deprivation I don't remember much. When I reached Fougeres, I hit another point where I couldn't stand to wait in yet another long food line. Instead I rested in the grass for a few minutes, changed from one set of cycling clothes to the other set (dirty, but at least a little more aired-out), and filled my bottles. Just as I was getting ready to shove on, a woman came up to me. She had helped translate for me at the bike mechanic in Loudeac! She was so happy to see that I was continuing on and doing great with the replacement drivetrain. I hope she conveyed the message back to that mechanic. With that, I departed the control. Fougeres is a large enough town that I figured I'd be able to find something to eat, and I was not disappointed. Not too far down the road, I spied a corner bar with a sign out about food. I propped up my bike and went inside.

I was starting to notice that something was going on with my mouth by this point, but hadn't figured out just what. It just felt kind of like my body had stopped producing effective saliva, and my mouth was dry and a bit tender. Does this happen often to people who are trying to complete ultra-distance events? I don't know, but what I do know was that I craved a certain mixture of starch and electrolytes, aka French fries. The food at the controls had been slightly *too* bland in this department. This bar delivered, and quickly. Much faster than the control food line, and I could wait while sitting down. They also assembled a baguette cheese sandwich for me that consisted of baguette, butter, and Camembert cheese. I cannot tell you exactly how much butter I ate during PBP, but I did start to wonder if I was going to eventually sweat butter.

I sat at a table with a cranky older Englishman who was highly dissatisfied with how the PBP organizers were running the controls. It turned out he is involved in organizing another grand randonnee in England, the London-Edinburgh-London (1400 km), and they take a more heavy-handed top-down approach to managing the controls. I'd have to try that ride out before deciding what works best for me. To some extent I appreciate the random interactions with townspeople outside of the controls, but I could also see benefits to efficient controls.

Stage 16: Fougeres to Villaines-La-Juhel (1008 km complete)
More beautiful French countryside. I found this region interesting in terms of the transitions between fields and forests, which were abrupt, as shown here:



I also paused for yet another nap, after spending some time riding at a brisk pace with another chatty Brit. This one was briefly interrupted by a couple of ants:



It pleased me that the ants of Europe came and found me so I didn't have to go out looking for them. These foragers had a pale iridescent sheen that was very pretty. Just as my nap wrapped up, the fast-moving, chatty Brit sped past and tossed me a chocolate donut he'd acquired from a roadside stand. Score! I need to write a thing or two about speed and ride companionship in an epilogue.

I reached Villaines-La-Juhel in the early evening. I had been hoping to get in yet another nap on the grass there, but when I arrived the control was an absolute zoo.



There were so many spectators. Villaines had turned the brevet into a festival. Some of the other randonneurs have commented that it felt almost like a stage from a pro race, and if that's the case, no thank you. In addition to the onlookers watching me pull stuff off my bike to go into the control, there was a booming voice on a loudspeaker, making announcements. If I had attempted to nap I would not have gotten quality sleep. I took it all as a sign to take care of business and carry on. Countryside naps for the win.

Instead, once again I found a pub somewhere further down the road and stepped inside, joining an Indian rider for a plate of French fries with two fried eggs (imitating his vegetarian order for the sake of speed). He was a chatty fellow and rode heavily bundled up, in four layers of clothing, because the weather felt so cold to him. It felt perfect to me. At this point, however, my shoulders and back were aching from riding with "sitting pretty" posture for so long, and I wasn't especially interested in slow-rolling conversation, so I mumbled something about falling back to pee and take a nap and took my leave.

I wanted some good grass for the nap, but good grass seemed to be lacking along the sides of the road in that stretch. When we came to a roundabout, I realized that the grass in the roundabout was perfectly trimmed and thought, okay, that'll do.

Once again, it wasn't so much sleep as simply a chance to rest. There was a donkey in a pasture nearby, and I don't know if it was my flamboyant napping location or some other factor that caused other riders to pause there, but pause they did. This set off the watchdog donkey a-braying, plus I kept hearing laughter as cyclists approached and passed through the roundabout. Regardless, my aching shoulder muscles were grateful for the break and I felt as though I could carry on for a while longer yet. Up and down across the gently undulating terrain, as day crossed over to night once again.

Stage 17: Villaines to Mortagne-au-Perche (1089 km complete)
By the time I reached Mortagne-au-Perche, close to midnight Wednesday night, it was starting to feel like the finish line in Paris was in sight. Still, those last hundred miles or so weren't going to do themselves. I was still having problems generating saliva to chew on buttery, cheese-stuffed baguettes, which posed a dilemma at the control: what to try and eat? I was reaching a point where I was growing sick of croissants and baguettes, and didn't relish the thought of even more baguette crumbs glued to the roof of my mouth. Swigs of water seemed to help dissolve the crumbs and get those calories into my stomach, but this seemed like an inefficient feeding method. I started to actually wish for some energy bars.

Fortunately, they had fruit, pistachio custard, and yogurt for sale at the control. Boy did that custard hit the spot.

Mortagne was busy when I arrived, swarming with cyclists. Well after PBP's conclusion I would figure out that I remained in the middle of the peak crowd of cyclists at controls, so it was no wonder the lines were terrible. I was ready for another catnap, but where to sleep? Eventually I decided that a spot in front of a historic poster looked sufficiently clear of traffic, so without further ado I plopped down, covering my face with my polka-dotted bandana. It amused me greatly to discover that I was surrounded by other sleepers by the time I got up, ten minutes later. The inverse of the outbound Loudeac nap. I had become a nap magnet.

I also bumped into an old randonneuring friend at the control, RoadPixie. I'd encountered her along with another rider during the first night, and had been so cheered to see a familiar face, especially because I've learned many things from RP and she is one of the few female cyclists who participates in the Arizona brevets. However, later in the ride I ran into RP's companion, sans RP, and learned that RP had dnf'd at Loudeac. So how was she here at the control in Mortagne? I got more of the story from RP directly: a combination of a colitis flare-up and a severe asthma attack had taken her out at Loudeac. But at that point, how else was she going to get back to Paris? I didn't have time to mention the train option, and figured that maybe it's better not to know about it, as she seemed to be in pretty good spirits in Mortagne and satisfied to be riding back in. Then another rider interrupted us to ask for some ibuprofen and I wound up wandering off to finish taking care of my own business.

Stage 18: Mortagne-au-Perche to Dreux (1166 km complete)
This was the last segment that I rode at Dark O'Thirty. I think I took a nap in someone's driveway in some small town along this portion, with light sprinkles of rain gently landing on my face. I also spent time in the company of a hodepodge group of 5-6 English-speaking cyclists, but otherwise this section simply felt like deep, dark night. I pedaled onward. I also paused at a wonderful roadside stand that served up strong coffee, cake, and chairs in which to rest while enjoying said goods. The homeowner handed me his card and I'll have to send along a thank-you note. He was tickled by "le petit canard."

By the time I reached Dreux, I was starting to feel like I was running out of gas in a bad way. With baguettes out of the equation, it was becoming difficult to get in enough calories, and I was hitting that point where I was getting tired of eating. In the grand scheme of things I managed to cover a tremendous amount of distance before reaching this stage, so I can't complain.

When I walked into the control, I was hit by a wave of smell that caused my stomach to do a few bellyflops, something that's unusual for my iron stomach. On top of that, once again, the food line was miles long. I would have forced myself to buy at least a pastry, because they had Paris-Brest pastries for sale, but the line for the cashier was just too long.



Instead, I ate a yogurt that I had stuck in a bike jersey pocket in Mortagne, and lay down on the pavement next to my bike for yes, yet another ten-minute catnap.

I got up when more light sprinkles of rain started hitting my face. While I finished getting Froinlavin repacked to continue riding, the light sprinkles started turning into full-blown rain. Perhaps the rain is cause for complaint, but really it just made me grateful that I'd made it this far into the ride before experiencing any kind of real weather. Plus, now I was justified in carrying along and installing fenders. Rain with 40 miles to go is a completely different story from rain during the first 40 miles. The end is in sight.

Stage 18: Dreux to Saint Quentin-en-Yvelines (1230 km)
My odometer records distances in miles, but I had written down the distance between controls in kilometers on a set of index cards. My hazy math abilities suggested to me that there were only around 40 miles from Dreux to the finish in SQY. However, I remembered one other thing with some trepidation: on our way out from SQY, we had all gone screaming down some really big, steep hills. It was not going to be smooth coasting into the finish line.

On top of that, something else was happening: a brand new kind of knee pain in my right knee, argh. It was probably due to all the time spent "riding pretty" - pain centered over the anterior part of the fibula (aka below the kneecap) because I was applying force to the pedals in an unusual position. Now no matter what I did I was going to have to deal with something painful, whether it was sitting on my painfully sore butt, forcing tired and aching back muscles to hold me up, or making this creaky knee worse.

Still, on some level this is standard fare for a long brevet. Sometimes conversation is helpful for taking one's mind off of things. For a little while, I trudged along with a couple of other Americans who were also slowly limping towards the finish. Then they wanted to stop at a bakery while the rain poured down. I tried stopping with them, but something in my brain snapped and I just couldn't hold still. I couldn't stand in the bakery (literally; my body wanted to sit in a squatting position) or look at all the baked goods I didn't feel like eating. Every moment standing there was a moment during which I lost body heat. I apologized to them and shoved on.

Somewhere in the forest outside of Ramboulliet, I bumped into RP and L again, but as I kept riding I lost them in the hills. I had to keep riding my own ride. At some other point along this segment, I finally encountered a large peleton of riders smoothly gliding over the terrain, and finally I was able to glom onto the group for a couple of miles and let the group just carry me along. Where was this group for the preceding 1200 km, anyway?? I could have used some help through some of the other terrain. Unfortunately we wound up reaching one of the massive remaining climbs and at that point I wasn't able to hold on any longer. Still, they'd carried me forward for a few more miles.

Part of the reason I fell off was I was running completely out of juice. I didn't have much of anything I could eat left in my food bag and I was starting to get desperate. I got so desperate, in fact, that I ate two emergency gel packets that have been traveling in my food bag for years.

They were disgusting, but they worked.

The rain had mostly let up by the time I rolled in to the final control at the velodrome in SQY. I will admit I had to choke back some sobs as I crossed the finish line and wheeled my bike over to the racks. I can't fully describe how it felt to finally complete PBP four years after that first attempt. But there I was, feeling all the feels.





Up next, the epilogue, plus several posts on specific themes (naps, logistics, aches and pains).

Last time around, my knee was starting to seriously bother me by the time we reached Brest, so I went and spoke to a medic who refused to give me any ibuprofen because "I am not a doctor and so I cannot, and besides it will only make you hurt yourself worse." With that, I joined S on a gym mat for an exhausted nap. When I woke up, a television camera was trained on him, recording every poof of air coming from his lips. I suspect he was targeted because there weren't many other nappers at that time and he was sporting a cute black tutu. My overall feeling about Brest was, "Ehh, Brest is not so nice of a place anyway. Let's go back to Paris instead."

I felt similarly this time around. I believe that, in addition to switching the route into and out of Brest, the organizers also changed venues, although this time around the venue seemed just as strangely confusing. After parking my bike I descended a staircase to find a restroom featuring squat toilets, which made for some interesting stretching and propping, given my tired legs. I was still concerned about low supplies in my food bag, so once I'd taken care of business I set out to look for the food line for lunch.

One glance at the line of hungry cyclists was enough to convince me that I shouldn't waste any more time in stupid food lines. Instead I took another catnap in the grass and got back on my bike with the intent of finding some little bar or cafe just outside the control. I couldn't remember the precise location, but I remembered visiting somesuch place in 2011. To some extent I kind of appreciate the fact that the Brest control is less than comfortable and convenient because it encourages me to keep moving.

Unfortunately, nothing looked very familiar on the outbound route, so out of some desperation I stopped at the first thing I saw that looked even remotely food-related. It turned out to not be a creperie, arg, but instead a crepe factory with a modest storefront. Casting about, I eventually decided I would just buy a package of crepes and some jam and assemble some snack crepes. Just as I was about to pull out my wallet at the register, I noticed a basket right next to it that contained individually packaged rolled-up crepes spread with chocolate-hazelnut spread. I tried to make apologetic faces at the clerk while I hurriedly put the other items back and stacked up a pile of 6 or so snack crepes. I guess that's how they do granola bars in France.

Trouble was, I wanted a meal, not a sweet snack. I got back on Froinlavin and kept pedaling. I passed by a Giant-brand bicycle shop, which the French had aptly named "Giant Brest." They did give us the Grand Tetons, after all. Another mile or so down the road, I spotted something more promising: a Domino's pizza place. Other randonneurs were just starting to swarm it. The young employees were utterly unprepared for the multilingual, multicultural onslaught, but I managed to order a medium pizza and eat half of it. The hot, salty cheese and tomato sauce were perfect and reminded me of the Casey's pizza on brevets in Nebraska. Once it was adequately cool, I folded up the other half of the pizza and stuck it in my food bag. NOW I had adequate calories.

Stage 10: Brest to Carhaix-Plouger (698 km)
I continued to make a series of small stops.

First, another visit to that mighty fine bakery in Sizun. I bought up the last three slices of rhubarb galette. Other cyclists had cleaned out just about everything else. One slice went down the hatch while I sat on a park bench in front of the church, and the other two joined the pizza in the food bag. Supplies replenished.



For another thing, I kept having to pee. This brings me to a point of commentary. A male randonneur brightly remarked at one point about how nice it was to be able to just pull over to the side of the road and pee right into the ditch (is PBP simply a ploy by the French government to increase nitrogen fertilizer inputs? The jury is out). Good for you and 95% of the other cyclists, sir. For me, the frequent need to pee was more challenging since for some reason it felt important to avoid offending anyone by sticking my bare ass out in public. To enjoy the nice bit of peenery ("peeing-scenery") below, for instance, I had to find a spot to lay down Froinlavin and then hike a good ways down someone's driveway, hoping I didn't have any accidental encounters with the driveway owners while attending to business.



The view was lovely, but it cost mental energy and every little bit of time spent hunting for a quiet spot to pee started adding up, especially the numerous false attempts. Somewhat later, I figured out that my body's micturitic enthusiasm was due to my period showing up, oh joy. Thank goodness for emergency tampons. In the bathrooms at the controls, several fellow female cyclists and I commiserated over having to wait in line for a toilet only to see a MAN emerge from a women's restroom. While to some extent I can understand that desperate times call for desperate measures, this enraged me in my own exhausted and sometimes desperate state. Women are more prone than men to contract urinary tract infections, and have to deal with menstruation as well, making hygiene a big issue for extended events like PBP. Globally, it's a subject that's taboo and generally isn't talked about or dealt with, but it's a huge factor in determining quality of life for women. We don't just want clean facilities for some egregious level of comfort and convenience; they make a tremendous difference.

For the sake of other women seeking to ride in PBP in the future, I will point out that a large number of the small towns along the route have public restrooms somewhere near the center of town. Look for them - they aren't always obvious. A couple of the small towns very helpfully pointed out the location of these restrooms. They aren't fancy but they generally at least have clean running water. Bars and tobacconists are also often accommodating.

Part of my agenda in returning to ride PBP was that I wanted to be part of the small group of ~300 women who rode, comprising less than five percent of the total riders. I'm still mulling over how I feel about the process of increasing and improving women's participation in randonneuring, BUT the one thing I know with certainty is that I greatly enjoy going on bike rides with other women in a way that I don't experience under typical male-dominated conditions. I feel similarly about rowing, where the gender balance is much better. What would it look like if PBP consisted of an even gender balance? I have a hard time even imagining it. For an event like PBP, that would signify a vast change in the global status of women, and women's participation in sports. I suspect it would be comparable to realizing changes in workplace equality and humanity's approach to work. In the very least, in 2011, if I'm reading things correctly, Randonneurs USA was given an award for having the largest number of women. And I have this sense that, if women took over PBP, we would start seeing just as many roadside signs pointing out clean bathroom facilities as we see roadside stands offering up water and refreshments. Just imagine that.

But back to other aspects of the bike ride.

Continuing on, I started to hit another low point. One of the things that I have learned from randonneuring, however, is that if one keeps on, most low points will eventually pass. This particular low point seemed to call for a nap, though, so I started keeping an eye out for somewhere shady with some soft grass. No more desperate concrete catnaps.

I didn't find exactly what I was looking for, but eventually found something that was close enough: a flat section right next to the road that had been mowed not too long ago, with the requisite shade. I wanted a real snooze, so I set an alarm for an hour and laid out my survival tarp. An advantage to daytime sleep, I figured, was that it would be warm enough to sleep comfortably. Once again I dozed off to the sound of passing bicycles, occasional laughter, and those who paused to snap a photo.

Proper sleep would not come. A half hour later, I was up again and resigned myself to continuing to pedal. If I wasn't sleeping at least I could make some slow forward progress. For some reason, it started to become a real struggle to turn over the pedals and get my speed over 10 mph. Why did it feel like I was pedaling through molasses? What a struggle. Eventually I became aware that everyone else around me seemed to be experiencing the same struggle and slow crawl. Then I noticed that riders traveling in the opposite direction towards Brest seemed to be doing an unusual amount of coasting.

Oh. We were going uphill. I really couldn't tell from the surrounding terrain at that point, but it turned out we were going up THE hill, in fact. Before I even knew it, I spied a familiar sight:



That, my friends, is the TV tower at the top of the mountain. I could hardly believe it.

And this is the point where I knew, deep down, that this time I would finish the Paris-Brest-Paris.

What a feeling. And what amazing, beautiful, perfect weather. The clouds had cleared completely and once again it felt like we were at the top of the world. We could see gorgeous French countryside in every direction. I really can't capture the experience in photos, just as it's impossible to bottle and sell the experience of reaching a mountain summit. As another passing rider remarked, "The French all like to say, God was a Frenchman."

Stage 3: Villaines to Fougeres (309 km)

Unlike the riders crashed out in the cafeteria at Villaines, I simply paused to eat, visited the toilets, refilled my bottles, and shoved on. As an old book puts it: Evening passed and morning followed: The First Day. Now it was Monday. Despite riding through the night, I felt strong and awake the second morning, riding through scenic towns on the way to Fougeres. It was wonderful to revisit some of the beautiful spots I remembered vividly from 2011, such as this small river and town in a valley. In the early morning, I had started to see evidence of the French enthusiasm for cyclists in the form of all sorts of bicycle-themed displays, but this was the first point where it seemed worthwhile to pause and take a picture because day had broken.





The French are a large part of the reason to participate in this event. In addition to the countless people serving up water, snacks, and drinks by the side of the road, there are many who stay up late into the night and early into the morning to help ensure that tired riders don't miss critical turns. Even the French cyclists carry this attitude; at certain points I was cheered and encouraged by fellow riders passing me while exclaiming, "Bravo, madame! Bon courage!" Same to you, monsieur! What good cheer!

And then there were these guys, two Italians wearing historic clothing and riding period bicycles with old-fashioned lanterns for headlights. I hope they were able to keep their smiles all the way through.



At the control in Fougeres, I scarfed down the following items from the cafeteria, and then it was time for another project.



I can't remember if I've blogged much about this, but over the spring brevet series in Nebraska, I had an equipment problem crop up. My seatpost saddle bolt started to loosen up just a hair, causing my seat to tilt back too far. When I took things apart to investigate the issue, I eventually figured out that I could flip around one of the toothed bracket pieces and things seemed to hold together okay, so I have continued to use that seatpost. However, in the week prior to my departure for Europe, while commuting on Froinlavin, at one point I felt the unmistakable tiny clump of the saddle slipping down a notch again, angling the nose ever so slightly upward.

My desire to get good miles under my belt during the early stages of PBP overrode the need to do anything about this tiny maladjustment up until I reached Fougeres. At that point, growing discomfort in my lower back made me resolve to deal with the situation. The adjustment would have been trivial except that it also involved removing and re-installing my trunk bag, but after 5-10 minutes of fiddling, I got things better positioned and was ready to roll again.

As many cyclists will say, what a difference a degree will make! It turns out that it's still true. My lower back was instantaneously and miraculously happy again. In the long run I think my stubbornness contributed to the manifestation of other discomforts further down the road, but that's an aspect of myself I need to keep working on. Ounces of prevention and pounds of cure, and the like.

I had enough of my wits about me to remember that there's a castle in Fougeres! It is a little tricky to photograph from the route, but you can see a couple of the towers in this photo:



More importantly, in case you ever find yourself in Fougeres, it seems like a good idea to stop at the bar at the Fougeres castle, seen on the left side of the photo. Every good castle deserves a good castle bar.

Stage 4: Fougeres to Tinteniac (363 km)
I rode many sections of PBP alone, but in the company of ghosts, as memories of my 2011 attempt rose fresh to the surface. In 2011, by the time we reached Tinteniac, I was starting to feel the effects of riding straight through the first night and going up and down and up and down so many hills. At the controle, the man who stamped my brevet card asked me how I was doing, and I told him that I was very, very tired. In reply, he said, "When you are tired, just look out at the beautiful French countryside and you won't feel so tired anymore."

I listened and thought about his kind encouragement for the rest of the ride in 2011, and thought about his words many, many times on the road this year. If you were to ask me what would bring me back to PBP, the French countryside would be the number one answer.





This year, I simply paused for a baguette sandwich and a banana at Tinteniac, and pressed on.

Stage 5: Tinteniac to Quedillac (km 389)
I don't remember a whole lot from this part. Instead, here's a photo of a couple of the ElliptiGo riders. We leapfrogged quite a bit and rode together a bit, too. A couple of them used their reflective ducks to mark the travel arms of the ElliptiGos, so bicyclists wouldn't accidentally come up too close behind them at night. It's difficult for me to remember the names and faces of many of the other riders who rode alongside me and chatted for a bit. As another randonneusse commented, after a little while all of the middle-aged white guys start to blend together! Sorry, guys, but thank you for the company nonetheless.



Stage 6: Quedillac to Loudeac (km 448)
The ghosts surrounding Loudeac are strong. In 2011, on the outbound leg, S and I slept fitfully under a space blanket in a corner of the cafeteria, missing the worst of some thunderstorms. I was resolved to not sleep at Loudeac this time around because the conventional wisdom is that one can burn up too much time there waiting in very long lines for the showers, food, and sleeping cots. I did wait in the food line, and ate as much as I could of a huge plate of green beans (yum yum YUM), pasta with accidental meat sauce (ugh), and omelette (too intense for my stomach, ate most but not all). Then I set my phone's alarm for a 12-minute catnap in a small square of grass. Later on, another rider told me that when I lay down to sleep, there were a bunch of other riders sleeping in the same patch as well. When I got up, I was the only one left. I must have used an impressive repellent!

Stage 7: Loudeac to Saint Nicolas-du-Pelem (493 km)
Night fell. I also remember this section vividly from 2011. In 2011, the fog was pea-soup thick. S's fenders reached the point of irritability where we paused so he could rip them off, muttering curses. This time around, I didn't pause, but the section still felt treacherous. The hills are so steep and curvy that even with my much brighter generator light it was too terrifying to fly down them and reclaim as much energy as possible to climb back up.

I had been thinking I might try to sleep at Saint Nicolas, which turned out to be a "secret controle." However, when I pulled in, I could see a line sticking out of the sleeping accommodations, and I was starting to get tired of waiting in lines. I also didn't feel all that terribly exhausted, so instead I had a bowl of cafe-au-lait (in honor of my 2011 bowl there; the steam in my face felt amazing). I lay in the warm grass for another 12-minute catnap, then hopped back on my bicycle to forge onward to Carhaix.