Paris-Brest-Paris (PBP) is a non stop 1200km randonnee bike ride from Paris to Brest on the west coast of France and then back again to Paris. Partcipants can choose from three maximum time limits: 80, 84 or 90 hours. These time limits include all your stops, including eating sleeping and anything else you might need to do over 4 days!

The event is the most prestigious on the global Audax calendar and is aspired to by thousands of particpants from all continents once every four years; the next PBP will be in August 2011.

In 1891 the potential of the bicycle was still relatively untapped. Denounced by medics of the day for its alleged harm to the body, cycling was almost exclusively a male preserve. However, a few eccentric women of the day boldly insisted on riding the infernal contraption just like the men.

The first long cycle race, the 572 km Bordeaux-Paris, took place in spring 1891, and the British unexpectedly took the first three places. The event made such an impression on the French public that later that year, Pierre Giffard promoted the 1200km Paris-Brest-Paris to demonstrate the practicality of the bicycle, as well as its power, range and versatility. Condemned by the medical profession as a dangerous folly one medical expert of the day wrote “The bicycle in such overdoses will kill the rider just as surely as an overdose of arsenic”. Despite such damning predictions participants began to come forward, exceeding all of Giffard’s initial expectations. 400 riders including 7 women registered to take part, paying an unprecedented 5FF to enter. However, a considerable number clearly thought better of the idea, as only 207 cyclists started on September 6th, including 10 tricycles and 2 tandems. Cycles were sealed at the start to ensure riders used the same machine throughout and, perhaps to prevent a repeat of the all-British triumph earlier in the year, entries from foreign riders were refused. At the last minute the participation of women was also prohibited. Both amateurs and professionals took part, the pros employing crews to carry their gear and 10 pacers each.

The first PBP was a huge success with tens of thousands of people waiting well into the early hours for the return of the victor, Charles Terront, who rode without sleep for 71h22m. His closest rival Jacques Jiel Laval, a reputedly cold, methodical and calculating rider, compared to Terront’s more tempestuous and impulsive character finished some 8 hours behind. This triumph of passion over planning was not without its dramas. Terront had hit a barrier and at one point broke a crank so that he could only pedal one legged to the next check point. His victory in the end was as much for the power of the human spirit as it was for the triumph of technology.

Over half the entrants abandoned along the way and found their way instead to the nearest train station, whilst the remaining 100 survivors trickled back into the French capital over the following week. Giffard was delighted with the success of the event. “For the first time we saw a new mode of travel, a new road to adventure, a new vista of pleasure. These cyclists averaged 80 miles a day for 10 days yet they arrived fresh and healthy. Even a skilful and gallant horseman could not do better. Aren’t we on the threshold of a new and wonderful world?

The second PBP took place in 1901, with entry opened up to foreign racers and riders split into two groups—the faster “coureurs de vitesse” and the slower “touristes routiers.” These self-sufficient amateurs were the predecessors of today’s 4000 PBP randonneurs (who now include some 300 women). The ten year interval between the first two runnings of the race may have reflected the difficulty of organising such a long and complex event with observers monitoring riders by train and telegraph. However, the delay may also have been because the Herculean event was so hard on the riders that one PBP in any career was felt to be more than enough!

PBP is an event which only happens every four years. The next one is in August 2011. Ideally you need to get some miles in and some preparation done in non-PBP years so that it doesn't come as too much of a shock, however it is possible to go from a standing start to PBP in twelve months - we did!

In order to even enter PBP there is a clear structure to the preceding twelve months:

You have to complete Four Qualifying rides, which make up a 'Super Randonneur' series.  These are organised by the UK long distance cycling club, Audax UK who have a website for PBP information.  The rides are 200, 300, 400 and 600km within set qualifying times and at set times of the year. These take place in the first half of the PBP year. This might seem like a bit of a logistical or administrative headache, but given the huge distance of 1200km non stop that the ultimate event is, you need to test yourself gradually and find out if you really want to take part in an extreme event such as this.  For slower riders the longer events will mean riding through the night, and in some cases through two nights.  Sleep deprivation and mental as well as physical fatigue are all factors which can trouble riders, and the only way to find out how you will cope is to have a go...

So, four qualifying rides to complete in the early part of 2011 for the next PBP. Then, and only then do riders have the right to apply for entry for PBP. Entry is capped at about 4000 participants worldwide, and always vastly oversubscribed.

There is no guarantee of getting a place as the organisers reserve a certain number of places for hom-based French riders. Audax UK can handle all your entry requirements for you, but you will need proof of your successful qualifying rides and a doctors certificate that you are fit to take part.

 

There are lots of war stories connected to audax and PBP, and former participants will be delighted to share a few with you. PBP and the demands it places on riders is unlike anything else you will ever do.  Even the starting arrnangements are seemingly bizarre.  For the 90 hour start (which gives you the maximum amount of time to complete the challenge), you start st 10pm at night and ride straight through the first night and then on through the first day without stopping.  Sounds mad?  Well, you can start at a seemingly more sensible time with a smaller group of faster more elite riders, and start off riding through the day, but if you have overestimated you abilities you are done for.  If you are signed up as an 84 hour rider and you do it in 85 hours, you will not get a medal, notwithstanding that you are within the overall 90 hour time limit.  Unsurprisingly most people opt for the 90 hour maximum group start.

Have a look at 'what it is really like to ride PBP' below for a flavour. In our build up we were alarmed by the lack of sleep, the penchant for sleeping in bus shelters and the glee with which riders talk of weeing through their shorts and wiping their bottoms on their hats, as if this is normal behaviour... Not for the faint hearted!

Here is a taste of our PBP tandem experience:

With crowds massed around the start line for the 21.45 tandem start, just ahead of the main 22.00 solo bike departure. A tannoy announcer was whipping everyone up into a frenzy of anticipation and excitement, there was no shortage of people happy to snap our picture as we waited for the off. All of a sudden there was a hush and then a countdown started. I hopped on the back, and gulped. This was it. Don’t fall off in front of everybody, don’t clip someone’s wheel and bring the whole pack down, don’t focus on the fact that you need the toilet already and have got 20km of riding to do before you get out into the countryside...

We knew that we would have motorcycle outriders for the start of the ride. They were designed to keep the pace at the front of the bunch from getting too frenetic, and also to guide people through the maze of suburban Paris. What we hadn’t reckoned upon was that every road junction where we didn’t have priority would be marshalled, either officially or informally by helpful spectators, throughout the next four days. As we left the start, under one of those inflatable archways you see on the Tour de France, to the cheers of the assembled throng, I got quite caught up in the atmosphere and excitement. Along the dual carriageways and past the industrial parks people were strung out along the pavement waving and cheering. Having made such an effort it seemed only decent to give them a wave back, and who was in a better position to do so than me, on the back of the tandem. So there I was, milking the applause for all it was worth, and checking over my shoulder to see if a low slung recumbent had crept up alongside us out of my husband's eyeline and was in danger of getting sideswiped if we changed position on the road.

Unsurprisingly it wasn’t too long before the first group of solo bikes came past us, having set off 15 minutes later. Throughout the night an express train of bicycles would come steaming through every so often, as the next batch caught up with us.

The grimmest and blackest part of the night came upon us, and I remembered the statistic that 70 participants in the last PBP had packed before they had reached the first control point. Not me, I thought, and as I was urging myself to stay awake and alert we saw two Brits pushing their tandem up a hill about 10 km from the first control point, looking grimfaced in the extreme. “Mechanical failure”, said a passing recumbent. “The mechanics might be able to fix it”, and then he was gone.

The control point itself was a bit of an eye-opener, with the streets immediately around the building closed to traffic and crowds out on the street to cheer as hordes of riders came and went. Again we passed under a big inflatable archway that made me feel like a real professional rider, and we were into the control building to swipe our cards and refill bottles and stomachs. With our own food experience being that bland is best I was sent on in front to make executive dietary decisions for the pair of us, whilst Peter attempted to sweet talk the controllers into swiping through two halves of the tandem pair at the same time, thereby saving a considerable amount of queuing time.

He re-emerged smiling in triumph, and we sat down to a bowl of Smash with a drizzle of tomato sauce, and a rice pudding to follow. We were quickly up and off again, conscious that any time we earned at this stage would translate into sleep later, and the remainder of the day passed in a haze with us as one little bicycle bead on an enormous string that wound its way across the Brittany countryside.

The next set of calculations occupying us was the point at which the elite 'vedettes' racing for the overall win would depressingly cross us coming in the opposite direction. The record time was around 42 hours, and so we could reckon that they would be long finished by the time we were leaving Brest. On that schedule they would be coming back through the control at Loudéac where we intended to spend the first night, at about the same time we were passing through on the way out. In fact they were a little way ahead of that, and as we ground our way onward towards a midnight finish at Loudéac all we saw were the flashing lights of motorbike outriders, and then a whoomph, as a peleton flashed by in the opposite direction.

In our pre ride pep talks PBP verterans had assured us that we would glide round PBP on the adrenalin of the event. After a full night and day in the saddle there was precious little adrenalin left to run off. The hype about the French crowds was well placed however. There weren’t the packed pavements of the Parisien departure all the way along, but we would be riding through inky blackness with only fields on either side for miles around, and then from nowhere we would hear a surreal and gutteral “Bravoooo” and there would be a wizened old cyclo sat on a deckchair with a bottle of wine and a wizened old cyclo wife beside him at 3 in the morning, waving appreciatively at the passing bicycle traffic.

As the blackness of the night was threatening to envelop us and drag us towards a nearby verge we latched on behind a woman with the most phenomenally bright bike lights I have ever seen. There was no way you could take turns in the lead with her (not that we were hugely keen to expend extra energy anyway at this stage), as the glare was too dazzling to eyes by now accustomed to picking their way in the gloom, but it was comforting to be able to see a clearer route amongst gravel or potholes as we inched our way ever closer to Loudéac and a rest.

We had worked out our stopping schedule prior to the event... We needed to do 451km to Loudéac non stop, which meant riding for about 24-26 hours, so all the way through the first night and into the second. A sleep there, during the darkest part of the night, then up and off about 5am on Day Two, for a 326km ride round the corner at Brest before sleeping the next night at Loudéac again. Day Three would be 321km to a sleep stop at Mortagne-au-Perche, and then Day Four, the allegedly easy 141km run back in the daylight to Paris. “Time to savour the scenery, stop in the cafés, have a massage at the controls and still finish with time to spare”, according to one veteran.

So it was with no small sense of triumph that we pulled into Loudéac before midnight, ahead of my mental schedule and having earned ourselves a whole 6 hours sleep. Or so I thought. We swiped in, and went to get our food, only to find that the queue was out of the door of the canteen and around the school playground. Of course what we had vaguely considered but not really applied our thoughts to was that many of our fellow 4000 riders would also be on similar schedule to our own. In fact, in order to press on to the next control for the first stop, you either had to be prepared to ride through a second consecutive night, or you had to be travelling much much faster on the road than we were.

There was a general attitude of grumpy muttering amongst the fellow riders in the queue, and one American group in particular were feeling especially put out having reserved accommodation at a school in the town when they were making arrangements in the States, only to find now that they had arrived that the School building was not being opened after all, and they had no alternative accommodation provided for them. It came as no great surprise that all the beds in the dorm were taken. So now what? Well, first things first, get some food inside us to refuel, before planning an alternative sleep strategy.

The queue seemed to take an age to move and slowly we shuffled into the foyer of the building. My husband shuffled forward, lurched, and then collapsed on the floor. An international mellee of assistance hauled him back to his feet and propped him up as he came to. The combination of no sleep and too long without food was taking its toll. I sent him on to sit down at the cafeteria tables whilst I queued for another few minutes to get our troughs of Smash and gravy.

The canteen was total chaos. It was difficult to find anywhere to sit and eat because exhausted and bedless riders were asleep at tables or in their dinner. Many had slumped into unconsciousness where they sat. Others had decided to make a more comfortable night of it and had climbed up onto the tables to stretch out for a good 40 winks. You couldn’t reach the exit because there were bodies and limbs stretched out across the floor, posted between table legs and strewn along the walkways. All this amongst the noise and commotion of a mass catering kitchen, in the full glare of fluorescent lighting, and with a hubbub of noise and chit chat from those riders who were still arriving, or were waking up to set out again.

As we finished our meal, the conversation (not that it was particularly fluent or erudite) turned to sleep. The canteen was too noisy, we had already lost valuable sleep time by the interminable queues, so we would sleep outside under our space blankets. (Good job I packed them, I thought, after 6 months of carrying them round pristine and unopened in their little foil packets.) I found a quiet spot away from everybody else in a little courtyard below the cafeteria. I unpacked the necessaries from the bag and settled down with my ear plugs in and my face mask on, ready for my 4 hours of blessed sleep. There was a persistent rustling from alongside me.

“Harrrumpph.”

(rustle rustle rustle)

“Grrrrrrrr.”

(silence)

(rustle rustle)

“Haaaarrruummmpphhhh!”

“I can’t do it”, whimpered hubby. “It’s too windy here, it’s making the space blankets rustle too much.”

I was feeling overwrought and emotional by this point. I could feel my hard earned 6 hours sleep seeping away into nothing. We had already wasted far too much time faffing around already, so now was not the time to get cross and have a time consuming argument. Moaning however could be done at the same time as packing up our stuff and so carried no additional penalty of delay.

“It’s not fair”, I whined. “We’ve worked so hard to get here and we’ve done so well, and now I feel like it’s all being snatched away from us because the facilities can’t cope.”

We decamped back inside and selected the underside of a table. It was hard and draughty next to the door, and we were constantly in the way of people coming and going. The lights were disturbing, even though a blindfold, and the noise was intolerable. We lasted about 5 minutes, before packing up once more and heading back outside to a location allegedly more sheltered from the wind. As I lay there listening to the rustle of tin foil against playground I wasn’t altogether convinced that we were any better off here than we had been in our original location. In fact we were arguably worse off, as we had arrived at this spot half an hour later than the original one, but there was little point in huffing about it now. I tucked my space blanket under my feet, wishing that out of the many hundreds of pounds I had invested in cycling kit I had paid the extra 99p for a space bag that wouldn’t have blown off in the wind, and pulled the balaclava over my ears with my gloved fingers. I was wearing absolutely everything that I had with me – waterproofs, arm and leg warmers, 3 pairs of shorts. I put my head down on the plastic bag of energy drink I was using for a pillow, and within seconds I was asleep.

I awoke before the alarm we had set, with my teeth chattering, and my body convulsed with cold. At least if I’m shaking I must be alive, I thought. If I was really hypothermic I would just have gone to sleep and not woken up. I lay there trying to convince myself that being still and horizontal was good rest off the bike, but it didn’t feel like it. I was awake, and every waking second not pedalling or refuelling was a wasted second, one which would have to be made up at some later stage. This was only the end of the first day. We had two more nights and three more days to survive like this, so we might as well get up and on with it. We staggered to our feet, creaking and aching, our joints arguing the score with our muscles, and our brains too befuddled to make the arguments they should have made about going home and having a nice warm bath and then a 12 hour nap.

Breakfast was much like every other meal - there was a variety of food on offer, but we chose only the blandest, most starchy options available. It was still early, and a cold mist hung over the countryside as we hauled our legs unwillingly across the crossbar and attempted to negotiate the chicane of crash barriers set up at the entrance and exit point to segregate the incoming stream of riders from those exiting. There were big signs up as we left indicating the direction to Paris (if only) and the direction to Brest. It was depressing to think that a fair few of the riders who were leaving as we did were turning the other way and heading home having done the best part of 800km. We, of course, still had some way to go to reach Brest, and all of it with a stream of cheerfully waving fellow riders coming the other way.

It was pretty apparent already that if you found yourself near the back of the 22.00 group early on you could expect to be quite close to the control closing time in Brest. Some, like Sheila herself, were well placed to cope with this, with many hundreds of miles in her legs and experience and confidence in her ability to complete the event. We as novices were terrified by the advance of the control closure times. I had an extra laminated card in my back pocket with the control opening (irrelevant) and closing (very important) times printed on it. You were allegedly allowed to be out of time at a control provided you made it up by the next one. We did not wish to put this rule to the test…

As we left Loudéac there were still plenty of people behind us. Throughout the day and night there were strings of bicycles in front and behind. At night in particular the effect was quite mesmerising as a skein of red tail lights skittered like 1000 fireflies off towards the horizon Another rider compared it to a Tolkein-inspired army of orcs marching on their target with flaming torches aloft, but that implied a sense of vigour and energy that I evidently wasn’t sharing. Behind, a similar white string weaved its way along the road, bulging in places where groups of friends, compatriots or new acquaintances had got together to make the hours and the kilometres spin away more tolerably.The roadside verges as we left Loudéac were packed bumper to bumper with camper vans, which turned to estate cars as we got further out, then hatchbacks, and then finally for the next few kilometres huddled bodies under space blankets or plastic sheeting, slumped in a cycle induced stupor.  The whole route was far more hilly than either of us had expected. PBP includes 31,000ft or 9,400m of climbing in total, so the route is never flat, but this climb was the most savage. Many old-timers were complaining that the hills had flattened in their memories, only to rear their ugly heads once more now that they had to be climbed in earnest.

Somehow, I had imagined it would now be a nice, easy long downhill into Brest. After all, we were going down to the sea. Wrong. The road dropped down, climbed back up again, then began an agonizing series of steep drops and climbs most of the remaining way to Brest.

The final swoop down into Brest was almost fun, albeit spoilt somewhat by the thought that every inch of height we lost had to be regained on the return journey. The view across the bridge as we approached the city was spectacular, and I pulled the camera out and took some random snaps forwards and backwards over Peter’s shoulder, not wanting to stop and get off the bike to capture the best shot.

We squeaked into Brest outside the theoretical 40 hour time limit for a 600km ride, which had been our mental target, but inside the official closing time.

It was tempting to follow the queue to the shower block but I was paranoid about time, and didn’t want to spend any more time off the bike than I had to. I changed my shorts, and then put the old pair back on over the top, as my bottom was beginning to protest after 600km of having its sensitivities ignored. It helped a little, and compared to the fuggy headed ache I was living with it was relatively insignificant.

I was looking forward to the psychological lift which pulling out of Brest with hundreds of others still streaming in would provide, but it never came. The route took a 30km loop either side of Brest, so for 2 or 3 hours the route was split. When we rejoined the to and fro section again there was no one in sight on the other side. After a few minutes two or three grim faced stragglers trundled into view, then a scattering more, but that was it. We were so close to the closing times ourselves that anybody 3 hours down on us at this stage was in all sorts of trouble. We weren’t the last by any means, as there was still a string of riders behind us, but the realisation that we were on the edge of the time limit without anything untoward having happened did little to boost our spirits.

Having slept at Loudéac on the way out it was pretty much inevitable that we would end up back there for the following night, and of course if that was true for us, it was also true of all the others whose bodies had littered the cafeteria and sports fields the previous night. We were once again turned away from the over full dorms and after another meal of carbohydrate slop we chose a location under a veranda for our 2 hours – nicely sheltered and slightly warmer, if rather too close to the toilet blocks to be entirely without downsides. Reeling from the shock of having to get up and do it all again our bodies protested, but eventually complied, and the morning was staggeringly beautiful if bone chillingly cold. The exhaustion and rate at which we were using up our edible fuel made us feel the cold even more keenly. The bike swerved a couple of times as the driver drooped over the handlebars, but once again as the sun rose so did our spirits and our mental alertness.

There were plenty of other riders who were not so lucky. A number it seemed had fallen asleep on the bike and had gone over the handlebars. Motorcycles were screaming up and down the route checking people were OK, and it was hard to tell who was lying hurt and who had just hopped off the bike and fallen asleep on a verge. Everywhere we looked throughout the day there were bikes and bodies strewn around. The preferred pose seemed to be lying on one’s back with legs raised at right angles up against a tree, perhaps to reduce the inflammation of the knees, which was beginning to become a factor for us both.

In contrast to the usual form in the UK as the ride progressed people became more chatty and eager to talk. The barriers were broken down – we were all in it together, and nobody who had come this far wanted to fail, or for the others around them to do so either. Plus, any form of interaction made nodding off that little bit less likely. We got chatting to a gruff Australian called Graham with the most spectacular handlebar moustache since Lord Kitchener. He continually commended me on being a “Damn plucky Sheila for doing this.” I wondered if the exploits of the leather-bottomed coke-swigging, backside-wiping iron maiden of Audax were the inspiration for this antipodean turn of phrase.

“Because, it’s not exactly…” he trailed off as if worried he was about to say the unsayable. I interrupted him.

“It’s bloody awful, isn’t it?” He looked relieved. “In fact pretty much anything over 200km isn’t fun is it?” I added.

“Buggering hard bastard if you ask me,” he nodded, which pretty much summed it up.

By this stage the next phase of uninhibited toileting was pretty much upon everyone. Rows of bottoms along the roadside, urinating into hedgerows which would soon be strewn with prone bodies catching 40 winks amongst the wee-soaked grass. I was at a considerable time disadvantage in having to search out somewhere for a more secluded wee. The blatant roadside wee with a husband as lookout was not really an option given the continuous stream of passing riders who would get full enjoyment of my ablutions. And with that little backwards step for both Anglo-American relations and the battle of the sexes, they were gone into the muddle of shirts further on up the road.

The day wound on and on with little to distinguish one set of lycra bottoms from another. Villages that we passed through differed markedly in their attitudes to the event. Some scarcely noticed it was happening, with perhaps the occasional “Bon courage” from a window, or “Bravo la femme!” when they spotted me on the back. Others however clearly saw it as a great landmark in the calendar. “Allez Phillippe, notre facteur” read signs throughout one village, cheering their postman on to greatness. Others had painted lists of the names of every local participant so that the messages of support could be read at whatever hour of the day or night the riders passed through.

I felt irrationally emotional as I saw these signs, at the support that was being given to these people. I thought of the people who were supporting us, and I wished self-indulgently that someone could have painted my name on a piece of cardboard and propped it up against a road sign. I felt very alone and pondered how I would feel at the finish, and as I did so felt a lump in my throat at the mere thought of the relief of finishing. In other villages the residents had covered every old bicycle for miles around with flowers and fairly lights, making a dazzling display. Many had thrown open their doors to provide food or beds, and it seemed quite the done thing for the local children to be out running alongside the road handing out water and sugar lumps. They seemed so disappointed if we declined, and so genuinely delighted to have helped if we accepted that we got into a habit of swiping a cup of water on our way through without stopping or even greatly slowing down. Several villages had set up marquees and were handing out orange segments, and strong coffee. There was a party atmosphere, although there weren’t too many riders carousing at this stage.

We checked in at Villaines-la-Juhel at about midnight, knowing that if we had any hope of getting into the next checkpoint at Mortagne-au-Perche before it closed we had to carry straight on there that night. If we slept at Villaines we would be timed out, and PBP would be over. Having swiped the cards there didn’t seem to be any food. I was just about to huff off and go in search of a café, when we spotted a stream of people to-ing and fro-ing on the other side of the road. There were crowds of people out cheering and observing even at this time of night, so we struggled our way through and sure enough found the most enormous canteen set up in a sports hall. I was feeling decidedly ropey by this stage, and watched in queasy admiration as others demolished a pile of pasta, rice pudding with yogurt and fruit compote to follow. I pushed my mashed potato around the plate and was chided to get it down me. This was no time after all to be running out of energy. We couldn’t afford for me to “bonk”. I managed about half, and we stared glassy eyed across the table, discussing what needed to be done.

We were all doing the calculations. We had at least another 3 hours riding to do tonight before we could stop, maybe more as it was always slower at night, and we couldn’t really remember what the terrain had been like on the way out, other than that it had seemed far hillier than we had expected. Another rider summed it up:

“We’ve ridden 1000km, pushed ourselves further than we have ever gone before, we’re within striking distance of killing this thing, and there is still a real possibility that we could stuff it up.”

It was true. It became more and more obvious that the critical thing was to get into Mortagne-au-Perche that night, however late that might be. That would leave us with 141km to do by 3.45pm the next day to reach the finish. Seven hours riding all being well, so we needed to be away by 6am to give ourselves any sort of a contingency should anything go wrong. I was very very worried. I had always known it would be tight for us to get round in time, but we had seemed to be on schedule, in fact we sort of still were, it was just that I couldn’t really imagine how I was going to haul myself across the next 80km when every inch of my body was exhausted and sleep deprived.

Riders compared hallucinations. My own favourite to date was the herd of antelope that had run across the road in front of us and disappeared into the cliff wall at the side of the road. My husband had hallucinated a puncture. He was so utterly convinced that the tyre in front of him had gone flat that he stopped the bike to inspect it. He had hallucinated the sensation of a buckled wheel too, and had communicated it so convincingly to me that I had been sure I could feel it as well. As we rode on through the night the hallucinations came thick and fast. I was about to tap  hubby on the shoulder to ask him if he had spotted the enormous person sized bottle of Evian water by the side of the road, when I realised that it was unlikely that he would also be able to see it. Unnecessary also to point out the huge 15ft human skull by the side of the road - it was huge and green, and as tall as a tree… ah yes, a tree. Just then the bike lurched hideously to the left and we swerved onto the other carriageway.

“WAKE UP!!!!!” I screamed, jabbing my fingers into my co-pilot's backside. He jerked back upright again and the bike swung back over to the right once more. No cars, no ditches, and now plenty of adrenalin to see us in to the next control.

Miraculously we made it to Mortagne at about 3.30am.  Even more astonishingly there was a bed for us in the dorm. They were rationing people to only a few hours in the dorms here, and as a relatively late arrival many had already headed off towards the final push for Paris. Delighted with any dorm time at all, we stumbled off to the luxury of a 'bed'.

The helper who was running the dorm took our frame numbers to identify us, and wrote them in a little box representing the beds we were being allocated. We told them the time we wished to leave and they said they would come to wake us at the allotted hour. We had agreed on a 5am wake up call, which would give us about an hour and a half’s sleep. Clearly inadequate, but still, better than nothing. I distinctly remembered an episode of ER where new interns were counselled not to bother going to bed unless they could get at least 3 hours sleep, or it would just make them feel worse. But hey, at this stage it scarcely seemed plausible I could feel any worse, and the thought of being horizontal on something flat, soft and indoors was so delightful it was not to be turned down.

We were led into the hangar-like building, and as the door opened a wave of sweat and snores hit us like a smack on the chin. We had been warned the sight was reminiscent of a refugee camp, and it was certainly arresting in its squalor. The whole floor space was covered in foam mattresses, with barely an inch between them side to side, and perhaps a foot or so head to toe, so that you could walk between them to reach your spot. As we stepped in through the door the sleeper to my right gave the most almighty snore.

“Oh God”, I thought “don’t let me get stuck next to the snorer”.

As we tiptoed another few yards around the room it became apparent that every second occupant was honking away in merry oblivion, and there would be no escaping it wherever one was situated. We stripped off bits of kit that were full of sharp objects and multitools, put on blindfolds, inserted earplugs, and slipped onto the foam mattress still warm and rumpled from the previous incumbent. “I’ll never get to sleep with all this going on,” I thought to myself in the 4 or 5 seconds before I added my melodious note to the choir of snores.

I was awoken by by better half slapping me hard across the face, something he had apparently been doing for sometime with little success. He was ashen-faced as if something terrible had happened.

“Get up, GET UP, it’s 6 o’clock. The bastards have forgotten to wake us up.”

I leapt out of bed and stuffed random items into the bag. We ran out of the dorm and up to the canteen to grab something to eat.

“It’s just not fair”, he said, “if we miss out on our time because of this I shall write and complain”.

I could feel a mental letter of complaint coming on too. As I did so I glanced at my watch – 5.08. We hadn’t overslept at all, we were just so mentally shot that neither of us could tell the time. Peter didn’t seem as cheered by this news as I had expected. In fact he seemed to be at a real low point. His knees were giving him terrible trouble after a couple of hours lying down, and he was having real doubts about his ability to carry on.

“Are you guys going to be OK with him on the front like that?”, another rider asked.

Who knew? But what other option was there? I wasn’t about to jeopardise both our prospects by taking over on the front and crashing us into a ditch. Instead I adopted the inane drivel approach to checking Peter was still awake and functioning.

“I know this will be boring”, I said, “but I am going to talk to you non stop to keep you from nodding off, and I will require you to grunt a response form time to time just to prove that you are still conscious.”

It seemed to work, although it was slow and swervy progress for a while. The hills still continued, and we had the frustrating presence of riders catching a lift on the flat and downhills, only to scoot off again feeling refreshed leaving us in their wake. We stopped in various villages to pick up pain aux raisins, only to find that by 7am every bakery en route had been stripped of its produce by the hungry hordes – again one of the penalties of being towards the back. I scouted a couple of roads off the route on the advice of one of the locals and found a healthily stocked boulangerie, which I did my best to relieve of much of its goods. By this stage I was largely eating only plain and generally stale baguette, and doing so virtually constantly. Not only did the incessant munching give me something to do, which helped me to stay awake, but it seemed to settle my fragile stomach.

I was tired and apprehensive, but generally positive. The other half of the team however was still plumbing the depths of moroseness.

“We’re making good progress” I observed.

“Still plenty of time to screw up” he countered.

It was like pricking a bubble. All of the superficially positive energy I had been using to try to buoy us both along evaporated and suddenly I felt the huge burden of trying to support the hopes and aspirations of both of us for the last year come thudding down on to my shoulders. It was more than I could bear in my mentally fried and overly fragile state.

“Just stop it!” I yelled. “Just stop being so bloody negative”, as I could feel the tears welling up yet again.

“There is no need to shout at me. It is not helping.”, added Peter.

We sank back into sullen silence punctuated by my occasional sobs and gulps for air.

The final control on the way back was what had been an optional food stop on the way out, at Nogent-le-Roi. When we pulled in there and checked our watches we both began to feel a little more confident. Even Peter began to concede it was possible that we might make it. About 80km left to go, and six hours in which to do it.

As I waited by the bike for my hubby to stumble through his toilet stop more and more riders were pouring in through the narrow corridors between the barriers, and into the pens where bikes were propped up. One rider swooped too fast round the corner, or misjudged it in his bleary-eyed state and clipped the foot of the barrier. The clatter of pedal on fence, followed by the crump of helmet on tarmac was a chilling sound. He was immediately surrounded by medical help, but lay there motionless for long enough to make all those who had witnessed the incident reflect on how fragile the distinction between success and failure can be in such an event. To have ridden 1145km and be on schedule for the finish only to wipe out in the control would be cruel in the extreme. As we left to ride the last stretch ourselves he was urging the paramedics to let him continue. Reminiscent of the Tom Simpson “just put me back on my bike” mentality.

At long last the terrain flattened out and the ride back in was almost enjoyable at times from our perspective. Poor Kay was still suffering, leaving Mortagne not long after we did. She made it to the control at Nogent where she thought it was the 'finish', and decided not to take any more pills. She for some reason thought her time had been logged in and that she just had to ride to the start/finish. Wrong! The clock was still going, but by this stage her knees were not. “The last 40 miles were absolutely the hardest”, she said. “I cannot even count the number of times I heard from the side of the road ‘Bon courage, Madame.’ Yeah, right ... just get this thing over with, ok! So, my lesson is learned”, she added “no matter how soft or shiny or pretty or titanium, DO NOT change equipment before an event. This is not new news, but something I thought I could justify ignoring.”

We had been in contact with my parents in law as we left Nogent, to give them an idea of the time we might be at the finish. They had gamely come over to Paris having handed over care of our kids to my parents, with a view to meeting us at the finish. I had taken it upon myself to manage down their expectations so heavily that I think they both thought they were coming out to a wake, and to support and prop us up during the inevitable let down as we failed to get round or were timed out. As it was the arrangement was that they would get the next train and we would text them when we were about half an hour away. With renewed vigour in our legs we covered the ground more rapidly than expected, fired on our way by yet more spectators exhibiting the same sort of tenacious resilience required of the participants. Around one corner was an elderly accordion player who saluted each rider with the appropriate national anthem. I sent the message to say we were nearly there, and the frantic response came back – Still on train, will be there asap.

We slowed down a little at that point. A bizarre concept to be taking it easy on the run in, after all the doubts and fears of not finishing. However after all this effort from both us and Peter’s parents it scarcely seemed appropriate to miss sharing the grand finale. The run in through the suburbs was a bit of a white knuckle ride, as by the time we reached them the inhabitants of the suburbs were understandably sick of tired and erratic cyclists riding as if they owned the road. We stuttered through a string of traffic lights, along busy dual carriageways, and it was all feeling rather fraught and intense. No one was talking, all the jollity had evaporated, and everyone was focused on themselves and their own achievement.

The crowds waiting for us were huge. The streets were lined with cyclists who had already finished, and supporters, locals and those who had travelled from all around the world. We had been left behind by a larger group of riders at the last set of lights by virtue of a shambolically inept starting manoeuvre and so as we pedalled up the final section we were virtually on our own. There was applause, and then as the announcer spotted us a great roar for a tandem, a British tandem, a British tandem with a woman on the back! I slapped my hisband on the back and waved to the crowd. His parents were up on top of the island in the middle of the finishing roundabout waving and snapping away with cameras to record the moment. I hugged the backside I had spent the last 88 and a half hours staring at, as the inevitable and much anticipated tears washed down my face in elation and relief. We had done it - despite everything, all our fears, and anxieties, all our weaknesses and frailties, all our inexperience and lack of talent – WE had done it. We were ancien and ancienne PBP - and an hour and half to spare too!