Sheila (support driver and author) and Steve at the registration session on Sunday 19 August 2007.
The 16th Paris Brest Paris event which is held every 4 years started at St Quentin-en-Yvelines near Versailles at 8pm on Monday 20th August 2007 with the 80 hour riders departing.
Josh Kench whom Steve had ridden round Lake Taupo with last November on their 600km qualifier had entered the 80 hour group and was intending to go flat out for the 1200 kms!
On his way back to catch up with Anton, a rider passed him, which because he'd been going so fast hadn't happened so far, so Steve spoke to him saying Hello. The guy turned out to be Stephane Couge, a past French National Champion, who rode with him for about 80kms. Steve says it was like riding along with Michael Jackson, as when all the school kids on the side of the roads were cheering, they recognised him and were shouting Hey Stephane! Very cool.
My next meeting point was at Carhaix on their return trip. They got in about 5.30pm. Very wet! The good weather they got on the way to Brest didn't last as they headed back inland.
Another change of clothing at Tinteniac. Managed to park across the road from the up hill control.
Steve came into the control before 3am. They were ready to go. He’d been woken up by Anton shivering so thought they’d better get moving.
He needed some sleep but running so close with time I could only let him have a 20 minute power nap in the car. He downed a hot coffee and more pain au chocolat and heading off to Dreux at about 7.15am, looking rather better than how he’d looked when he arrived. I told him that he only had 140kms to go but that he'd have to be at the finish by 3.30pm. "Bloody hell" he said.
I too went to Dreux – I was struggling to stay awake (something to do with having been up all night!) so I found the MacDonalds there and had a sleep in their car park for an hour then had a coffee before heading to the finish at St Quentin.
Just as I was getting there at about 11am Steve texted me asking where I was. I said I was nearly there. His reply was “Beat ya”.
He had finished at 10.30am making a 78 hour ride. After meeting on the big roundabout at the finish we parked up and waited for Anton – they’d become separated on the last leg.
3.30 came and went without any sign of Ian. Finally at about 4pm Ian came round the corner, Steve grabbed his bike and I grabbed Ian and we ran to the control desk; unfortunately the queue was about 20 minutes long so that was a bit unfair on people who were chasing the clock. But he’d finished. When I’d seen him at 6.30am that morning I thought he was a gonner. It must have been sheer guts and determination that got him to the end.
We learned later that over 30% of the starters didn’t finish. Normally only about 10% don’t complete the route.
On the way back to Ian’s hotel, either Steve or Ian would be speaking then in mid sentence they would just start snoring. It was hilarious. Then they would start talking again then snoring.
We caught up with the other guys in the NZ team including Colin "Wal" Anderson, NZ hero for setting the record earlier this year for cycling from Cape Reinga in Northland down to Bluff at the bottom, on the Saturday night (after Steve had spent all day in bed with the flu) for dinner.
Marion and one of the other support drivers, Mark.
Steve "swapped" his NZ shirt for a German shirt. 3 Germans were staying at the same hotel and we had a good debrief over breakfast the next morning.
Having been the support driver on a few events in the past, I thought it was about time a support driver did the report instead of the competitor.
Controls:
Outward - Villaines La Juhel 222kms; Fougeres 307kms; Tinteniac 365kms; Loudeac 450kms; Carhaix 526kms; Brest 615kms;
Return - Carhaix 700kms; Loudeac 775kms; Tinteniac 860kms; Fougeres 915kms; Villaines La Juhel 1003kms; Mortagn Au Perch 1085kms; Dreux 1159kms; St Quentin en Yvelines - Guyancourt 1227kms!
The 16th Paris Brest Paris event which is held every 4 years started at St Quentin-en-Yvelines near Versailles at 8pm on Monday 20th August 2007 with the 80 hour riders departing.
Josh Kench whom Steve had ridden round Lake Taupo with last November on their 600km qualifier had entered the 80 hour group and was intending to go flat out for the 1200 kms! We had a ticket for a pasta feed at the hall so after we'd seen Josh off we had our free meal then headed back to the start line to watch the 90 hour riders departing. It was dark by now and had been raining on and off.
The 90 hour riders set off next in groups of 500 starting at 9pm and apparently were still going off in waves until 11pm. My older brother Ian from the UK was in one of those groups.
8 Kiwis were on the starting sheet including 2 chicks - Marion and Jenny.
As we headed back to our hotel it absolutely tipped it down with rain; Steve was just grateful that his start was tomorrow morning and hopefully the rain would go.
After a not very good sleep back at the hotel we drove to the start line for about 4.30am. We had met up with Anton Blackie the night before (3 beers for 24 euros!). Anton had registered himself as a "pseudo" kiwi because he'd ridden his qualifiers in NZ with Steve - Christchurch to Nelson (400kms), Nelson to Greymouth (300kms) and Greymouth to Darfield (200kms) in February this year).
At least it wasn't raining although it had rained all night. After a safety briefing on the line which included some dodgy road surface and a warning about the prolific French road furniture, the starting hooter blew for the 84 hour group at exactly 5am and they disappeared into the night.
As support driver, my plan was to get to the first check point before them at Villaines La Juhel for about 2pm, being some 220kms away. Still trying to get to grips with driving on the wrong side of the road, using the wrong hand to change gear with and trying to map-read all at the same time, meant that I got there 20 minutes after them. I was also paranoid about avoiding their route – support vehicles found on the riders’ route would incur their rider a penalty.
Despite it having rained most of the night, it wasn’t too bad and almost sunny at Villainnes. The lads had a baguette or 2 from the car and were feeling good and set off again about 3pm. I’d decided I was sick of driving already and wanted to chill out a bit; lucky I did really as 20 minutes later I heard a familiar voice coming up the road shouting “ thank god you’re still here, what a stuff up!” Steve had left his control document wallet in the boot of the car!! He then had to do a 20km time trial back to Anton to catch him again – just what he needed.
Despite it having rained most of the night, it wasn’t too bad and almost sunny at Villainnes. The lads had a baguette or 2 from the car and were feeling good and set off again about 3pm. I’d decided I was sick of driving already and wanted to chill out a bit; lucky I did really as 20 minutes later I heard a familiar voice coming up the road shouting “ thank god you’re still here, what a stuff up!” Steve had left his control document wallet in the boot of the car!! He then had to do a 20km time trial back to Anton to catch him again – just what he needed.
On his way back to catch up with Anton, a rider passed him, which because he'd been going so fast hadn't happened so far, so Steve spoke to him saying Hello. The guy turned out to be Stephane Couge, a past French National Champion, who rode with him for about 80kms. Steve says it was like riding along with Michael Jackson, as when all the school kids on the side of the roads were cheering, they recognised him and were shouting Hey Stephane! Very cool.
Stephane then followed his progress on the internet and met up and rode with him again on the return journey.
It was shortly after this that the rain started – and never stopped again until the Friday afternoon.
I leap-frogged the next control at Fougeres and met up with them again at Tinteniac later that night about 8pm being 365kms.
It had rained constantly and they were soaked. The buffet food at the control was perfect – salty pasta dishes, semolina puddings, bread, hot coffee etc. and because they still hadn’t really caught up with 3,000 90-hour guys, the queues were okay at that stage.
Loudeac was the next control. I was parked on the street at the back entrance to the school having a sleep in the car when Steve texted me to say they’d arrived. It was 1.30am. They came and got some food and then they slept in the car for 3 hours while I sat in the restaurant/hall area with 1500 smelly damp soggy cyclists. There were bodies trying to sleep everywhere most in survival blankets. Competitors could have had a dorm bed for 3.5 euros but we heard later that the mattresses had gotten wet from successive wet bodies sleeping on them. Others had said that the dorm rooms were cold and doors constantly banging.
I got chatting to a pommie guy. His wife and kids were staying in a holiday home about 100kms south and his wife had simply told him to bike there when he'd finished! Somebody got carried out on a stretcher, the ambo staff were in and out checking on people. The cold was starting to get to everyone on top of the wet. It was still about 14 degrees but once they stopped moving that’s when the cold would set in.
I woke the lads up about 5am (it was Wednesday morning now) and they set off again at about 6am into the drizzle for Carhaix from Loudeac.
In January this year I'd managed to book the last hotel bed in town for tonight in Loudeac and I wanted to get the checking-in all sorted before I left so that we didn’t have to worry about it later. I found a laundrette and got cycling gear and merino tops washed. It was tipping it down all this time. I'd decided that I wouldn't go all the way to Brest but would catch them at Carhaix on the return journey later that day.
The lads arrived about 11am at Carhaix then carried on to Brest. I got a text saying they’d arrived about 3pm. I’d just had another text from Ian about an hour earlier saying he was about to set off from Brest on his return journey back to Carhaix so I told them to look out for each other.
Up yet another hill to the control at Carhaix.
I got chatting to a pommie guy. His wife and kids were staying in a holiday home about 100kms south and his wife had simply told him to bike there when he'd finished! Somebody got carried out on a stretcher, the ambo staff were in and out checking on people. The cold was starting to get to everyone on top of the wet. It was still about 14 degrees but once they stopped moving that’s when the cold would set in.
I woke the lads up about 5am (it was Wednesday morning now) and they set off again at about 6am into the drizzle for Carhaix from Loudeac.
In January this year I'd managed to book the last hotel bed in town for tonight in Loudeac and I wanted to get the checking-in all sorted before I left so that we didn’t have to worry about it later. I found a laundrette and got cycling gear and merino tops washed. It was tipping it down all this time. I'd decided that I wouldn't go all the way to Brest but would catch them at Carhaix on the return journey later that day.
The lads arrived about 11am at Carhaix then carried on to Brest. I got a text saying they’d arrived about 3pm. I’d just had another text from Ian about an hour earlier saying he was about to set off from Brest on his return journey back to Carhaix so I told them to look out for each other.
Up yet another hill to the control at Carhaix. (Some sadistic course-setter seemed to have a thing about having controls up hills!)
My next meeting point was at Carhaix on their return trip. They got in about 5.30pm. Very wet! The good weather they got on the way to Brest didn't last as they headed back inland.
At Carhaix they had a feed, gave people cheek, met up with the Kiwi couple who were riding a tandem, Patrick and Jenny, and changed clothing again.
They left Carhaix about 7.30pm Wednesday evening heading for the hotel room at Loudeac, which no doubt helped.
I’d decided to wait at Carhaix until Ian arrived. They’d missed seeing him when they’d passed him on the way.
Half an hour later I met up with Douglas Maybe, another of the Kiwi contingent. He’d lost his support crew as they were also supporting Josh in the 80 hour group so the distance between them made it impossible to support both of them, so Doug was on his own, but going okay under the circumstances.
Ian turned up about 8.30pm.
His UK tour group had organised a bag drop at Carhaix and of course the bus was parked down at the bottom of the control hill. He got his gear, then the heavens opened up – I sheltered with the bags under the bus! Ian was going not too bad under the circumstances considering he was carrying enough supplies to feed an army and his bike weighed a ton; at a previous check point he'd started eating his creamed rice (that he'd carried with him) and then sleep got the better of him so he dozed off for a while and when he woke up they'd taken his tins away. Anyway he was planning on an hour or two of sleep on the bus so I left him about 9.30pm and headed for Loudeac.
On the way there, I have never seen rain like it. At one stage I was on the N164 which is a pretty good road and I just couldn’t see the centre line, I was almost aquaplaning; I had to pull onto the SOS bay for 10 minutes til the cloudburst passed. Poor buggers who got caught in that on a bike.
I got back to Loudeac about 11pm and parked down the road from the hotel (having checked in earlier in the day) and took a load of bags up to the room. Then I headed to where I’d parked the last time I was at Loudeac behind the control. But we’d just missed each other and by that time the lads were already in the hotel room and were showered by the time I got there (via the wrong way round the one way system!).
That hotel room was bliss. Steve had changed his merino layer for polypro earlier that day and it was useless. He’d got really cold walking to the hotel (having left his bike at the control) in the downpour but at least they had a hotel room for the night which was more than the other poor buggers in their survival blankets had.
Anton said he’d set his phone alarm for 3am. Next thing we knew it was 10 to 6! It had rained all night so we figured they’d been in the best place.
Just as we were walking back to the control, the heavens opened again. It was 7am. I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed such abject misery being suffered in one place by so many people. Bodies were lying everywhere in emergency blankets and it was raining again. It had now been raining on the 90 hour people since Monday night and it was now Thursday morning.
I spent a while longer in the hotel room trying to dry out gear with the hairdryer.
Half an hour later I met up with Douglas Maybe, another of the Kiwi contingent. He’d lost his support crew as they were also supporting Josh in the 80 hour group so the distance between them made it impossible to support both of them, so Doug was on his own, but going okay under the circumstances.
Ian turned up about 8.30pm.
His UK tour group had organised a bag drop at Carhaix and of course the bus was parked down at the bottom of the control hill. He got his gear, then the heavens opened up – I sheltered with the bags under the bus! Ian was going not too bad under the circumstances considering he was carrying enough supplies to feed an army and his bike weighed a ton; at a previous check point he'd started eating his creamed rice (that he'd carried with him) and then sleep got the better of him so he dozed off for a while and when he woke up they'd taken his tins away. Anyway he was planning on an hour or two of sleep on the bus so I left him about 9.30pm and headed for Loudeac.
On the way there, I have never seen rain like it. At one stage I was on the N164 which is a pretty good road and I just couldn’t see the centre line, I was almost aquaplaning; I had to pull onto the SOS bay for 10 minutes til the cloudburst passed. Poor buggers who got caught in that on a bike.
I got back to Loudeac about 11pm and parked down the road from the hotel (having checked in earlier in the day) and took a load of bags up to the room. Then I headed to where I’d parked the last time I was at Loudeac behind the control. But we’d just missed each other and by that time the lads were already in the hotel room and were showered by the time I got there (via the wrong way round the one way system!).
That hotel room was bliss. Steve had changed his merino layer for polypro earlier that day and it was useless. He’d got really cold walking to the hotel (having left his bike at the control) in the downpour but at least they had a hotel room for the night which was more than the other poor buggers in their survival blankets had.
Anton said he’d set his phone alarm for 3am. Next thing we knew it was 10 to 6! It had rained all night so we figured they’d been in the best place.
Just as we were walking back to the control, the heavens opened again. It was 7am. I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed such abject misery being suffered in one place by so many people. Bodies were lying everywhere in emergency blankets and it was raining again. It had now been raining on the 90 hour people since Monday night and it was now Thursday morning.
I spent a while longer in the hotel room trying to dry out gear with the hairdryer.
I was getting a bit concerned that due to the “oversleep” we were running close to control closing times. The Tinteniac control closed at 1.50pm on Thursday and they arrived about 11.30am. By the time they ate and changed and got away again it was past 12.30pm. It just didn’t give them much leeway for incidents.
Another change of clothing at Tinteniac. Managed to park across the road from the up hill control.
The Fougeres control would close at 10 past 6 that evening. I shouldn’t have worried. They got in at 3pm.
Fougeres control was a shocker. It was a reasonably sized city and as usual there weren’t any signs on the support vehicle route to show where the control was. I just had to drive round and round til I came across a cyclist then follow them, not knowing whether they were coming or going, usually going so I’d end up out in the country again and have to do a 67 point turn back into town.
As I wasn’t overly keen on finding places in the dark, we’d planned that I would miss out the next checkpoint at Villaines La Juhel and would meet up again at Mortagne Au Perche, being the second to last control. On my way through some village in the dark I'd had to ask a girl for directions - she was out walking her cat! Truly - the cat was jumping on and off walls as they walked along. As usual I'd taken the wrong turn.
As I wasn’t overly keen on finding places in the dark, we’d planned that I would miss out the next checkpoint at Villaines La Juhel and would meet up again at Mortagne Au Perche, being the second to last control. On my way through some village in the dark I'd had to ask a girl for directions - she was out walking her cat! Truly - the cat was jumping on and off walls as they walked along. As usual I'd taken the wrong turn.
Later in the morning I came to the village of Combourg which had 8 roads leading out from i
t, I finally got the right road number but then went in completely the opposite direction. Found this lovely chateaux though so it wasn’t a complete waste of time.
t, I finally got the right road number but then went in completely the opposite direction. Found this lovely chateaux though so it wasn’t a complete waste of time.Mortagne Au Perche – I got there about 8pm (the lads having got to the previous check point at Villaines about the same time). Support vehicle parking was in a camping ground. It was a bog by now. I lucked out and got a park on the end of the second row quite near the entrance gate.
I’d bought a 10 euro sleeping bag from the supermarket yesterday and it was worth its weight in gold.
I dozed on and off until I got a text; the lads arrived soaking wet again at about midnight. Both of them were having Achilles tendon trouble. Quick change – Steve put his new Tineli shorts on (see photo below) – he’d been wearing his Tineli jacket since the start and raved about how good it was constantly and wouldn’t take it off – and wanted to wear the complete set for the finish line photo (which wasn’t taken!) then into the car for a 3 hour sleep while I sat in the control and watched more abject misery. I helped where I could – one poor guy, hands shaking, managed to drop his money on the floor. The look on his face was utter devastation. When I picked it up for him, you’d have thought I’d just saved his mother’s life!
I’d bought a 10 euro sleeping bag from the supermarket yesterday and it was worth its weight in gold.
I dozed on and off until I got a text; the lads arrived soaking wet again at about midnight. Both of them were having Achilles tendon trouble. Quick change – Steve put his new Tineli shorts on (see photo below) – he’d been wearing his Tineli jacket since the start and raved about how good it was constantly and wouldn’t take it off – and wanted to wear the complete set for the finish line photo (which wasn’t taken!) then into the car for a 3 hour sleep while I sat in the control and watched more abject misery. I helped where I could – one poor guy, hands shaking, managed to drop his money on the floor. The look on his face was utter devastation. When I picked it up for him, you’d have thought I’d just saved his mother’s life!
Steve came into the control before 3am. They were ready to go. He’d been woken up by Anton shivering so thought they’d better get moving. I said I’d wait for Ian so would see them both at the finish – only the Dreux control next then back to St Quentin for the finish.
The closing time for Ian to check into this control was 5.30am. While I was waiting, I heard some American guy saying that everyone had been given an extra 2 hours for each control but that they’d have to catch it up by the end.
I was still rather concerned that Ian hadn’t turned up by the cut-off time though. He finally staggered in through the door at 6.30am. Wet, soaked in fact, in a daze, he didn’t appear to even recognise me. I was steering him towards the control desk. When I asked him what he needed, he just kept saying over and over “control, control”.
He was on auto pilot. He’d just dropped his bike outside. After he got his card stamped, I managed to get him to the car and got him some water, pain au chocolat, found him a ham and cheese sandwich, which were all inhaled. 5 minutes later he was able to speak and was coming round. He said that the last stage had been so dangerous, fast downhills in torrential rain and he’d run out of water.
I was still rather concerned that Ian hadn’t turned up by the cut-off time though. He finally staggered in through the door at 6.30am. Wet, soaked in fact, in a daze, he didn’t appear to even recognise me. I was steering him towards the control desk. When I asked him what he needed, he just kept saying over and over “control, control”.
He was on auto pilot. He’d just dropped his bike outside. After he got his card stamped, I managed to get him to the car and got him some water, pain au chocolat, found him a ham and cheese sandwich, which were all inhaled. 5 minutes later he was able to speak and was coming round. He said that the last stage had been so dangerous, fast downhills in torrential rain and he’d run out of water.
He needed some sleep but running so close with time I could only let him have a 20 minute power nap in the car. He downed a hot coffee and more pain au chocolat and heading off to Dreux at about 7.15am, looking rather better than how he’d looked when he arrived. I told him that he only had 140kms to go but that he'd have to be at the finish by 3.30pm. "Bloody hell" he said.
I too went to Dreux – I was struggling to stay awake (something to do with having been up all night!) so I found the MacDonalds there and had a sleep in their car park for an hour then had a coffee before heading to the finish at St Quentin.
Just as I was getting there at about 11am Steve texted me asking where I was. I said I was nearly there. His reply was “Beat ya”.
He had finished at 10.30am making a 78 hour ride. After meeting on the big roundabout at the finish we parked up and waited for Anton – they’d become separated on the last leg.
Anton turned up about 1pm – well pleased.
Next was to track down Ian. I found someone with a laptop and we discovered that Ian had got into Dreux at 11.30am which meant that he’d had a blinder of a section and had done it at about 20km/hr. He could still do it.
We stood out the back and worked out that one of the organisers was making incoming riders take their bikes down onto the running track to park them then come back up and into the control desk.
Next was to track down Ian. I found someone with a laptop and we discovered that Ian had got into Dreux at 11.30am which meant that he’d had a blinder of a section and had done it at about 20km/hr. He could still do it.
We stood out the back and worked out that one of the organisers was making incoming riders take their bikes down onto the running track to park them then come back up and into the control desk.
3.30 came and went without any sign of Ian. Finally at about 4pm Ian came round the corner, Steve grabbed his bike and I grabbed Ian and we ran to the control desk; unfortunately the queue was about 20 minutes long so that was a bit unfair on people who were chasing the clock. But he’d finished. When I’d seen him at 6.30am that morning I thought he was a gonner. It must have been sheer guts and determination that got him to the end.
We learned later that over 30% of the starters didn’t finish. Normally only about 10% don’t complete the route.
On the way back to Ian’s hotel, either Steve or Ian would be speaking then in mid sentence they would just start snoring. It was hilarious. Then they would start talking again then snoring.
We caught up with the other guys in the NZ team including Colin "Wal" Anderson, NZ hero for setting the record earlier this year for cycling from Cape Reinga in Northland down to Bluff at the bottom, on the Saturday night (after Steve had spent all day in bed with the flu) for dinner.
The whole NZ team of 8 had completed the ride which under the circumstances was incredible.
Marion and one of the other support drivers, Mark.
Steve "swapped" his NZ shirt for a German shirt. 3 Germans were staying at the same hotel and we had a good debrief over breakfast the next morning.
PS - the results were finally published on 5 October; Steve's time was 77hrs 36mins. Anton's time was 79hrs 16mins. But incredibly Ian's time was 89hrs 55mins - he'd done it with 5 minutes to spare! It was apparently to do with the staggered departure times at the start. We texted him on holiday in Egypt and he couldn't believe it. His reply was "Thank god for that, I don't have to do it again!".
More spare photos:
