Change of plans to get to Paris#
As you may remember, back in february I booked a place to go to Paris with the FECT, just after I made up my mind about pre-registering for PBP.
Back then it seemed like the best option for all the travelling and accomodation. Even some of my friends from Astorga Randonneurs signed up with the FECT too.
I few weeks later, though, I discovered that a few randonneurs from A Coruña were going directly from there. One of them being my friend Dani (whom you already know, from my brevet reports, as I’ve ridden almost all of them with him). And they offered me a place to go with them.
On one hand, going with the FECT, which means driving myself for 4 hours to get to Madrid or Burgos (the two places where they could pick me up with the bus) and then a long trip by bus all the way to Paris.
On the other hand, driving less than an hour to Coruña, then a trip in a couple of big vans with some friends to Burdeaux, sleep there, then get to Rambouillet the next day.
The second option definetely sounded better, specially considering that on the come back from Paris, with the FECT option I still would have to drive my car for 4 hours to get back home…
So I discussed my options with the guys from the FECT and I had two options:
find (by myself) someone that was going to signup for the trip with them, and then pass him/her my reservation.
wait until all the seats have been booked and they open a “waiting queue”, then the first person that gets a place in that queue will get my reservation
Finding someone by myself was going to be difficult, so I simply waited.
Weeks, then months, passed. The more we were getting closer to the date when the final PBP registrations will be open, the clearer it was that there won’t be a “waiting queue”. It did not seem they will fill the bus.
Luckily, I managed to find someone that was interested in going to Paris with them. During one of the Brevets, I heard another randonneur that he was thinking about booking a place for the trip. I got in touch with him a few days ago and told him about my reservation and that I was looking for someone to pass the reservation on.
He was interested and, in a couple of days, everything was arranged. He made me a money transfer of the amount I had paid in avance to the FECT and they arranged internally the transfer of my reservation to him.
So, another step forward towards that crazy idea of riding Paris-Brest-Paris for the first time…