Decided to go#
PBP, Paris-Brest-Paris, the mother of all Brevets. 1200Km of unsupported riding across France. The kind of thing that seemed way too much, way too crazy, back when I rode my first 200 Brevet in 2017.
Back then, riding 200 km was an incredible thing to do. I was scared, afraid that maybe I won’t be able to finish it. I wanted to do it, badly, so there was this mix of feelings inside me.
Then I did ride a 300 km Brevet (and several other 200) and I met more experienced randonneurs. I listened carefully to all the stories they wanted to share, experiences of 400 and 600 Brevets, as well as bigger feats like PBP.
And I dreamed. I fell in love with the idea of riding longer distances, pushing myself and doing things that, at that moment, seemed impossible to do.
A few years later, I’ve done more long distance riding, both official Brevets (up to 400) and unofficial long rides. Last year I broke my yearly distance record (almost reaching 10k km) and I gained a lot of confidence in myself.
During the different Brevets I rode last year, talk about PBP started to pop-up here and there. It was a nice little dream, but one that (still) did sound like an impossible thing to do.
It was not only the idea of riding 1200 km, it was about everything it means, like preparations/training, doing the full super-randonneur series 1 and finally the whole trip to Paris before PBP (+ the come back home afterwards). It did sound like way too much again.
And yet… 2023 started, pre-registrations for PBP opened… and I signed up.
Pre-registration opened in blocks 2 based on the longer Brevet you rode the year before PBP. First it was the turn to those who rode a Brevet of 1000 km (or more) in 2022, then the ones that rode a 600 km Brevet, and so on.
Sadly, last year I was not able to ride a 600 Brevet (due to some personal problems) while several of my friends did ride at least one of them. Those did their pre-registration a couple of weeks before me, and I had those 2 extra weeks to think it through, to reconsider everything and make up my mind.
And when the time came (today), I was 100% decided about it.
And so I’ve just pre-registered myself for the 20th edition of Paris-Brest-Paris.
- 1
Riding 200, 300, 400 and 600 km Brevets in the same year.
- 2
According to the PBP rules: https://www.paris-brest-paris.org/en/rules