At 3 I left the van and went to meet Klaus, who had planned to meet me in front of the control. I waited until 3:15, but Klaus didn't show up, so I took off with David, who had. As we left, we passed a couple of riders already on their way back from Brest! I later learned that the first riders returning from Brest had come in around 10 p.m. (shortly after I had arrived from Paris) -- that is, 26 hours out from Paris! A few folks clustered around the entrance wished us "bon courage!" as we rode out of the control, and off we went.
It seemed like only a few short blocks before we were out of town and into the dark, returning to a line of red taillights as the night before, only now and then we caught the white headlights of cyclists returning from Brest. The group was a bit more spread out now, of course, and there seemed to be a fair amount of climbing, and although it didn't seem very tough, I was very surprised when I returned over this segment later in daylight to realize how much climbing I had done in the dark. I noticed this phenomenon throughout the ride, in fact; the night climbing never seemed very difficult, yet when I returned later over the same segments I was amazed to see what I had climbed in the dark. I think much of it was psychological -- that not being able to see the hill above me lessened the difficulty of the climb. Rather than dwell on a hill seeming to stretch ever upward before me, in the dark I'd just put it in a low gear and grind away.
David and I tried to stay together, but I tend to climb a bit faster than he, and it became increasingly more difficult to find each other among the indistinguishable red lights in the inky dark. After a half an hour, we decided to split up, and I joined a small group of three men and a woman that seemed to be passing just about everyone. We took turns pulling for about an hour, at the end of which I decided to pull into a village square to get some more food out of my bag. As I pulled over, I rode over a rather high curb cut knowing I was cutting it at much too acute an angle, and took a pretty good fall. I wasn't hurt, but my remaining headlight went out.
There were a couple of tables by the side of a closed cafe, with a few riders hanging around in various states (one was wrapped in an aluminum space blanket, asleep sitting up, and oblivious to the comings and goings around him in the gloom). It was a rather surreal scene. I now had to figure out the problem in my remaining light, or I was done for. Deducing that the impact had blown the bulb, I spent considerable time dismantling the rather complicated unit and replacing the ($24!) sealed beam. A French cyclist lent me a knife to dismantle some of the small screws, as I lacked the miniature screwdriver needed. Voila! It worked.
Forty minutes later I was back on the road, and it was already getting grey out. We began to hit incredibly dense patches of fog, so thick we could hardly see 10 feet ahead in the pre-dawn grey. At one particularly treacherous turn the PBP organization had dispatched someone with a lantern to warn riders.
At about 8 a.m. I arrived in Carhaix-Plouguer, with massive crowds at the checkpoint. I waited on an endless line for breakfast, and after 15 minutes gave up and started to look for a cafe. I ran into David, along with Klaus and Miguel, who apparently had shown up at the meeting point that morning in Loudeac only a moment after I'd left. So we went to an hotel-cafe across the street, which was likewise having its busiest morning in four years, and waited for perhaps another half hour until I was able to get one of the horribly overworked waitresses to begin making coffees and getting pastries for the four of us. As things turned out, I probably spent an hour and a half at Carhaix -- far too long.
We rode down a long hill out of Carhaix, and then turned off the main road into a lovely forest preserve (the return route would be on the main highway from Brest), winding through a long canyon, along rushing brooks and through beautiful villages, and finally climbing up the biggest hill, about 1,000 feet to the top of Roc Trevezel. (I later heard varying estimates of between 30,000 to 40,000 feet of climbing over the entire course!) Near the top, we rose up into the clouds -- literally, it was misting and foggy -- and the flora changed from trees to purple heather amid bare rocks. It was like being in northern Scotland; such a sudden extraordinary change. At the top was a secret (i.e., previously unannounced) control set up in some tents. The stop was well worth it -- for 5 francs they were selling big bowls of delicious hot pureed bean soup.
Somehow, I had imagined it would now be a nice, easy long downhill into Brest. We were going down to the sea, right? Wrong. The road dropped down, climbed back up again, then began an agonizing series of steep drops and climb most of the remaining way to Brest. By now, I was on the same route again as the returning riders; Haldeman passed me heading back on the tandem an hour outside of Brest. It began to drizzle, then a light rain. I put my jacket on, and caught up with three French riders who were putting the hammer down. We all were in pretty good moods, notwithstanding the rain, anticipating the psychological boost of arriving in Brest, and rode together for nearly an hour, before I pulled over at another patisserie for two or three more pains-au-chocolat!
The last few miles into Brest were just impossible. I crossed a long bridge, and thought I had arrived. Instead, there were a few more miles of heavy traffic and obnoxious climbs, including a nasty long hill full of diesel bus fumes which I crawled up in my granny gear (one of only four times I had to use it the whole trip). At the top of that long hill, I FINALLY pulled into the checkpoint at 1:30 p.m. The first person I ran into was Jeff Vogel, a New York rider who helps run Boston-Montreal-Boston and who had rescued me last year when I'd dropped out. Back in Paris Jeff had asked me whether I intended to break my record from last summer, to which I'd replied that I hoped to make it to 41 miles this year. So it was great to bump into him at Brest. He asked me how I was doing, and I joked that I'd had enough, that I was quitting and riding back to Paris!
Actually, though, I felt pretty beat. That ride from Carhaix to Brest had seemed to be the worst segment of the whole ride, and I was positively dreading climbing all those hills on the return.
I ate some food, and got ready to start the grand return, only to run into David, Klaus and Miguel as they arrived. Abbie and Doris (Miguel's support person) had set up shop by the side of the road, and were handing out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and cookies. So I hung out some more, grousing about how shot I felt. I was anxious to get on the road, but thought I'd wait for the others. I had missed riding with Klaus today, but I felt I needed to go at the pace that felt best for me, so although we left Brest together and now began following the yellow arrows back to Paris, I soon found myself again pulling away from my New York friends.
Lo and behold, I discovered we had a good stiff tailwind. Invigorated, I found the rolling hills to be a delight, rather than a grind. Much of the route back to Carhaix was very different from the route into Brest, and the terrain and wind were such that I could get enough speed going down to just about coast over the top of the next hill without having to get down into the low gears. Most of the time, I seemed to be up in the 35 - 40 km/h range! It was such a surprise. The ride back seemed to pass quite swiftly, I stopped only once for a quick expresso in a quiet bar (I was the only customer) and a refill of my camelback. As I reclimbed the Roc Trevezel, I again rose into the misty cloud. I stopped to put my jacket on again, only to have to take it off a mile later as I dropped back down into warm afternoon sun. A passing rider laughingly pantomimed my repeated robing/disrobing.
When I hit the main highway back to Carhaix, the wind was smack dab behind me, and I was really cruising. For a while I rode with a couple of Scots on a tandem, and we were frequently cracking 60 km/h on the downhills. Then I caught up with a very fast group of 5 French riders in matching outfits, who didn't seem too happy to have me along. I pulled them a few times, so I thought I could show them I was not intending to freeload, but they didn't want to integrate me into the fun, so I said the hell with it and settled down in the back. We pulled into Carhaix in less than 3 hours after I'd left Brest, some 80 km. I was ecstatic, given how much I had dreaded this part of the ride. I saw the support van on the way in, so I went up to the control to check in, than rode over to the van, where Lee handed me a quick snack of pita bread with chocolate spread, which which seemed the perfect treat at that moment.
That one segment had completely changed my disposition. It was now so easy, and now I was well on my way home; I knew the rest would be fine. I was ecstatic. I probably stopped for no more than ten minutes, and then pressed on for Loudeac, hoping to reach it before dark.
Passing through Carhaix, I saw a beautiful little square off to the side, and for a moment my normal cycle tourist instinct said "hey, that looks like a nice place to hang out for the rest of the day at an outdoor cafe and drink wine." Oops, back to work. I began climbing out of Carhaix, and the road became absolutely beautiful. I think that of all the ride, this part was the most magnificent. It was the combination of the great late afternoon light spilling into gorgeous little villages bursting with flowers, and painting the surrounding countryside lush shades of green and brown.
Plus, much to my surprise, by this time I was feeling stronger than ever. I just couldn't figure it out -- here I was, doing a 320 km. (200 mile) ride today, after a 445 km. (275 mile) ride yesterday and getting only a few hours sleep, and I was absolutely bombing along, passing just about everyone, and feeling like I could go all night again, if I needed to. To me it proved that I had figured out how to properly nourish and hydrate myself so that I could continue drawing energy, and that the longer I was riding, the stronger I was becoming. This was such a totally unexpected, though delightful, discovery, as I had assumed that by now I would be absolutely exhausted.
I caught up with a young U.S. women from Iowa, apparently a veteran of previous PBPs. We chatted a while, and then I moved up ahead. The countryside between Carhaix and Loudeac was quite rugged, with some great downhills and fantastic vistas. I was totally amazed that I had climbed these things in the predawn dark this morning. They hadn't seemed that long and steep!
About half an hour later, though still passing everyone, I saw some distance behind me a pack of about eight riders that were slowly gaining on me. I kept ahead of them for awhile, but finally they caught me. I saw why. Pacing the pack were two French men on what seemed to me to be a very short tandem -- the guy in back was practically hugging the captain. As the group passed, I noticed the Iowa woman at the back. She waved me in: "Join the choo-choo train!" I did, and it was one hell of a ride. I'd seen plenty of tandems on this ride and I do quite a bit of tandeming myself, but I'd never seen any tandem pull uphills like this one. Usually, you try to hang on behind tandems on the downhills and flats and drop them on the climbs, but not these guys. The stoker would get out of his seat and power that thing up, and the rest of us felt lucky to be along. The tandemists were accompanied by a rider who I think was the daughter of one of them, a thin, small woman in her early 20s, at most, who was one of the strongest cyclists I'd ever seen. Each of us tried to pull ahead and give them a break, but they were just too damn fast, so we just held on and enjoyed the rollercoaster ride.
As we rode on, the pack just kept getting bigger, sweeping up additional riders, until it was a massive convoy, whooshing through villages, hurtling down hills and ghosting up the other sides of valleys on accumulated momentum (we later learned that shortly after we got to Loudeac, a U.S. woman was badly injured in a crash on one of these downhills and was hospitalized). Everyone was enjoying themselves. It was a very cosmopolitan group, with a babble of conversation between French, U.S., Danish, Spanish, Dutch, and Italian riders, and as I am conversant in French and Spanish, I was having a great time. We picked up Karl, one of the "Willisden" English riders in my group, who was on his 5th PBP and is in his 70s. The sunset turned the sky bright red, and we stormed into Loudeac as the last of the evening light disappeared. All of us pulled up to the tandem riders to thank them for doing such a magnificent job, and headed for the control.
It was 9:00 p.m. I had left Brest at 3:00, and had covered the 160 km. (100 miles) back to Loudeac in only six hours, some four hours faster than it took me to get out there this morning. I was amazed not only by having ridden so much faster during the second half of the day, but by the fact that I had also ridden those 100 miles in just six hours, when I had never before ridden a 100 miles in much less than eight. That this personal best came at the end of a 200 mile day following a 275 mile day seemed even more incredible. Of course, I also learned at the control that the lead riders had already reached Paris at about 3:20 this afternoon, setting a new record.
I found my wonderful support crew again, and began to get set up for tomorrow. Alas, there were still no hot showers available, however. Could I stand going to sleep with nearly 800 km. of road grunge and sweat? Did I have much choice?
So instead, I played tourist and took a walk around town for an hour. After the bizarre modernity St. Quentin-en-Yvalines where PBP had started, it was a delight to stroll through a more "authentic" French town. I even went into a church where a choir was performing, sitting in the back in my (sweaty) cycling gear and for a few minutes mentally removing myself from the intensity of the ride. I called up my sister's house outside of London and spoke with my family. Margarita confirmed that she was definitely coming down to Paris to meet me at the finish, which absolutely delighted me. I still had two days to go, but I felt like I was already almost finished. I was nearly 2/3 done, and after this afternoon's ride, I knew that I could easily cover in the remaining two days what I had covered in the first.