Silly PBP Mistakes

[tlottrike]

While chatting to a fellow rider on the Nippie Sweetie this weekend, conversation came round to PBP but in particular silly mistakes we had made as PBP virgins. So I thought for the benefit of this years PBP virgins here are the three biggest mistakes I made in the hope no one will be silly enough to repeat them...

1 Get a decent nights sleep before the ride - Bleedin obvious you would think but I failed, as I was being a tight git Aberdonian. Having cycled to St Quentin and used a bivvy bag to save on accommodation costs. Thinking before I traveled what with all the folks in France dying of heat stroke that summer (twas 2003) I would be fine at night and most likely sleeping on top of the bivvy bag not in it. What happened instead? Torrential rain all night my supposedly waterproof bivvy bag leaked like a sieve. I didn't get a wink of sleep as a result by about 4 hours into the ride I had to stop and try and get some kip and never recovered from the sleep deprivation.

2 The Penultimate Control is indeed the Penultimate Control - What the poo am I on about you may ask? Well consider in total I managed about 4 to 5 hours sleep for my 84 hour ride, my neck muscles stopped working with about 30 hours still to go and so was riding with one hand holding up head (more of which in mistake number 3) and the other hand was being used to hold me up, for steering, changing gear and braking.

So needless to say I was a bit puggelt when I arrived at the Penultimate Control. When I got off my bike at the Control a very enthusiastic small portly French gentleman grabbed my hand and shook it vigorously greeting me as if I was his long lost brother and wouldn't let go of my hand and kept telling what I can only assume was praise for my efforts and what I started to think was that I had finished my ride so profuse was his enthusiasm. Having eventually separated myself from him I arrived in what was the most amazing sight an entire gym hall laden with every kind of food imaginable, from roasted chickens to sausages to cake to fantastic patisseries and to top it all free beer. All of which further reinforced my silly notion that yes this indeed was the last Control, "huzza" methinks! I sat down with some elderly Belgium chaps who like me had spotted the free beer as well as patisseries and we all had a good old blether (well heinz French, English plus arm waving type conversation) for an hour, further reinforcing my foolish notion. Eventually having looked a little more carefully at my Brevet card the name of the control I had just got stamped was not St Quentin but was Villaines and so was the penultimate control not the last one at all, dooh 

3 Use an artificial aid to support your head when your neck muscles fail - As mentioned above my neck muscles stopped working and even although I had brought a spare pair of bib shorts so I could wear clean ones each day it never entered my thick skull that those spare bib shorts hanging off the saddlebag drying in the sun could be used to support my head by tying them to my helmet and either sitting on the shorts or more likely more securely tying them to the saddle rails. It wasn't till I had finished and saw another rider afflicted with the same problem but obviously more brain power who had done exactly that. Oh yes a secondary mistake I made was to stop at a Pharmacy and buy a neck brace, completely useless for riding a bike!

Well I hope the above helps but more than likely knowing human ingenuity for cocking things up I'm sure you will find your own silly mistakes to make on PBP

Bon Courage!  

[simonp]

Not replacing gear cables before the event.

Trying to sleep on the Baxters coach at Carhaix.

Going on a 5 week sailing jaunt in June/July. 6 weekends training lost.

Listening to peoole who tell you you have an extra 2h to finish because it's a bit wet.

Taking a lightweight rain coat.

Not knowing the french for dormitory.

Not finding the restaurant at villaines until the return leg.

[Paul D]

No matter how sick of cheese/pasta/green beans you are, do not have that delicious bleu steak you've been dreaming of for the last 800k.

Digesting the consequences takes 4 years.

[alexb]

1) If you have any niggling doubts about bike set up. Get them sorted well in advance. My attempt failed because I blew my knee out on the first day.
2) There is medical support - don't struggle on, go and talk to the soigneurs.
3) Don't leave yourself a great big two week gap with no cycling just before PBP.

[vorsprung]

Don't drop your brevet card at Villaines la Juhel

[Nuncio]

2 The Penultimate Control is indeed the Penultimate Control[/b

I've never made a silly PBP mistake but Salvatore may be along later with a variation of this combined with the otherwise useful 'Don't think beyond the next control' dictum.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

I was too wrapped up in going for a time at my first PBP. Once I slowed down a little and started socialising, it became much more fun.

[Hummers]

I was too wrapped up in going for a time at my first PBP. Once I slowed down a little and started socialising, it became much more fun.

For some.

 

H

[Ivo]

Overeating a few hours before the start, your food won't digest and all will end in an early DNF.

[border-rider]

Riding a control too far when you're tired and have to be put to bed by LWaB

[LittleWheelsandBig]

No stories out of school MV. It wasn't as if you got a bedtime kiss.

[Bairn Again]

Thinking that the roadside shack in Mortagne Au Perche [on the outward leg] was actually the official control. 

Lovely merguez sandwich mind. 

Then I went round the corner and found the real HUGE control…..

[arvid]

2011 will be my first PBP, but let me comment on this with LEL2009 in mind

Taking a lightweight rain coat.

What raincoat?

On the Mille Miglia I had a two hour lunch before the start at 21:00-22:00, until I couldn't eat any more, so I can't really relate to Ivo's comment. I did mainly eat fairly easy digestible stuff though, bread, fruit and the like, little cheese or meat.  It might depend on how many hours "few" is.
Getting a proper night sleep is the best advice I've seen. I have done two 300's where I slept in a tent the night before... that was never really good. This is why I didn't doubt about the suggested hotel in Italy, at EUR60/night.

[Ian H]

Getting utterly rat-arsed with Hummers the night before in 2007 probably wasn't a good idea. But at least I had an extra night in bed - woken momentarily by the sound of fireworks (I thought it was thunder).

[frankly frankie]

1.  Fitting a new chain immediately before the start.
Wasn't too bad actually - mildly annoying for the 1st 300k, that's all.

2.  Entering and starting with the vedettes.
A very lonely ride!

[teethgrinder]

Riding a control too far when you're tired and have to be put to bed by LWaB

That's very easily done on PBP. If you have a reasonable sleep debt, you can feel very good and be blasting along easily until the late evening, but with the sleep debt and body clock urging you to sleep, you can get sleepy within a few hours, which could be between controls. So it's worth making use of time in hand for sleep, if you have it. If you're not sleepy on the last day or two, you'll easily claw back 10 hours or so with minimal effort, rather than plugging on when you're struggling to stay awake. You'll feel much better at the finish, enjoy it more and be able to eat and drink more (beer).

[border-rider]

Agreed

That was 2003; I lost loads of time recovering from that and also got very dehydrated because I was too tired to be remembering to drink enough. 

I learned the lesson from that & riding LEL2005 & PBP07 with PeterM, we stopped early and got lots of sleep; minimum night-riding on both events, and very little tiredness. 

[Mr Larrington]

Getting utterly rat-arsed with Hummers the night before in 2007 probably wasn't a good idea.

This ^^^^.  The pre-BEER curry probably didn't help either.  "You can't go for a curry the night before PBP!", the Tuggo told us about an hour too late, while draining yet another 1664.  It was probably a Good Thing that AUK had finished all their Leffe the night before.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Were back to 'what makes a bike ride become an Audax' aren't we.

Answer: the bumming.

I mustn't be a proper Audaxer.  I've never witnessed anything along those lines, though an AUK on his first PBP in 2003 allegedly surprised a couple of energetic cyclists in a quiet room at one of the controls.

[Andrew]

perhaps they were applying chamois cream...

[frankly frankie]

It's easier on the longer events.  Hard to find the time on a 100 ...

[Exit Stage Left]

It's easier on the longer events.  Hard to find the time on a 100 ...

I suppose it needs a ride to make the knees tremble.

[Redlight]

Silly mistakes.... apart from entering in the first place?

My biggest mistake was not studying the cut off times. In my mind, I simply had "get back in 90 hours" so I took things far to easy on the outward leg, wasted too much time at Brest and then took too much snoozing time at carhaix. I found myself hammering it through the night to get to Loudeac for the cut off and then chasing the clock all the way to Montagne. 

I also wasted too much time at the controls.  I recall the queue for food at Loudeac on the way out was ridiculous (and full of non-cyclists) but I waited anyway.  I should have skipped it and found a cafe.  This year I plan to eat at the controls only if I arrive in the night. 

[mattc]

perhaps they were applying chamois cream...

As I once said to an AUK member, after midnight on a Welsh 600:

OK, but have you got a clean finger?

[Rainmaker]

Posted by: Redlight
 I recall the queue for food at Loudeac on the way out was ridiculous (and full of non-cyclists) but I waited anyway.

We found a similar situation at Villaines on the return leg in 1999.   It was mid evening and we were pushed for time.   We were debating whether to join the large queue when we were approached by one of the helpers, she said "You are riders, you have priority" and she escorted us to the front of the queue.   The most satisfying part was that rather than disent the people in the queue applauded us .