The need to prequalify for PBP has cut down the opportunities for cycling writers to take it on. In 2015 we encountered Paul Robson, the deputy editor of Cycling Plus, who rode his first Audax in January 2015.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJwcKk6-lmQHe got us to do some stills for his article, which is now online.
https://www.cyclingplus.com/articles/i-rode-it-paul-robson-at-the-2015-paris-brest-paris-randonee/That's a good guide to the sort of story to be written about PBP. In 2017 Cycling Plus responded to a press release about LEL being 'Britain's Toughest Audax' by commissioning us to provide words and images for a story, as we were already making a film. That press release had dangled some well-known names, and Cycling Plus had bitten.
The key to a good article is often good images. In 2007 I met a freelance adventure photographer, called Gregg Bleakney.
http://parisbrestparisphoto.blogspot.com His images turned up in a few articles, one being in Cycling Plus.
http://www.randonneurs.bc.ca/pbp/articles/2007_cycling-plus72-73.htmlThe best guide to PBP articles is the PBP hub of British Columbia Randonneurs.
http://www.randonneurs.bc.ca/pbp/articles.htmlI've got one on there from 2011.
http://www.damonpeacock.com/paris-brest-paris.htmlThe typical PBP rider is a 52 year old man. I’m one of those, and I can tell you that life isn’t usually a lot of fun for us. I watched a BBC4 documentary about postcards, and the people who collect them recently. That’s the sort of thing that 52 year old men do, watch BBC4 and collect postcards. Pipes and slippers have gone out of fashion of late. But we are the people of the shed, tinkering in comfy obscurity, and meeting our chums for a weekly pint of foaming real ale in the local pub.
Some of us fight against the dying of the light, and usually get a pitying reaction to our mid mid-life crisis. The best we can hope for is to club together with other like-minded souls and indulge in a hobby which gets us a mild ribbing from those around us.
So it is with Audax, we assemble in our village halls. We debate the relative merits of Shimano and Campagnolo. Then we do our rides, during which we might be pelted with eggs, or we might not. On the way round we eat pasties while seated on service station floors or we eat teacakes in cafes in faded seaside towns, while drinking tea together, in the afternoon of our lives.
We’re not all 52 year old men, but that’s the background hum and the wallpaper. The further away from a middle aged bloke on a steel framed lightweight tourer you are, the more interest you will generate. My films are populated with those exceptions, largely because the last thing that a 52 year old bloke on a bike wants to see is another 52 year old bloke on a bike. He likes to see a distant view of himself, climbing convincingly enough to suggest someone much younger, but that’s difficult to do for all the 52 year old blokes, and they’re usually fairly happy with scenery and a much younger female subject.
I'd still like to be doing PBP, but my hands can't cope with cold, wet and vibration. I should be out today, doing some hedgelaying at an altitude of 750 feet, on the lower slopes of Pendle Hill. But it's cold and it's raining, so using a chainsaw is ill-advised. I have to restrict damaging misery to things that provide an income these days, and I have to pick my days for that. It's not PBP that's the main problem. Its the qualifiers, as you're locked in to ride a 300 and a 400 early in the season.
We'd be up for making a film, and providing stills for articles if anyone wants to give us a commission.