EARLY PBP REPORTS FOR ARRIVEE

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Tradition has is that the editions of Arrivee following PBP feature at least a handful of accounts of the ride. There's no reason why 2019 should be any different and reports will be welcomed long after the event has become a distant, and possibly painful, memory.  Reports with good photos will be even more welcome!

However, this year we have a timing challenge in that the combination of print deadlines and the editor's holiday plans mean that the next edition of the magazine will be going to print just a couple of weeks after PBP, which doesn't really allow enough time for riders to get home, re-apply the Sudocrem, collect their thoughts and write up their stories.

So - we're going to hold open a few late pages for 'snapshot' reports - your immediate impressions and highlights/lowlights from PBP, in 100-200 words WITH PHOTOS IF POSSIBLE.  Please email them to Ged Lennox (gedlennox@me.com) by the end of the month and he will get as many reports as he can into the next edition.

We'd also love to feature a PBP photo on the cover. To reproduce well, this needs to be high resolution (in general, phone shots aren't up to it) and in portrait format.  Again, please email contributions to Ged asap.

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Giving this a little bump to remind all you lucky souls on their way to Paris that we want to read all about it when you come back

[parkysouthlondon]

My 2015 entry made it to the back page of Arrivee

IMG_9103 by parkysouthlondon, on Flickr

[mattc]

Speaking as a reader (and Ancien, of course  ) it would be nice to read some brief reports of the journey to the start. Probably a bit late to suggest such a thing to all those folks pretty much on their way already ...

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Speaking as a reader (and Ancien, of course  ) it would be nice to read some brief reports of the journey to the start. Probably a bit late to suggest such a thing to all those folks pretty much on their way already ...

Agreed. In fact, reports that sum up the atmosphere of the event, including the journey there and the pre-ride activities, would arguably be more interesting than turn by turn accounts of the ride itself.

As an example, here's something from my own blog in 2011...

And so the hour approaches.  Having arrived here on Thursday night, with the only two fixed points in the schedule being the formal registration at 5.30 yesterday and the start itself at some time after 6pm tonight, I am beginning to understand how professional sportsmen must feel when they have to hang around for an evening cup final or something similar.  Now I'm here I just want to get going!

Friday was a gentle day, assembling the bike and heading out for a leisurely 30 mile ride with a long lunch along the way. Yesterday was not such a great success; I had slept very badly and really didn't feel like doing very much.  I lounged around the hotel (about 8 miles from the start) during the morning and eventually got on the bike at about 1pm for a short ride and then over to the stadium for the registration, where you have your bike checked and pick up your timing chip, frame number, etc.  There were a couple of glitches - the moment when an official told me that my paperwork was incomplete and I wasn't allowed to have my bike checked was a bit tense, but I got it sorted.  Unfortunately I took a wrong turn on my way back to the hotel and got completely lost, which doesn't bode well for riding back in a sleep-deprived state on Thursday.

Up in the town itself it's like the United Nations in Lycra. I found myself chatting with riders from places as diverse as Costa Rica, Japan and India.  The place is swarming with cyclists, all eyeing up each other's equipment (if you'll forgive the obvious double entendre). The range of bikes is astonishing; lots of US riders are on super lightweight racing bikes with just tiny tool pouches tucked under the saddle - a giveaway sign of the cyclist with a support crew stationed along the route; the Brits are mainly on solid steel framed bikes with capacious saddle bags, some of which have clearly seen better days; and there is a group of scary-looking Russian women who arrived in town yesterday on touring bikes laden down with front and rear panniers and full camping kit.  They have apparently cycled here from St Petersburg.  I presume they are going to leave most of that stuff here while they do the ride though. 

Add in a fair smattering of recumbents (bikes that look like deckchairs on wheels), a French woman on what is best described as a butcher's bike (she will still be one of the first back - she holds the record for the Rocky Mountains 1200km in Canada at 64 hours) and the amazing Brit, Drew Buck, who always turns up on some bizarre machine. In 2003 he rode with two others on a Goodies-style triplet.  In 2007 he did the whole ride on a 1930s French bike, dressed in a beret, Breton jersey and dungarees, with two strings of onions dangling from his handlebars.  This year it's an early 20th century single speed with wooden wheels - although that's supposed to be secret until tonight!

But whatever riders choose to share in those few days after the ride will be greatly appreciated.  And there'll be plenty of space for longer accounts in the winter issue.