Roger Hillas

- So welcome everybody. This is the second interview of 2023 with a PPP Ancien. And today we have Roger Hoss and Roger has the experience of quite a few PPPs in the past. This interview is part of a series. We did two interviews in 2022, one with Bill Bryant and one with Narayan from the Seattle International Randonores. So we've gone to the Pacific Northwest. Number two, rather three in the series, number one this year was with Cheryl Becker from San Francisco. Now we are leaping across country to the East Coast and we've brought Roger Hillis in here. So Roger, if you could quickly summarize when you started Randonoring, when you joined Rusa and maybe go over the PPPs that you have been involved in. - I wrote my first Brevet in the fall of 2001. It's not on the Rusa website because I wasn't a Rusa member. I was just a member of the local club at that time, Potomac Paddlers. The following year I did in the 2002, I did an SR series and wrote Boston Montreal, Boston. And then in 2003, did a series, wrote my first PPP. I was 50 years old at that time. I had a daily 28 mile round trip bicycle commute. So that was my training base. I didn't really know what I was doing but I had the strength and speed to make up for it with brute force. I finished in 77 hours and 25 minutes. So little room to spare, had a lot of fun along the way. A lot of laughs. There were a bunch of people from our club in the same start group. I've done four more since then all from the first wave of the 84 hour group, the advantage of doing the same start even as you get older and slower, is you just know where you need to be at a given time. You don't have to think too much which becomes harder as the ride goes on. You know, I'm behind where I wanna be or I'm where I wanna be or maybe even it's still daylight. I haven't seen this place in daylight for 12 years. So I'm doing well. - Good, so you've done 84 hour from each PBP that you've done, 2003, '07, 2011, 2015 and 2019. So when did PBP come on your radar? How did you hear about it? What did you think about it the first time you had heard about it? Was it as soon as you heard it that you knew it was something you wanted to do or did you come to the realization over time that, yeah, this is something I wanna try? - I found an article about PBP on the web and came to Randon Earing that way. I think PBP in general and specific and Randon Earing in general were what I'd always been looking for. I'd written, I'd started riding bicycles in the mid '70s to get into shape for skiing. That's gradually morphed into skiing to get into shape for bicycling. I'd done some touring in the '80s around Nova Scotia, most of the way from Central England to the Northern tip of Scotland, from Southern England to Everea, Italy, where I crashed into a broken down car and wound up in a hospital with a broken nose and concussion. But by 2000, 2001, when I found PBP, I was married, I wasn't really in a position to go off in long escapades. So Randon Earing seemed like a good way to do speeded up touring and do it with other people. And it must have been 2001 because I did the Brevet that fall. And that was pretty, I assumed, when I first found out about PBP, I assumed there wouldn't be any qualifying series in DC that I'd have to go to Philadelphia, New York or Boston. Turned out not to be the case. There was already a vibrant Randon Earing community here. Our first on-CNs, Dave Burning and Ken Zabalski had done PBP in 1987. Dave still has a fascinating film he took with a super eight mounted on his handlebars. Ken went on to do three more and was a mentor for me as I prepared to do my first. - So you found out about Randon Earing without knowing that there was a local region? - Right, 'cause I found it complete. I found PBP first and then kind of worked backwards to, well, how do I qualify? And then found the local club, which had a perfectly decent website and wasn't hard to find. And then went from there and enjoyed the people I met, enjoyed, we have a wonderful area for doing long rides. In a way, a lot like the PBP terrain, we're not doing huge mountains, but it's pretty relentlessly up and down and kind of the same type of workload, not climb for 30 minutes to send for 15. - So if I understand correctly, you found out about Randon Earing without knowing that a local region existed, but you over time ended up being, were you president of that local region? - I've just ended a term of four years. Ed Felker, who's the other five-time PBP finisher from our club has taken the reins. We have a young RBA, Emily Ranson. We've got some, it was becoming a bit of an old man's club. I've outlasted most everybody else, but we've got some good dynamic young members and they're starting to really take the reins, which is exciting. - So are you doing Brevets with a lot of these younger riders now too? - Oh yes, oh yes, except eventually they all get better, stronger, faster and they're leaving me in their way. - So one of the things that I enjoy about being an RBA out here in San Francisco and being involved with the Brevets is seeing people brand new to Randon Earing. They kind of show up because they've heard about it from friends or they've discovered it somewhere and they're not really sure about what they're going to find and then they just get super energized about participation and a lot of these people have gone from the quote newbie to showing up on PBP with me. I imagine that's something similar for you two. - In a way, with the ones who really take to it it's been more a matter of the older members like Paul Donaldson and myself saying you don't have to be a K-Hound your first year. You don't have to do, I mean, we certainly have people who do multiple 1200s every year, but I've seen some young people burn out 'cause they went too hog wild and you want them to stick around for a while. - So when you first heard about PBP what was your reaction to the notion? Was it something that was like right within your wheelhouse exactly where you wanted to be headed or did you think it was kind of a crazy endeavor? - It sounded great to me and I started my working career as a medievalist. So I love history and PBP has lots and lots of that. I love France. Like I said, I was looking for bicycle touring on the sly and I think PBP qualified. It was only later after I registered that I thought what am I getting myself into? - So how did you deal with that late arriving doubt? How did you get past that? - Well, just kind of the usual. Well, if these other guys can do it, I guess I can do it too and if not, I'll suck it up. In a way, I think one of my formative influences was I wrestled in high school and anyone who's wrestled at any level knows a lot of wrestling is just about learning to suffer. So I figured I'll be pretty good at that. - Okay, great. Well, we don't really wanna sell the notion of suffering on this, but there are some tough times that one will go through no matter what their experience is on a purvey or even PBPR. So-- - Well, and it would be fair to say in that connection that my experience touring had taught me their bad patches slow down a bit, recoup, you'll be moving right along again pretty soon. And the suffering part's just about getting through the bad stuff so you can get to the good stuff of which you're planning. - Right, so what was some of the good stuff that you found on PBP in 2003? I understand from hearing from others, I didn't go until 2007 for my first time, but I remember the stories that came back from my friends who went there was how there was a horrible heat wave that broke with some thunderstorms. And this is very familiar to anybody that's done PBP 2011, same sort of thing. And then was pretty tolerable weather for that period. But so did you show up and be greeted by this heat wave? - Yeah, that was one of these amazing heat waves where it was 100 degrees plus in Paris, which isn't a city with a lot of air conditioning. It broke in a huge thunderstorm the night before the 90 hours start. I remember lying in bed, listening to the thunder, thinking how miserable it must have been to be all those Dutch guys in the campground having their tents knocked over by the wind. - Right. - But then when that had gone through, we had absolutely glorious weather for the entire ride. And my greatest memory of 2003 is just with that wonderful, clear, not too hot, sunny weather, the whole thing was just a massive street festival. They're always fans out to watch, but there were a lot more that year. Everybody was smiling. And I hope for those doing their first PBP in '23, we have weather anywhere near that good. - Right. So I understand in 2007, which is the notoriously rainy year in recent memory, the people in the 84 hour group didn't quite have the same dismal experience as the 80 and 90 hour people, is that true? - Very true. 2011 was the year the 84 hour group got hammered. - Oh yeah. In 2007, the Sunday night starters got hit badly by rain. The 84 hour group rode on wet roads a lot. There was some light rain. It dampened the spirit some, but it wasn't cataclysmic. - Uh-huh, yeah. So 2011, you're mentioning the thunderstorms that hit, I believe those hit sometime afternoon or the early afternoon. So we got out to Valen-la-jouel on the 84 hour start before we got drummed by some terrible, terrible storms. I just remember lots of lightning bolts, lots of peeling thunder and super heavy rain. And then the morning of the second day for us as we're leaving Ludiak, a lot of fog that eventually started to lift on the way back from breast. And then we had fairly nice weather, if I remember correctly, from there on in. - 2011 was a special PPP for me because in November of the preceding year, I'd been run into by another bicyclist on my commute to work. I'd gone over the handlebars and landed hard on the pavement, fracturing my femur at the neck. So that was hip surgery, then five and a half months off the bike. So I entered PPP with really minimal miles in my legs, each qualifying Brevet at the end. I said, okay, that's it, no more. Two weeks later, I showed up for the next one. And I remember as a result, because I was so marginal, because anything could have been the feather that broke the camel's back. There were four waves of just the most violent thunderstorms possible outbound on the first day. I remember thinking before the last one, I was getting pretty close to Ludiak and I finally dried out from the third wave and thought, oh, if I can just get out there without getting soaked again and pow, another round. But in fact, day two was a bit ambiguous, day three was very sunny. And we had a really brisk tailwind, which helped me a tremendous amount. I think I spent most of that day coasting and then the final day took care of itself. - So one takeaway, I think, from somebody that can relate the experiences from 2003, '07, '11, '15 and '19 is that, you know, be prepared for nearly anything. You know, get ready for that sort of stuff. I mean, that's something that I stress to people myself is that, you know, I've done '07, '11, '15 and '19 and I've never done a PBP without getting rained on. Sometimes it's just a little bit, but other times it's just been dumped on. - And that's where 2003 was the real exception. And I think there are two parts of being prepared. One is the physical. It gets colder than you think in Northwestern France, especially on a clear night, it can go down to the low 40s, high 30s. So take a little more clothing than you need. Air on the safe side. Clothing takes out space, but it doesn't wear way much. The other side is where I've seen people go wrong is they have a plan and they're gonna stick to it no matter what. And I think the weather is one of the things that you need to be a little flexible. If you have good weather, push a little harder and bank some time, especially with headwinds, my approach has always been slow down a bit. Don't kill yourself getting nowhere. Save the energy for more favorable conditions which will come at some point. - All right. So, lost my train of thought. I'm sorry about that. So talk a bit more about the advice that you've been given at the start and then how that's kind of morphed into the advice that you wanna give to people. - I think by then the web, by 2003, the web existed and there was plenty of advice solicited and unsolicited. I think Ken Zabalski who mentored me was more a big picture guy. Pace yourself, have your equipment dialed in and then don't mess with it. You're part of something a lot bigger than yourself so enjoy it. And just enjoy the quirks of the French and of the ride and of the people around you. - You were talking about pacing and people getting a plan and being unable to deviate from that plan. Let's talk about that a little bit here and maybe talk about the advantages of having a plan and then the pitfalls of having that. And one of the memorable things that I have that I always think back to and that if I remind myself about it, especially later in the ride when I have less, I don't know, perhaps judgment available is that I saw somebody at the passing by the crepes stand that is after Fougere, I think it is. I mean, yes, Paul Rocher's garage and live time AR. - And I had heard about that place and had stopped there. This was in 2015, so it was the second time through. And I wanted to share that with that rider that I knew and say, "Hey, this is one of those iconic places. Stop, get off your bike, talk to people." And his response was, "No, I've got to make time." And I'm thinking, well, what are you making time for? You know, if you can't take in some of the wonderful things about this and take the advantage of interacting with people from other places. So that's where I wanted to take this conversation right now. - Yeah, if you're trying to do it in 44 hours and being one of the premier, you're not gonna have time for this stuff, but the rest of us, enjoy yourself and have a crepe at Paul Rocher's, find the guy who's grilling galette sausages at the Ludiac control. They usually have fresh pate in Tintiniac. Enjoy the party that's valine. This is, and then just the incidental things you see, which can be the things you blunder into can be the most wonderful, I call them PPP moments, right? They're always a few every ride. - Yeah, you mentioned Tintiniac. And I have a nice story that, you know, I would like for this to give people pause for thought about what it is that they want to get out of PPP. So the first year that I was able to finish the whole course was 2011. And in 2011, as I'm coming back into Tintiniac, you know, there were lots of crowds on the sides of the road and the place was just, it was happening, big parties. And as I rode through there, unbeknownst to me, there was a local that was taking photographs of people. And then after I got home, after PPP, I found some of these photos just by accident and found, you know, I was in there. And I connected to the photographer. And then, you know, we would keep up with each other through email. And then in 2019, he was waiting for me when I arrived in Tintiniac and, you know, we got a chance to meet face to face and sit down and he watched me eat a baguette and maybe two bites. But, you know, as we come into these villages, we see people that are out there watching the procession go by and, you know, they applaud. And, you know, there's lots of stuff concurrent with this stream of the world coming by these very small villages. And this was one instance where, for me, I got to take it one more step where I actually talked to these people and kind of found out some of the things that they're interested in. You know, why was it that they were there watching on the side of the road? - Can I give you my two favorite PPP experiences? - Absolutely, please do. - The first one was in 2007. No, it was in 2011 because the first two iterations I'd ridden up near the front of the 84-hour group the first time 'til Lawn Yee and the second time for 30 or 40 miles anyway and going straight to Mortania and felt pretty lousy when I got there. So in 2011, I decided I was gonna stop somewhere halfway and eat something. And Chateauneuf on Tumorai, which is about halfway there, looked like a likely place 'cause it's a little bigger than most of the other towns. Well, I'm going through town. I see a patisserie on my right and keep going and then think about 200 yards later. No, I really wanna go back there and have some, get something to eat. Is it, I do, a guy comes up to me with a thermos and says, "Would you like some coffee?" And I said, "Well, no, thank you. I think I wanna get some food in me first. This is in French, but better to tell it in English." And I go back to the patisserie and I head back to the patisserie and as I get there, a friend, John Gardner, comes by and he's angry 'cause he's going into the patisserie and he wants coffee and the patisserie didn't have any coffee set. So I said, "Well, there's a guy right up the street with a thermos who will give you coffee." I went into the patisserie. I didn't see John till, I think the next day and he had this amazing story that the guy with the coffee had brought it for a friend he never found. He'd so liked John that he gave him the coffee and then followed along the course for a while. And the story ends with the guy watching him finish in Paris, picking John out from the crowd. So that's standing in your lawn and clapping is pretty impressive, but that sort of supports really amazing. The second one is also 2011, I believe, the third morning I wake up in Ludiac and morning's not my best time of day on these rides. And as I go over to the tent with the bike shop 'cause I need to inflate my tires some, I use latex tubes, so they really do get low if you don't reinflate them. And another friend Chip Adams is there with his bike up in the stand and it turns out that his frame is cracked. And it had been making noises, he'd made it to Ludiac, he took it to the mechanics, it was toast. And he starts asking, well, where's the train station and when's the next train come? And the mechanics are saying in French, we'll lend you a bike. If you'll take it to this bike store somewhere on the Champs-Elysees and I'm saying to Chip-Chip, no, no, it's gonna work out, it's gonna work out. Well, it did, they took him to the store, I went on my way, that was when I was recovering from the broken hip, so I couldn't dally too long. While Chip was at the store, he got Klaus Klassen on the phone and Klaus translated for him, but they set him up with a bike, said they'd meet him in Paris and Chip completed the ride. And again, the store owner, oh, I forget his name is Clarice and Pascal, showed up at the finish and Chip says as he came around the circle out in front of the gymnast, they'd what, he heard someone saying, cheap, cheap, cheap, and there was Pascal, I'm told that Chip's photo sits on their wall to this day, the Ludiak photographer took a photo of this whole scene, so I have it and I chuckle every time I see it. - Oh, those are great stories. I'm like to hear that stuff like that. So I don't know if you remember meeting me in 2007 at PPP? Because-- - I don't, I remember you passed me in 2011. - But we knew each other before that interaction and I believe it was 2007 that I met you, but every PPP since then, you and I have met each other, well, because you've done 84 hours starts and so have I. And it's always been really nice for me to go back and run into familiar faces and we would meet each other out on the route several times. So that's always been great. Have you found, have you met people on PPP that ended up being lifelong friends and you've done more stuff with or for example, maybe somebody from your club that you didn't ride with before but you interacted with more on PPP, something like that? - Oddly, not so much on PPP. And I do think that 84 hours starts a bit more of a little club within the bigger event. I think there may be a little more camaraderie. I became friends with David Leonard who from what was in the Davis Bike Club in 2002 and our wives are both very much friends and we see each other a lot. In doing the Gold Rush in 2017, I wrote some with Mike Krast and he and I stay in touch with each other. But- - Yeah, I'll be riding with Mike this weekend. We're doing our 400K, so I'll see Mike. - And he's doing the 84 hours start. So you'll see more of him. - Yes, right. Well, I've ridden with him quite a few times this year. He and I met many years ago and unfortunately we've never been able to do PPP together. Hopefully this time coming up will be the trick. So what kinds of things other than you mentioned that people should try and get as much out of this as they can be prepared to do things in addition to PPP What are some examples of those sorts of things? Like out on the course, think of some things that you'd wanna point out to people to say, "Hey, don't miss this." Where they might, if they were head down trying to rush to make time on something. - You've got the discovery of France behind you. I think the best thing, learn French if you can, but it's a little late for that realistically. But Graham Robbs, wonderful discovery of France for which he claims to have bicycled 14,000 miles around France is a glorious introduction to how France, which was really a conglomeration of very different regions, many of which spoke different languages before the revolution became as a result of the revolution, the Napoleonic Empire and then the 19th century, a far more unified country. And my hobby horse is when people write about how wonderful the French are at PPP, they're missing something important, which is that most of those people don't view themselves as French. They view themselves as Normans or they really view themselves as Bretons. And I learned this from reading, but also my first PPP in 2003, I was riding along on the afternoon of the first day and a dapper looking fellow somewhat older than me pulled up next to me. There were his bike and everything looked French. So I said, "Vous êtes Français?" And he looked at me and very calmly said, "Je suis Breton." And there's a whole lot of meaning in those words. - Yeah. So one of the things that you'll notice most obviously as you're riding from Paris westward toward Brest is the change in the structure of the names of the villages that you go through. What are some other things that people should look out for that help signify this change of almost riding from one country into another within France? - Well, you'll notice the castles, the best castles are at, oh, I'm forgetting the name of it, on the way from Vélaine to Fugère. And then, Vérim à Fugère has an immense castle. Well, the border between France and Brittany, which was a separate duchy until 1528, is just east of Fugère. And that whole region Normandy, mine, Brittany was fought over not just by the central French and the locals, but also the English were involved because the English kings held immense properties in France and hence a lot of big castles. But there's another wonderful book, Barry Conlos, Bretons and Britons, published 2001, that's a history of Brittany from the very beginning by one of the world's preeminent prehistoric archeologists. But there are all sorts of funny facts. Fugère was a major center of shoe manufacture in the 19th century. Hulgo, which is kind of a nothing town as you approach Roc Trevizel, was a site of silver mining 6,000 years ago and has a very old prehistoric, the remains of a very old prehistoric fort meeting place, which you wouldn't guess just by looking, but it's there. - So that's the location where outbound, you've left Carre behind, and I think you're going through a national forest. - Yeah, and you climb a lot and Hulgo is kind of the top of the climb till you rejoin the main road and go up Roc Trevizel. It has a little lake that I've taken a nap next to once or twice. - Yeah, I remember that from 2019, especially where there seemed to be a lot of piles of timber on the sides of the road there. I remember somebody, I was riding with challenging me to pronounce the name of the town that you've just mentioned here. And when you look at it written, your pronunciation isn't something that I would have figured out from looking at that. - Well, and then the Breton name start appearing on the road signs and you're totally, all the Breton you need to know is Kungaman, which is the very caloric pastry. That's kind of perfect for re-undenurring. - Yeah, so there is a part of the route where you do see the names of towns in two different languages. - Which is French and Breton. - Right, right. So I've asked you a number of questions and we've talked about things that you want people to know. Let's think a minute here or let you think a minute here and come up with, is there anything that I haven't asked you that you'd like to comment on? - A few more random suggestions. - Sure. - You used to hear it said that you should prepare for a 1200 by riding through the night on the 600. My own view is you're better off if you want to do that doing a night start 400 like we're going to run here in DC and in June, that what you should really, if this is your first time doing all this is practice sleeping on the 600. Because it's a lot harder than you think to fall asleep when you're really tired and really wound up. And if you can fall asleep, that sleep is going to really help you down the road. - Okay. So this brought it to mind. Something that's a little bit related here. Have you ever been injured on PDP? - No, I've been lucky. I've only had one flat tire. - Wow. That was in 2011 when I couldn't really spare the time very well. - Right. - I did have one really strange incident in 2007. - What's that? - I was running a very unlimited campy triple 10 grouper. And there was some basic trouble with the geometry of the front derailleur. You couldn't mount it so it didn't rub without turning it sideways. And it meant I kept throwing the chain over the big chain ring. - Oh. - And this had been going on for a while and I was kind of used to it. And I just pedal it back on. Well, somewhere between Cadillac and St. Main Legrand, I threw the chain over the big chain rail, tried to pedal it back on and instead kinked the chain. So it had, without breaking, had two loops in it. - Ooh, nice. - And I thought to myself, I can't walk to Ludiac in the time available to me. I gotta fix this. So by the light of a helmet light and with a small portable chain tool, I broke the chain, which by 10 speed you weren't supposed to do, took the kinks out and then put the link back in very, very, very carefully. Got it going, went to the next town where there was literally one light bulb that was lit up and it was over the one intersection in the town, pushed it in a little further and made it to Ludiac. So it was a little discouraging. Nobody stopped to offer to help. Nobody asked me how I was doing. They all just kind of went by. But it is an argument for being able to do mechanical fixes if possible, 'cause you might need to. And just, again, I've kind of by accident sidled up to the other point I'd really like to make, especially to Americans, stay calm. Things are gonna go bad, relax. Getting excited doesn't help. I stayed calm and fixed this chain. I, in 2003, a guy was melding down in front of me in the line for food at Ludiac. And I said to him, "Relax. "You're wasting energy, you're gonna need." French lines don't move like American lines. Two people get talking and it all stops. It's part of the experience. Just enjoy it. - So you've never had any lingering issues, like neuropathy and you never had Shermer's neck or you've never suffered. This is something that got to me in 2019. It took weeks to get over the baguette injuries that I had after eating so many baguettes. - Oh, God. (laughs) - So perhaps, you know, we might suggest that people practice eating baguettes before they go over. - Yeah, really, the broken hip in 2011 I brought with me. I really, I've never had any real injuries. I've certainly never had Shermer's neck. I've never had anything that hurt that much other than my butt's gotten pretty sore a few times and you just start up really gingerly and then if you do better. The last day in 2019, my back did start to hurt a great deal. And it does at a certain point kind of take the fun out of it. I was close enough to the finish that that wasn't a problem. But usually with a few hours of sleep at Mortania, I'm ready to just kind of roll on the fourth day and it was less true. - So you're going in August, correct? - I'm going in August and it's gonna be a new adventure 'cause the plan had always been to do my last one in the 90-hour group and see what that was like. The line of red lights that 84 hours is a lot more getting down to business. It starts with an open road and people are going pretty hard right from the opening gun and the 84-hour group. So I'm gonna, I think probably the 90-hour group, you lose a lot of your advantage just to waiting, but I wanna see what that's like and I'm four months in my 70th, short of my 70th birthday. So this is definitely the last one and I may need all the time I can get. - Okay, all right. Well, I'm sure to run into you while over there this time. And so it would be great to see you there. Kind of sad to hear that you know that this is your last one. Does that make you approach this any differently other than picking the 90-hour group? - No, I'll probably treasure it. I treasure 2003 'cause it was my first and the weather was so darn good. I think this will be a bit of a tour down memory lane. You may just catch me this year Rob. - This is true, yeah. I've noticed, I didn't know this until 2015, but the 84-hour group begins to catch 90-hour riders in Fougere on the first day. So Fougere is like 360 miles in, I think. - 309, it's 39, okay. Yeah, so 300-- - Nine kilometers, it's basically just 300 and a little bit more. - Right, yeah, 300K in. And that's kind of mind-boggling that you're already beginning to catch 90-hour riders. And then just through the rest of the ride, there's just more and more. And until you find the return, when you 84-hour group people get to Villanajuel, it's everybody there. All the 90-hour people seem to be there at the same time as the 84-hour rolling in. So hopefully we'll run into you somewhere along the way, but hopefully we'll see you before the whole shebang starts. - Yeah, well, I got on the bull when Stacy Klein put out something to rand on about reservations in Ramboyer. So I'm staying at the Mercure right by the start line. - Then you will definitely see me there. - Great, oh, good. Well, I look forward to that. - Well, Roger, thanks for sitting for this interview and imparting your experience to the rest of us. I wish you all the luck on PVP 2023, and we'll see you there, thanks. - Same back at you, Rob, and it'll be a pleasure to see you and other old friends too. - Sure, yeah, all right, thanks again.