Full panel seminar

So what this seminar is about. This seminar will be a shallow dive into a wide pool of topics all related to getting ready for PbP 2023. It is hoped that this will be the first in a series of web seminars that Rusa will offer where in each subsequent session, we'll take a deeper dive into a narrow list of topics. Today we have eight presenters who will each spend about 15 minutes talking about preparation topics that range from planning your 2022 purvey schedule, what can go wrong on your first PbP, what you might wish you had known ahead of time before your first PbP, the importance of learning even some French, what you might wanna know if you intend to ride a fast PbP, what are the variety of places to stay while in France, what host clubs do when they send their riders to PbP. Today's attendees are made up of about 65% PbP hopefuls who are looking to make PbP 2023 their first PbP. The rest are evenly split between veterans who have done PbP once before and those who have done it two or more times. We don't have exact demographics concerning where today's attendees come from but it is quite safe to say that they're coming from all over the US. In addition, we do have a number of registrants for this seminar who are signing in from Canada, the UK, Ireland, Brazil and Japan, just to name a few locations. So welcome to you all. The structure for today's webinar will work this way. I will introduce each presenter and they will take about 15 minutes for their presentation. We will have the Q and A feature turned on and after each presenter is finished, they will type replies to the questions that they receive while the next presenter is giving their presentation. If you submit a question, please preface that with the name of the presenter, you wish to answer that question. That'll help us a great deal in keeping track of what questions we ourselves should answer when we're into the Q and A session. We will be recording this webinar for later viewing. However, one thing that Zoom can't do is include the Q and A exchanges in the recording. So to address that, we will have each presenter select the best questions that they receive via the Q and A feature. And at the very end of the webinar, they will read those questions allowed and include their answers to those questions. At the close of the webinar, we will have a survey, excuse me, for you to fill out that shouldn't take more than a minute or two of your time and your feedback will be quite helpful. Finally, everyone involved in putting today's webinar together is a volunteer. And while none of us are professional webinar experts, we have each spent more than a few hours of our time putting this project together. We really hope that you enjoy the presentation. And if something goes well today, we have the presenters to thank. If something goes wrong today, well, that's probably my fault. - And Rob, someone mentioned the Q and A that maybe you want to introduce yourself briefly. We can know who to blame. - We'll do that. So my name is Rob Hawks. And I have been a random or since 2004. In 2008, I became the RBA of the San Francisco region here in California. I've served on the board. I'm currently serving on the board as the RBA liaison, the regional portray administrators liaison. And I've been to PVP myself four times and finished three times successfully. So let us begin, Mark, are you ready? - I'm ready. - Okay. So Mark Thomas went to PVP in 1999 and has been back for every PVP since then. He has finished PVP in 85 to 89 hours five times and once in 55 hours. In addition to six PVPs, Mark has finished 56 other 1200K or longer events while DNFing three of those, three others. Mark is a former president of the Seattle International Randonores and of Randonores USA. And is the current president of Randonore Mandu. He's here to offer some thoughts on what you should ride in 2022, if you're hoping to ride PVP in 2023. So Mark's presentation is titled "What to Ride in 2022". Thank you, Mark. - Great, thumbs up if you can hear me. Yep, okay, great. So I'm here 'cause I love Randonoring. I love Paris, Paris, Paris. I'd happily discuss PVP for hours, maybe longer if you gave me beer. But Rob gave me 15 minutes and one topic. So here goes, we'll talk about what to ride in 2022. What might help with PVP in 2023? And the discussion will have sort of three points and broad outline. First, what do you have to ride in 2022 to qualify to ride PVP in 2023? You'll see the short answer to that is nothing. Second question is, what rides can I do in 2022 that might help me gain entry into PVP 2023? And the short answer is ride the longest purveyor can, 1000K or 1200 or as long another one as you can. And the third general topic is what can you do in 2022 to help you prepare for PVP 2023? And I guess the short answer to that is that there is no short answer. To take qualifying first, Paris, Paris, Paris is an open to any rider. You have to do a qualifying series of rides to enter. You need to do a 200, a 300, a 400, and a 600K purveyor. They have to be purveys, permanents don't count. You can substitute longer for shorter. And these need to be events on the ACP calendar, which is something Russell will take care of for you. But these are things you have to do in 2023 in order to ride PVP 2023. So none of this really is the 2022 issue. Except there is a little weirdness in the Randonner calendar November and December tagged with the next year. So in November and December of 2022, you can actually do qualifying rides for PVP in 2023. But again, the short answer is qualifying for PVP is not a 2022 problem. What is a problem that can be addressed in 2022 is that PVP has limited capacity. And it's certainly possible that demand for PVP places may exceed supply. I noticed the first question that came across the Q&A was about exactly this. It appears from something I read that they may have upped the number of available places for 2023 from 7,000 to 8,000. But it's still certainly possible that demand will outstrip supply. And the ACP hasn't announced any plans for how they intend to deal with that in 2023. So what you'll get is a little bit of a guess based on what they did in 2019, where they were worried about the same issue. So in 2019, they put together a pre-registration system that basically allowed riders to pre-register in waves that were based on how long in Breve they had completed in the prior year in 2018. So this took place early in the year of 2019, early in the PVP year before most riders had done their qualifiers, but you were able to go through this pre-registration process. And the first wave was open to riders who had completed 1,000k or 1,200k in 2018. And then after that finished, riders who had done a 600 were able to pre-register and so on, 400, 300, 200. And what was interesting is that after the 200k pre-registerance, it looked like all the possible places were taken up. And the ACP said, if you didn't pre-register, you're not going to get a place. As it turned out, that time, a bunch of people, maybe a lot more than they expected, didn't convert their pre-registration to registrations. And it was opened up again. So actually, some riders with no 2018 purveys were able to ride PVP in 2019. But let's just say that your very best chance to gain entry into PVP 23 if they take a similar pre-registration system will be to ride the longest purveye you can in 2022. A 1,200,000 would be ideal to get you in the first spot in line. A shorter purveye is likely to work as well. I think people who had only done a 2,000 in 2018 were pretty much biting their fingernails at the end. So would certainly suggest riding as long a purveye as you can in 2022 to have the best chance possible to participate in PVP 2023. So that's sort of the official rides that get you into PVP part of the discussion. Oh, I will just make the point that the same funny rule about November and December apply so that you can actually do a purveye this November or this December and have it get you a place in pre-registration in a pre-registration line. So again, this is a question of pre-registration. Qualifying rides are a 2023 problem. Pre-registration is a 2022 problem. But what I really wanted to talk about a little bit is how to use 2022 to be best prepared to participate in PVP 2023. And I'd say basically we're just talking about riding for experience. As Rob noted, I have a lot of 1,200K experience, maybe as much as anybody. And from that experience, I've kind of learned two important things. The first is there is no right way to do this stuff. And you have to figure out what works for you. So take anything I say from now on as input, not prescription. I just want to suggest some things to think about and work on in 2022. How you do that is going to be personal to you. First and foremost, I'd suggest using 2022 to get comfortable with long distances, if you're not already. Like I'm not a coach or anything. So take this with a grain of salt. But I think you want to train for endurance. In 2022, you can do speed work. But your speed work in 2023 will be more important to your PVP 2023 performance. So get comfortable with distance. A good time to work a little bit on sort of the mental toughness aspect of randonoring as well. Couple of years ago on a long ride in Italy, I met a young Belgian randoner who was also a racer. And he said, from his perspective, the difference between racing and randonoring was that up to 200K, he said, it's all about your legs. He said, after that, the longer distances, it's all about your head. And there's a certain amount of truth to that. So training your mind and your spirit to keep up with long distances is a good thing to try to experience and deal with in 2022. You need to experience the highs and lows of randoner rides. I ride with a guy here who's fine of saying, hey, if things are bad, don't worry, they'll get better. But he also says, if things are good, don't worry, they'll get worse. So I think it's useful to experience those cycles that happen on a long ride. It helps to remember when things get bad that that low point may be temporary and that there's a certain level of up and down in any ride. And the more you experience that, the more prepared you'll be to experience it when and if it happens at PVP for you. Riding for a distance, give you some help with contact point toughness, let's just call it. Your saddle interface toughness probably just wants miles in the saddle, the more the better. Your hands and feet, I think they're a little bit of a different issue in the sense that you want to also figure out how to keep them from going down, getting sore, whatever it is that happens. And 2022 will be a good time to put some long rides to work in helping you understand that. And I guess I'd say it's also important to get some multi-day riding experience. You can either do that by riding a really long Brevet, 1,000 K, 1,200 makes you get up and ride for three or four days. But you could also just schedule back to back rides, go on a tour, something that gives you the feeling of riding day after day for a couple of days. All that will help with what you're going to need for PVP. I think it's also-- 2022 would be a great time to start to dial in your stuff. There'll be a presentation on bike later. But I think it's important to figure out your bike and above all, make sure it fits. I caution people not to get too hung up on figuring out what a random or bike is. People ride Brevets, just look around you. You'll see them on all sorts of different bikes. When you go to PVP, you'll be surprised at the variety of bikes that people start and finish PVP on. So get your bike, make it fit. Figure out what you need to carry. And this is a different answer for different people. There's no one size that fits all in this. But people strike a balance between having the appropriate spares and the appropriate tools and not weighing themselves down with anvils and spare wheels. You also need to figure out what kind of food you need, what kind of clothing you need. So figure out what you think you're going to need to carry on a long ride and practice with it next year. Figure out how you're going to carry it. It's pretty important to sort of sort that out. Maybe it's bags on your bike. Maybe it's your jersey pockets. Maybe it's a backpack. Maybe it's some combination of all of the above. But it might be important to use some of the rides next year to practice that, carrying what you need, and figuring out how to carry it, even to the extent that you might carry some of the stuff you'd need for a multi-day ride on a shorter ride, just to get some experience with it. I did kind of watch a rider's grand randon a fall apart a few years ago with a succession of issues. But they began when his tail bag was more full than it had ever been before, and it was dragging on his rear wheel, and things started to go bad. By the time he fixed that, he lost his group, and other things went wrong. Another dialing your stuff question is figuring out your lighting. Unless you're really fast and choose the morning 84-hour start, you'll almost certainly ride a good chunk of PVP in the dark. A lot of randoners use dynamo lighting, but honestly, most Paris, Paris, Paris riders do not. So if you don't, you can use 2022 to try to figure out the lighting, the batteries, the charging, figuring out how long your lights really last under real-world conditions. Some things you might want to think about for Francis. You may not have access easily to an outlet. During the ride, you may not get the life out of your tail lights because people tend to frown on blinking ones. They're just some things that would be nice to start to think about in 2022, so you don't get surprised with your lights going out two and a half days into PVP. I'm not even going to say too much about navigation aids, but it's a good time to learn what you want to use. Navigation tends not to be a big issue at PVP. There are signs pointing at which way to go. But people do screw it up, so it's worth figuring out what it takes for you to stay on course and to do that. And I understand your own clothing needs. I think one of the biggest surprises people have, and Francis, that they're there in August. They expect it to be hot. And somewhere on the third morning, just before dawn, they realize that they're freezing. They're tired. They're cold. The temperatures are just above freezing, and there's fog, and it's colder. So next year, again, maybe think about figuring out clothing for yourself, what works for you. I'd suggest also practicing some Brevet-specific skills on 2022 events. It's important to learn how to manage an efficient stop. It's a really useful skill. And one of the main determinants of your finishing time on PVP or any other Brevet is really your time off the bike, not your speed on the bike. And at PVP, it can be quite difficult to get through controls quickly. You may not even want to. You may want to sit down and talk with the rider you just met from Spain. But having some good, efficient control habits that you learn next year will help you deal with those slower stops at PVP as well. And I'd say use 2022 to start to figure out sleep on longer bays. And a lot of that is also quite personal. You need to figure out how much sleep you need. You need to figure out how you deal with sleep deprivation if that's going to be an issue. Whatever sleep you need, you need to figure out how you're going to get it. Are you a roadside napper? Do you need a bed, et cetera, et cetera. It's a good thing to start to think about next year. Because in my experience, I think sleep is the single biggest PVP or 1,200k problem. The thing that really is different from doing one of those events than doing a shorter Brevet or any other kind of riding, there's just not enough time necessarily to get good sleep. And so understanding how you're going to react to it and how you're going to deal with it is a great thing to work on in 2022. I will touch on what events should you ride in 2022. And I'd make two suggestions. The first is to do a whole series. There's something to learn on each distance. I mean, I think doing the 200, the 300, the 400, and the 600 really help you kind of learn the nuances of riding Brevets and give you a chance to practice various things. And particular 600k can help you try to figure out how you're going to deal with the sleep issue. But I'd also say that if possible, do a long Brevet next year. Do a 1,200 or 1,000. Because honestly, the best way to learn how you're going to cope with the multi-day Brevet is to ride one. I will say personally, before PBP, my first PBP in 1999, I rode 1,000k. And I found it super helpful. It taught me things about sleep and food and a lot of different things that I didn't know. It was also good for my confidence. I also did it in the year of PBP. So if you can't get 1,000 or 1,200 next year, don't panic about it. I'd say since I'm probably running out of time, a couple of final suggestions. Use your PBP, I mean, your 2022 rides to talk to PBP veterans. Most all happily give you the benefit of their experiences in return for your willingness to put up with their stories and read their stories. There are lots of stories online about PBP. And you can find something in all of those that may speak to you and may be relevant to your experience. I'd also suggest one more thing, which is to start thinking about what your goals are for the actual PBP event. Maybe your goal is pretty simple. Maybe your goal is just to finish. And I think for many people, that's exactly the goal. Other people may have a goal to maximize their French and Bretton cultural experience. For those people, I pay particular attention to what Greg and Eric have to say coming up. Maybe you want to ride it real fast. Maybe join the Charlie Miller Society. I'd say pay attention to what Brian has to say. He knows a lot about that. So there are a lot of different goals you can have for PBP. And it's never too soon to start thinking about what those are. And I guess with that, I've used a lot of time. And I'll turn it over to the next person or back to Rob. Thank you very much, Mark. So very quickly before I introduce our next speaker, I wanted to say this for the benefit of the people that have signed on while Mark was giving his presentation. This session is being recorded. We are going to have each presenter answer their Q&A questions while the next presenter is speaking. So if you have questions for Mark, now is the time to use the Q&A feature. And please preface your question with Mark and then your question. And that'll help us keep track of which questions we should be answering and which ones we're leaving for our fellow presenters. So Deb, are you ready to go? OK, you might want to unmute. Got it. Great. So Deb Banks began riding Brevets in 2007. And since then, has accomplished a number of Randonoring achievements. In 2014, alone, she earned the Mondiale Award, became the first woman to finish a Super 600, doing so in under 50 hours, and earned the Ultra Randonore Award, which is 10 SR series. Across the year, she has achieved K-Hound status several times. She's earned multiple Russa Cups and multiple R-12s. Deb is also a two-time finisher of Paris Press Paris, as well as a finisher of several domestic 1,200 Ks. Deb has gotten a lot from Randonoring, but she has given Russa and Randonoring 10-fold in return. She is in her sixth year serving on the Russa board currently as vice president and also serves as the regional Brevet administrator for one of Russa's most historic regions, the California Davis region. So Deb, we're ready for you. All right. Thanks, everybody. I'm going to share my screen. And hopefully, you can see a picture that says how not to do your first Paris Press Paris. Thumbs up if you can see that. Yes, anybody? I'm going to tell you a story. A lot of people are going to throw a lot of information at you during the course of this. So my plan is to just tell you a story about how not to do your first PPP. And mine was in 2007. So I turned 50 in 20 in 2007, and I was casting about looking for a good adventure, something that I could do. And my good friend and buddy, who some of you know, Catherine Shank, she's asked me to join her at a PPP presentation that John Lielis of RMCC in Colorado was giving at our local REI in Colorado. Charlie Henderson, rest in peace, was talking about the average age of writers. And he said that the majority of people were in their mid-50s. Catherine leans in, turns at looks at me, and says, you got no excuses. So I decided, all right, I'll give it a go, but I'm completely skeptical. Catherine is a far stronger bicycle rider and athlete than I am. And I just think, all right, I'll give it a shot, but there's no way that I'm going to qualify and that I'd be able to get this done. So seven weeks later, I am in Wisconsin at a pack tour run by Lon and Susan. And they used to do a bervet week in Wisconsin, and I was at this one in 2007. And I do a 300K and a 400K and a 600K. I'd already done a two in Colorado. And amazingly, I qualified. I had horrible saddle sores, and my bike didn't fit, but I got through it. And at the end of it, it dawned on me. It's like, holy shit, now that I've done this, I got to go to France. So I'm like, all right, I'll apply, and I'll get in. And it wasn't the same scenario that Mark just lined out. It was much easier back in those days. Anybody that wanted to go from a country pretty much could go. The popularity of PBP has certainly risen since 2007. So I do a little bit more riding in July. I do another 300K, and I do an early morning ride to practice my early night into day riding. That's it, pretty minimal. The week before I go to France, I drop in to get my bike fixed in Colorado at a bike shop. And we realize that there's a hairline fracture on the top of my bike frame. And I am freaked out. What do I do? Do I ride this bike? Don't I ride this bike? Holy smokes. It's PBP, right? You've spent all this time, all this energy, and you're really concerned. So I start calling to all the bicycle shops in the front range. And Doris, this woman that used to run this bike shop in Lakewood-- and sadly, the bike shop no longer exists-- she helps me out. Doris is a hard-smoken lady. She's the kind of person that the cigarette is sticking out of the corner of your mouth, and it's kind of glued to it and it bobs up and down as you're talking. And so Doris calls the look distributor, and she's like, ah, this young lady's going to go to France in five days. What can we do for her? The look distributor was awesome. He upgraded my bike frame. Of course, I had to spend a little money to do that, but it was minimal. And they send the bike to Doris, who quickly rebuilds my bike. It's a look 585. So I pick it up the night before I'm leaving for Paris, Paris. I ride it around the block, and then I pack it to go to France. Like, what could go wrong? It's a brand new bike, right? So I get to France. And this picture is of me and Catherine, and the person that I ended up riding with, Sandra, who was a cat to ride racer. And none of us had ever done this before. Catherine had done a full set of series the year before. As you can hear from my story so far, I had minimal experience. We were really excited, but boy oh boy, we had no idea what was coming our way. And PBP was a rough one. We were excited, but it poured rain the whole time. Side winds were significant and really cold temperatures. It's gone down in Paris, Paris, Paris history that this is one of the worst ones, how hard it was, et cetera. Over 30% of the whole field DNFed within the first day. So it was pretty rough. It took hours to get through this start line. This was a-- I think we were at a school. I actually can't remember. We were at a school, and we're lined up around this track, slowly making our way to get our chips before we start riding. I think I was in this line for a good two, three hours prior to my start time waiting, and it's just pouring rain. I have only done the 90-hour start. I'll just throw that in. So it took a long time to get there. We finally get going. We start our ride. And there's this lingerie that's not too far within the course, and almost everybody stops to get a coffee, and you're so excited. But when I say everybody, I mean there were hundreds of people there. And we stopped to get a coffee, too, because we were trying to have the great Paris, Paris, Paris experience. And we wasted a ton of time getting our coffee. Just wasted a boatload of time. I suffered horrible saddle sores. I didn't have a bike that-- I was on a shitty plastic saddle. I took care of that later, mind you all. At wet chamois, wet feet, we stopped drinking water out of our water bottles because there was so much wet cow manure on the pavement that it would splash up as you drove through. So the top of your water bottle was just disgusting. You would lube your chain, and it would immediately wash off because of the puddles and the wet weather. I mean, it was pretty bad. Then we'd get to Lodiak, and we would waste a ton of time looking for our drop bags because we all looked alike. And it was just chaos. Felt like chaos. So we get to Lodiak, and we decided to have some sleep. And this is the gym in Lodiak, and they have a time where you sign in, and they tell you when they're going to wake you up and you go to sleep. And Sondra and I both overslept significantly. And when we woke up, it was A, daylight, and B, we were way off the back. The gym was empty. We knew we were in deep trouble. So we took off trying to ride ourselves back into the field. And at one point, we saw this set of riders up ahead of us, and we're clawing our way to get to them. And we finally reached them, and they're not moving that fast. And we find that it's a father and son. And the father is easily in his mid to late '70s. His arm is in a sling. He's got one hand on his handlebars. And his son is younger, and they're talking and riding as they continue on down the road. And his son and father had some kind of a quick discussion. I don't speak any French, by the way. And but we understood that them just kind of say to us that they thought they were the last people on the road, but now that we are passing them, they are now for sure the lantern rouge. And so Sondra and I bid them goodbye, and we head on up the road a little bit. And then we're laughing to ourselves, going, oh, my gosh, we're no longer the lantern rouge. And then we feel really sheepish about it, because it's like we've passed this ailing father and his son. And we're feeling good about that. Hashtag, not our proudest moment. So much of the ride is a blur. On a return back from Lodiak, we, towards Drew, we caught up with a gentleman from Norway. And he made it possible for us to finish, I think. We would stop every hour. And like clockwork, he would just set a timer, and it would go off. And he'd say, all right, let's get off our bikes and rest, take a power nap, sleep, do jumping jacks, whatever you need to do to get a bit of rest, and then to stay awake for the next hour. And we crawled our way back into the daylight hours in that fashion. Nearing the finish of the ride-- whoops-- nearing the finish of the ride, adrenaline kicked in, and we raced to the end. And it was a little bit confusing with control times, because the weather was so bad. The organizers had lifted the control time. So you just had to finish within your 90-hour time. And we were a little unsure. We had not had much sleep. We're trying to do crazy Brevet math. It's not working for us. So we were like, just get there as soon as possible. So we raced through stoplights, trying to get back to San Catan. And thinking that we only had minutes to spare. So we end up, we finish. And we end up having 50 minutes to spare-- a truly earned Adrian hands, by the way, with a total of 2 and 1/2 hours of sleep, which is brutal. I don't recommend it. So God, I keep doing that. Lessons learned. Ah, I'm not doing this either. Here we go. Lessons learned. As Mark said, ride your bike, ride it a lot. Start your PVP campaign now. Don't wait until three months prior to Paris-British-Paris to decide to ride Paris-British-Paris like I did. Get your bike dialed in well before the event. Ride it a lot so it's comfortable. Remember that sleep is your best friend. There are a couple of great websites now in endurance racing and riding that speak about sleep, about managing your time. They're very good. I highly recommend you do a Google search and just saying endurance cycling, sleep. And a lot of really great stuff will come up for you. Manage your time so that you can maximize your time, both on the bike and off the bike. Pro tip, get bright drop bags. I went to Target in 2011 to the kids section and bought these two backpacks. They were bright pink, Hello Kitty backpacks. And I could find them in a sea of black bags or randonore bags that all looked exactly the same. So I could easily find them and get to them. Other things, listen to all the wisdom from all the other presenters that you've heard, that you're going to hear from. Ask questions, ride your bike, practice those systems, and go for it. It's totally worth your time. Thanks for listening. So Deb, if you can end sharing. Yep. Cool. So Dawn, we'll bring you up next while we're bringing up Dawn. Dawn has been riding Brevets with Rusa since 2015. In that time, she has completed an SR series, which is a two, three, four, and six in the same year. Every year until 2020, when it took a pandemic to take away the chance for her to do one more series. Dawn has volunteered for Rusa at the local level. And in 2020 was elected to the Rusa board, beginning with a 2021 year term. In 2015, Dawn finished PPP, but missed joining the Society at Adrian Hands by less than 10 minutes. And to this day, regrets not stopping for one more chocolate croissant, if she had only known. Deb, you'll need-- or Dawn, you'll need to unmute. There we go. Thank you, Rob. Yeah, you bet. And thank you to everyone for being here today in the United States and abroad. I appreciate this opportunity to share with you that just some things that I wish I would have known then what I know now. Objectives of my presentation are, number one, state the top four challenges in my quest towards finishing Paris Press Paris 2015. Number two, understand three things that I really don't recommend for Paris Press Paris. And on the converse, three things I do recommend. So let's get started. Just a little bit about me. My cycling background, I played basketball in high school and college. In 2010, I began cycling on a regular basis. And after about four years, my cycling was shifting a bit. In 2014, after four years of cycling, two events that I participated in really changed my cycling paradigm. The picture on the top right-hand side is of the Dairylandaire, which was part of the Wisconsin Triple Crown series. I was one of seven women to finish an allocated time frame and a very hilly course. And the second one was La Vuelta, Puerto Rico, where you circumnavigate the island of Puerto Rico in three days. Three days, 375 miles. So after both of these two experiences in 2014, I had a recurring question that just kept coming up time and time again. And that was, how much further could I go? So that was in 2014, and then a few months past. And a little seed was planted. I met fellow Randonneers USA member Eric Peterson, who lives here in the Greater Chicagoan region. And he introduced me to the concept of Randonneering, because I really, to be honest, had no concept of what it was. But I was intrigued. I then joined Randonneers USA. And then I thought, Eric, share with me, do a series and see how it goes. So I thought, heck, what's the worst that could happen? Let's just give it a try. And there I went. So that seed was planted in the fall of 2014. And fast forward in 2015, it continued to grow. It was fertilized and started blooming. Kind of like dub story, in eight weeks, I completed a full series, plus another 400k, and qualified for Paris Press Paris. Here in the Midwest, we don't have this glorious weather. So once the season started, I was pretty determined to see how things went. So after completing the 600k in the end of May, I basically had the golden ticket of Randonneering. I felt like Willy Wonka. So prepared, and then showing up at Paris Press Paris. So in the matter of five months, I was in Paris. And I was very excited. The sense of camaraderie and community there was just amazing. In the picture on the bottom right, you can see me with a gentleman from Japan, Russia, and Serbia at the start at the village room. It was amazing. Also feeling the sense of camaraderie. And again, this is a recommendation I have, camaraderie community within your local region, within Randonneers USA, or the region that you ride with internationally. Continue to start building that now, because it's very important as you'll see. The community against-- with women. The women-- one of the things I did in '15 was trying to really find as many women as I could. And although I don't speak Polish, the bottom left-hand photo is me and Lydia from Poland, the bottom right is myself and a woman from Italy, a gesture, a smile, a handshake, a hug. It really made a difference. Because women at Paris Press Paris, the numbers are very low. There were 300 of us out of approximately 6,000 cyclists in 2015. I started in the 90-hour group start. I was riding a Rivendell Rambolais. You can see in the left-hand photo there with fluted fenders. And it was a beautiful bike. And I was very, very excited to be riding a Rambolais through the Rambolais forest. There's a lot of details about my journey. And I'd like to defer you to-- I have a cycling blog, as you can see here on the screen, inspiredcyclists.wordpress.com. And if you go to the archive dates, December 2015 through February 2016, there are 11 blog entries with a lot of details on this journey. But I'm going to continue and just highlight a few of the challenges I had in my first time and first year of random nearing. I identified five four-top challenges. First and probably the biggest thing is my random nearing maturity was in its newborn stage. I just started. Number two, I greatly under-SMA the climbing in my plan. I went to PBP with four fellow riders who I trained with. So we developed a plan together. But the plan was a pretty ambitious for me, being pretty much a newborn in random nearing. The first section we looked at, we had 278 miles with 13,000 feet of elevation gain from Paris to Lodiak. The second section, after a sleep stop in Lodiak, was from Lodiak to Breast and Back. That was 207 miles with a little over 11,000 feet of climbing with another sleep stop in Lodiak. And then the third leg was 280 miles with 13,400 feet of elevation gain back to Paris. Again, I was still a newborn in random nearing. My lack of sleep really also was a problem, as I'll lute to in a little bit. On the way out at Lodiak, I had three hours, which was really good. I felt comfortable with that. But unfortunately, because my climbing and the plan started to fall apart, on the way back, I only had one hour. So a total of four hours with no naps. I didn't know how to nap. I was concerned if I took a nap, I would fall asleep and never wake up and finish PBP. So I just didn't nap. Would not recommend that. And then the last challenge I identified is this kind of vague soreness that started once I got to halfway point and breast. I started to have some discomfort in my upper neck. I just attributed to just pushing myself and left it at that. But as you'll see, it was a perfect storm brewing. So I've explained some challenges I went through, but now I'm going to tell you three things I don't recommend you do for PBP. And then on the converse, I'll explain three things I recommend. The first thing I don't recommend is don't go straight from a 600K as your longest ride to Paris, Breast Paris. As Mark Thomas alluded to, doing a longer distance the year before, do 1,000K, a 1,200K the year before, at least 75% of the distance you will be doing. Train with your gear, the nutrition you're going to be using, the bike you're going to be riding for PBP. And again, if possible, pick a 1,000K or 1,200K that's going to be have similar climbing as Paris will. Don't be scared of hallucinations. I had never had hallucinations leading up to PBP. And halfway through, I started having them all the time. I was seeing bats. I was seeing skyscrapers come up from the middle of the road in the countryside of France, which was interesting. But I tried to manage them. It didn't scare me that much. But they're very different for me. So really develop your sleep strategy as the previous two presenters Deb and Mark have alluded to. Be prepared and be flexible as needed. How will you do if your sleep deprived? And then just as you train on the bike with your nutrition, train with your sleep. The last thing I really don't recommend is don't get caught by Shermer's neck. That kind of vague discomfort I had in Breast actually was the start of Shermer's neck for me. And this is a phenomenon which a detail a lot in the blog is basically the muscles fail from constant fatigue. And the picture on the right, you'll see it's the deep suboccipital muscles in your neck that stop working. And what effectively happens, unfortunately, is you lose control of your neck and you can't hold your head up. So some of the risk factors include for Shermer's neck, maybe a former neck injury, a muscle imbalance, because thus, in cycling, use a lot of the flexor muscles that vendor keeping our head down. And we overuse the extensor muscles, lack of sleep, and poor bite fit. As you can kind of see in this photo, this was at 640 miles. You can see my neck is kind of tilted and a little bit forward. Again, as Deb alluded to, lack of sleep and deprivation is very difficult. Four hours of sleep, no naps. So what happened was when I got to Drew with 40 miles to go, I couldn't hold my head up. I saw some of my friends, they said, how are you doing? I said, well, I'm hallucinating and I can't hold my head up. They said, well, what are you going to do? Stop. And I said, I did not come all this way to do Paris, Paris, Paris to stop. I went to the medics. No one could give me anything, a cervical collar or anything. I didn't have the maturity and random hearing to know what to do. So what I basically did the last 40 miles is every mile, I would look at my computer screen and I would hold my head up and then just steer my bike forward. And then I just basically did this the last 40 miles of PVP. Wasn't pretty, but I got it done. So practice your sleep strategies. It's very, very important. So I talked about the things I wouldn't recommend, but here are the things I really recommend. Number one, develop a cross training, core program, flexibility, Pilates training to get you in preparation for Paris, Paris, Paris. Wear compression stockings. I don't have any pictures here, but my legs started to swell and I had some problems there. So wear compression stockings during the long event. Usually 20 to 30 millimeters of mercury. Knee high and closed toe. Wear them before the event to get your legs ready during and after for recovery. It's very, very important. And last, but most importantly, embrace the journey. Make memories along the way. Some of my fondest memories, as you can see in this photo, is me with kids. I had little stickers that I would stop on the side of the road and I loved these moments. This little family was standing there and I took a photo with their kids. It was just wonderful and I do appreciate all these moments. Again, these priceless moments in the countryside. People stopping. It's just a wonderful opportunity. And after 88 hours, 46 minutes and 36 seconds, I finished to become Ancien in the great book. So in conclusion, make yourself proud. Whatever it is, Paris, Paris, a bervet, your longest achievement on the bike. Make yourself proud and push yourself and see what you can do. What's the worst that can happen? In conclusion, I hope I've explained some of the challenges I had in my first year and shared some things I wouldn't and would recommend in your first quest towards Paris, Paris, Paris. I'm here as a resource for you. Feel free to reach out. Here's my email. I'm also on Instagram and Twitter. I'd love to answer any questions you have in your preparation for PVP. Thank you for your time for being here and enjoy your journey. Rob, I think you muted. Thank you, Greg. Sorry for that. Thank you, Don. Now is the time for you to start typing your Q&A questions for Don. And if you haven't finished typing your questions for Deb, slip those in there, too, and she'll answer those. Next up, we have Greg. So let me introduce Greg for you. Greg has been doing Randonores since 2008 with the San Francisco Randonores as his home club. Greg started and homologated the last two runnings of PVP. And he speaks French as a second language. Let me put the spotlight on Greg. Cool. Thanks, Rob. And thanks to the presenters so far. So much of, really, everything rang true from my experience. So take what everyone has said so far to heart. And thanks to all of you who are attending for your time. And for the opportunity to talk about where two of my passions come together. That's cycling and language. And I like to talk to you about considering French language as part of your preparation for PVP. It's going to come from a perspective of someone who is interested in learning a new language for daily use, but learning as an adult rather than, say, naturally, as a childhood. My experience with French is in two parts. The first part was four years of study of the language in high school, followed immediately by a whole lot of nothing in French for many, many years. And then I decided it was about 15 years ago. I said, hey, I want to be able to just talk to people in French, just chat and talk with whoever about whatever. So I set off on a path to be able to do that. And now I can. I have an accent. I make mistakes. But it's no problem to just talk to people. I'll come back to this picture later in my presentation. So why French for PVP? I find it can actually help you complete the events. And that's my experience and the experience of others I've talked to. It's really all about communication. A really stunning thing about PVP is without exaggeration, there are thousands of people along the course or controls who are inclined to help you finish the events. And they pretty much all speak French. Greg? Yes. I didn't share my screen. Yes, please. Thank you very much. Yeah, sorry about that. It's OK. It's a good timing. Thank you, Rob. Yeah, so you all haven't missed much. So as far as the slides, they're just starting to get going. So this is a picture of my feet at the top here during my 2015 PVP. And Rest assured that the person who helped me didn't speak English. We spoke French together. And she was able to help me much more quickly and efficiently and get me back on the road. The story of my American socks is a story for another time. But language was a big part of that. The second picture below is me on the left. I'm about three quarters of the way through my first PVP in 2015. I'm standing next to Mr. Daniel Metzger, who is finishing not his first or second PVP or his fourth or his fifth or his ninth, but his 11th PVP. And that's honestly one of my most cherished cycling memories is to have ridden that day with Daniel. And he didn't speak any English. We spoke French. And one of the stories he explained to me about what he likes so much about the event is the camaraderie between riders. I mean, you've heard of it already from the previous folks who have given presentations today. But what he said is as you ride along with others and talk with them, you forget about the aches and pains that are almost sure to accumulate during the ride. And I thought that was kind of surprising, but I did a little self-check. And he was right. I had forgotten about my many aches and pains. And about a third of the riders are French. So whatever amount of French language you can bring opens up more chances for communication. And really, so many of my memories of PVP are really all about people. And more than half of that was involved French. Next slide. There it is. Now, for some of you, this whole proposition is going to be very simple. Should you bother with French preparation? And the answer for you might be no. And that's OK. It's not required for PVP. And in fact, I trust that everyone listening to me today has English as a first or second language. You're going to encounter a lot of people who do not speak English, but some will speak at least some English. And you can use what you have. And that's great. I will say, however, that just to be polite and friendly with folks, you will want to learn a couple of little words or expressions in French to be able to greet and thank people. And to greet someone, you can say something like bonjour. Or if you want to address them at the same time, something like bonjour, madame. And a common way to express gratitude to someone is to say, merci. So some of you, this completes your French preparation for PVP. And you're welcome to tag along as you see what the rest of us will be doing as we get ready for 2023. So when to start? You should start now if you haven't already. It's OK if you haven't already. But the reason to start now is I think most people find that if you have a limited time budget and you just-- time budget for language learning and you put it all at the end to cram right before you go, it's probably not going to be as good of a result as if you can spread it out starting now all the way until you go to France. If all you have in terms of your time, if all the opportunity you have is to cram at the end, go for that. That's better than nothing, but try to spread it out if you can. And then this point about considering a variety of learning sources, there's a couple reasons. Anyone curriculum or app or book or video series is going to have its strength and going to be more suited to some people or another. I want you to think about being selective. You're not just trying to get a grade or get into college or pass a test. You're trying to acquire what you need to ever improve your ability to talk to people. And so seek out things that help you with your spoken French. So what are some of those kinds of things? I like to make an analogy to learning to ride a bike. There are different ways you can learn to ride a bike. Some people use a machine like shown on the left, a bicycle with training wheels. Some people use a machine like the one on the right, which is a balance bike. And I think most folks who learn to ride a bike on a balance bike find that the balance bike has them practicing the skills that relate more directly to riding a conventional bicycle. And that's a quicker on-ramp. So what does this have to do with language prep? So on the left, I have elements of many curricula for language learning, very common things that give you a foundation in understanding things about the language. Vocabulary lists, grammar rules, scripted conversations, beginner audio recordings, quizzes, tests. You might find if you have your preparation exclusively to those things, you might find that you land in France, go to have your first conversation with somebody in French, and it's like the training wheels came off and you hit the pavement. If you, however, can mix in some healthy amounts of the things on the right, which are hearing people use real French language and practice speaking your own ideas in French, this is more like the balance bike, and will put you in a better spot. So how do you do that? If you have the means and inclinations to move to France tomorrow, and you're going to speak French better than I do in two years, but the rest of us, how do we bring that to ourselves? So my experience, and I've learned this from others who have had success, is you can practice understanding spoken French by spending time hearing lots of it. Now, I chose the word hearing instead of listening. Listening, I think of as a more active activity, which has its place, for example, a lot of coursework will have samples to listen to. You can get value from that. But you can just let real French media, French radio, for example, or movies, just let it play in the background. Like anytime you might be listening to music, if you're-- I do it with housework, washing dishes, preparing dinner, brushing my teeth at yard work. I just let it play. And it only gets part of my attention a lot of the time. But what happens is the idea here is that quantity is the quality. You're going to hear the correct sounds over and over and over again. They're just going to go into your ear and sneak into your brain. That will help when you go to speak. You'll have a sense of what the things are going to want to sound like. You're going to hear words that you've learned already in new combinations and new contexts. And you'll learn more expressions and get a better sense of what those words mean. You may also learn the best word for a specific situation. If you know a couple of words in French and you're not sure which one to pick, if you've heard each one used 10, 50, 1,000 times, you're going to have better sense. You're going to learn new words, which is surprising. I was surprised to find that. But it happens over time. And you may learn new forms of the words you already know. And this next one on the list, recognizing Franglais. This is purged, I think, a lot from instructional materials. They try to give you pure French. There's not only loan words from English in French, but French people just say English words. But in France, they're often said with quite a French accent. And you might at first say, what was that word? And it was in your own language. And if you have practice hearing that, that will help you decode. And just like in any language, there are common slurs and shortcuts, which I find just completely missing from a lot of material. And you can hear it when you have your real French spoken. So speaking, so this is understandably intimidating for all of us. I can only imagine that some of you-- maybe I've gone to this slide, and your heart may be skipped a beat. It can be very daunting, very discouraging, embarrassing. You may think, oh, I need a little more vocabulary. What was that conjugation? Is that masculine or feminine? How about my pronunciation? I'm not sure. The thing is, after decades of working with French, I'm never 100% sure with everything. And that feeling never goes away. So you're as ready as you're ever going to be. So start now. You can allow yourself to speak simply as a child would, and even knowingly make mistakes. Give it your best shot. Take everything you have and out with it. As far as practicing goes, practice speaking. If you can speak with real French people here in-- or wherever you live, or virtually do that, or with other people who are learning, do that. But even alone, you can narrate what you do. As you wash the dishes, you can describe that. I mean, you've got to move your vocal cords and your lips, make the sound come out. Don't just think it. As you ride your bike, you can describe what you see, just with single words, phrases, or whole sentences. And when you're doing those hearing exercises or listening, you can just mimic the sounds that you hear. You may or may not know the words, but you can just say them. And this will exercise all of that. I'm going to give a note here about reading written text aloud. I do that sometimes. It's a great way to speak, for example, well-constructed French, and then from that. But there are lots of-- for a literate English person, there are lots of challenges with going from that written French to the pronunciation. It's really hard to get right. And sometimes we have to unlearn how to say words. This is separate from your accent. I have an accent. You'll probably have an accent. Your accent is charming and cool, but you got to get it pretty close to the mark so that it can be understood. And this, I think, happens with the PPP place names. By place names, I mean control town names. A lot of them have really funky looking spellings and trying to get to that decent pronunciation is really hard for us. If I had just one slide and one minute for this whole talk, it would be this one. I'd like to give each and every one of you permission to be kind to yourself as you learn. This is really important. I think Mark and I think others talked about this. You definitely experience discomfort as a Rondiner, and we all learn how to cope with it in various ways, or maybe become comfortable or accustomed to it. This is what language learning feels like. And we're going to make mistakes all the time. But I think of this as a special glass half full, glass half empty situation. Every time I make a mistake, it's like someone shows me how half empty that glass is. And it's a little disheartening. But what I have to always tell myself is every mistake that shows me how half empty that glass is, it adds another drop to the half full. Drop, drop, drop. And it's especially those mistakes where I really learn. It really settles in. So be kind to yourself. This is what language learning feels like. So start now. Choose a variety of resources. Take from your education for your goals. Not don't just follow curriculum blindly. Lean into real spoken French. Be kind to yourself. Have an even better PPP. L-A-Z, hop to it. And I wonder if, as one extra piece, Brian, are you willing to be a guinea pig? Absolutely. OK. So here's an example. On the left are spellings of PPP controls. And on the right is I have them written for someone with a California English accent, which I know Brian has, to just read out loud as if they were English. Kind of sounded out. It's not how our French person is going to say it. [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] But Brian, do you want to have a go at reading out loud the list on the right? Absolutely. [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] That's awesome. I know exactly what you're talking about. So I'll stop there. I just find this really, really gratifying. And I encourage everyone to take anything and everything they can, whatever preparation you do or have time for, just bring it with you and let it on out and practice that. Thank you, everyone. So Greg, if you can stop your sharing and we'll move on. Merci, Monsieur Merritt. [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] This is that. So just to remind people that you can type questions for Greg right now in the Q&A, I want to point out, Dawn is having a little bit of technical difficulty answering some of her questions. But we will get those answered for you one way or another. They may be read at the end, or she may have been able to resolve that technical issue. Again, all of this will be recorded. And at the very end of the session, we'll have each presenter read out the best question that they received during their time of answering the Q&A sessions here. So the next presenter for us will be Brian Kilgore. Brian has been a Randonore since 2010 and is nearing his Mondial Award. He has written PDP twice, first in 2015. And each time, he has achieved Charlie Miller's status. Brian is a major volunteer with the San Francisco Randonores, with his primary role being coordinator for the SFR Adventure Series, which is a set of four challenging mixed-terrain purveys ranging from 200k all the way up to 600k. So Brian, are you ready? Ready. So let me-- I'm trying to raise you to the spotlight. You may have grabbed the spotlight yourself. OK. There we go. OK. All right. Hey, everybody. Let me share my screen here. All right. OK. Everybody see it OK? Yeah, so I'm going to talk about writing PDP fast and attempting Charlie Miller time, which is 56 hours and 40 minutes or less. It's not easy, but it's also not an unattainable goal if you're a relatively fast Randonore who can deal with some sleep deprivation. I'm also hoping that folks that aren't trying to do Charlie Miller time or a fast time will be able to take something useful away from this as well. I think no matter what your goals are at PDP, being fitter and more efficient are always going to be something that will improve your experience there. So a little background on the award. Charlie Miller was the first American to ride PDP back in 1901 when it was professional race. During the ride, he had a bunch of flat tires. He also broke his bicycle. But despite all those setbacks, he managed to finish fifth with a time of 56 hours and 40 minutes. He won the admiration of the French fans with his greedy determination. And since then, any American to complete PDP in his time of 56 hours or 40 minutes or less becomes a member of the Charlie Miller Society. Since 1979, a total of 86 riders have completed Charlie Miller-- or I'm sorry, a total of 86 Charlie Miller rides have been completed by 59 different riders. Scott Dixon has done it six times. John Hein, Brad Tanner have done it four times. Dennis Hearst, John Dresinski, and Melinda Lyon have done it three times. 10 riders have done it twice, and 43 have done it once. Thanks to Mark for the info on that. I'm going to go over my approach and share some of the things that I've learned doing it twice. Most folks that do Charlie Miller opt for the 80 hour start, which is the first group to start. So those A through E groups are the-- and they're staggered 15 minutes apart. In 2015, I started in the B group, which is the second group to start, obviously. And in 2019, I did the E group. I found the B group to be much better to try to attempt Charlie Miller. It was very large, and it was a very fast group. So I was able to sit in and conserve energy for the first 2 to 300 K of the ride. We caught up with a lot of riders in the A group, and some of the faster riders from the C group caught up to us so that it was just a really big and fast group. So I didn't have to expend that much energy. In 2019, I started in the E group, which is the last of the 80 hour starts. And it was harder to get a group to cohere. It was a little bit slower, and the fastest group just wasn't quite as fast as we were hoping for. So we ended up having to really organize a group to rotate, and it was about a group of like seven riders. And so we ended up with our noses in the wind a lot more than we wanted to. And that just, again, it took its toll as far as the effort concerned. So long story short, if you can get into the A or the B group, that's really your best bet for trying to do Charlie Miller. And if you have folks that you want to ride with to attempt Charlie Miller with, then make sure that they get into the same start group as you. As Mark alluded to, doing a longer Brevet in 2022 is really key to make sure that you can get priority for the start time that you'd like. In 2018, I wasn't anticipating this being that big of an issue. I only rode a 600K in 2018, so that's why I ended up in the E group in 2019. So don't make that mistake like I did. Do 1,000K next year, and you can choose whichever time makes the most sense for you. Creating a schedule is really important for your target times to the times that you want to arrive at each control. This is Jan Hein's schedule from Bicycle Quarterly. And I based my schedule on this. And I found it to be really helpful, but I also did find that it was a little flat pace-wise, meaning that I thought it was a little too fast-- or I'm sorry-- a little too slow early on, and a little too fast towards the end. I found that the Peloton was pulling us along at a much higher rate of speed than he allowed for. So we ended up being ahead of schedule early and then-- not behind schedule, but closer to the-- we slowed down more than he accounted for. So that's something to consider while making your schedule. Here's my handwritten schedule that I had in my map case for 2015. In order to do PPP in 56 hours, which is what you should be shooting for if you're going to do Charlie Miller because it gives you a 40-minute buffer, you need to maintain an average speed of 13.6 miles per hour for 21.9 kilometers per hour, including stops. So you'll have to average this out over the entire distance and make sure that you're taking into account stops and how fast the Peloton will be going early on, which is difficult to do, but it's pretty fast. And also, consider that you're going to be slowing down significantly towards the end. So because you're going to be fatigued, you're going to have sleep deprivation. So there's a major slowdown towards the end, typically. Managing your time at controls is also extremely important. I think that this has been touched on before, but we all know how easy it is to blow 30 minutes at a control or more, so make sure to have a plan for each control before you arrive. Everything is really spread out at the controls at PPP, so you need to be extra careful. You should generally avoid sit-down meals, especially early on. If you're ahead of schedule, then you can-- on the second day, perhaps, you can usually use that time to have a sit-down meal, but generally, you should be eating on the bike. So I won't talk too much about the specifics of training. I'm not really an expert. There's a lot of good information out there. The internet is full of good stuff. But you do need to train. I did a fairly unstructured mixture of intervals and threshold work, but I generally just made a point to ride lots and to ride hard. You should plan on riding the qualifiers fast. The series that you ride in 2023, you should try for an R60 pace, which is 60% of the allotted time for the Brevetes, which is basically equivalent to Charlie Miller. One thing that you need to consider is that there's a pretty big time gap between the 600K and PBP in August. Typically, the SFR 600K is in May. And so between May and August, you really need to not just maintain your fitness, but really sharpen it. I think that that's a really good opportunity where you don't really have to think about completing the qualifiers. You're qualified, but you can just really sharpen up your fitness and work on doing some speed work, but also you want to get in some long rides as well. So for me, I found that late June and early July should be a really intense training period. You should be doing high volume, high intensity. And make sure that you don't do anything too close to PBP. You want to allow for a one to two week taper period prior to the event, but you do want to make sure that you're kind of peaking. If you're thinking in terms of periodization for your fitness, make sure that you're peaking for the event. Nutrition can really make or break your ride. So at PBP, you really want to make sure that you have that aspect dialed in really well. What works for you at mile 120 might not work at mile 300, so make sure that this has worked out on your qualifiers. I used mostly hammer perpetuum and hammer gel, along with a steady stream of electrolytes in my base fuel, plus some pasta and sandwiches it controls. I've found that I can eat just about anything on a Brevet if the pace isn't too high. But when I start pushing harder and keeping a higher pace, then my stomach gets really picky. And that's when I find that the multidextrin based hammer products are really best for me. And they're just easily absorbed. And they don't feel heavy in your gut. So I found those to really work well. Some people make their own custom multidextrin mix, which is cheaper than perpetuum. But I think they work about the same. But it's kind of a matter of personal taste. Nutrition is about as personal as anything. I kind of liken it to saddle choice. You really do have to figure out what works for you. And it's a matter of trial and error. So pay attention to what works for you. And almost more importantly, pay attention to what doesn't work. So if you find that there's a certain type of food that really does not agree with you on Brevets, avoid that. Next, I'm going to talk a little bit about equipment and what to pack. This is me in 2019, about 800K or so into PDP. I rode a steel randonnear bike with front and rear bags and two water bottles. I used a drop bag in 2015. But in 2019, I rode fully unsupported. So I was carrying all my food with me, except for the stuff that I had at controls. I didn't find it to be too much of a hindrance, honestly. It was a bit heavier. You can see my rear saddle bag there. That was full of bags of-- portioned out bags of perpetuum and bottles of hammer gel. And I changed clothes in 2015 from my drop bag. And I actually rode the same kit all the way through in 2019. It was a little gross by the end. You can see the sweat lines and my bibs there from the salt. But it didn't bother me too much. I made it through OK. And it was a time saver. And when you're doing Charlie Miller, you're thinking about whatever time savings you can get. It's definitely possible to really geek out on the gear. But I wrote a pretty traditional setup, as you can see. I didn't optimize anything for aerodynamic performance. And I didn't use super light components. This is partially a matter of budget and personal taste. But it's also true that the bike is only going to do so much to make you faster. Obviously, you don't want to ride a bike that's excessively heavy or puts you in an extremely upright position that's going to be unerodynamic. But ultimately, comfort is the most important thing. If you're comfortable, you're going to be faster. So that's-- again, you can shave little bits of time by worrying about the gear aspect of it. But your biggest gains are always going to be with training and with nutrition. So those are more of the things that you want to focus on. Make sure the bike fits and is comfortable. I know some folks have already touched on that. But it's just as true for Charlie Miller time. You want to make sure that you've paired down your packing list as much as possible to things that you're most likely to need. Basic tools, spare tubes, basically whatever you would bring on a normal Brevet of 600K or so. That's probably what you're going to need. You want to bring whatever clothing the weather is going to call for, but no more. And I've been lucky. I didn't hit much rain in the two times that I've done PBPs. So I didn't need to carry a rain jacket. I think in addition to what you see me wearing in the picture, I had a vest and knee warmers. And maybe I think I had long finger gloves and a different hat, but that was about it. So that was-- I did a pretty minimalist setup. Some folks opt for having a support crew meet them at controls. And that's what Mark Thomas did. And that was, I think, a big help for him to be able to do Charlie Miller in 2015. So if you can get somebody to do that for you, that can be a big time saver. The controls, as I alluded to, are kind of-- they're big. They're spread out. So that will save you some time if you can find somebody who's willing to do it. So I'm going to talk a little bit about sleep deprivation. It's kind of a necessity for doing Charlie Miller time. You may be able to budget in a sleep break on the second night, but the first night you should really ride straight through. You want to make sure you go into the ride well rested. I used caffeine pills for the 2 AM to 4 AM sleepies that I usually get on overnight bravades. And that got me through pretty well. Usually when the sun comes up, you kind of feel renewed and you can kind of keep pushing through. So I found a couple of caffeine pills that did me pretty well. The second night is rough, for sure. Usually that's when you would want to get a little bit of sleep. I slept in Ludiac on the way, on the inbound leg in 2015. Here's a picture of me and Carl Anderson sleeping on a table. One of the problems that we ran into was Ludiac was an absolute mess when we got there. There were a lot of outbound riders. So when we were coming back, we hit a lot of the riders that were heading outbound. So there was just this big bottleneck of riders there. So there were no cuts available. So this is where we had to catch our short sleep break. So that wasn't ideal. If you can push on to Tintiniac, then that, I think, is a better option for getting some sleep because all the other riders are going the other direction. So you're more likely to find a good place to lay down and get some sleep. So if you do a flesh or if you do the 600K straight through, figure out what works for you sleepwise. Some folks don't need any caffeine or any other help to get through the night. They can just ride straight through. So for me, I need a little boost. But yeah, it definitely requires some sleep deprivation. So let's see here. OK, so I know this is sounding probably not that much fun. And it is really hard. But I think if you've prepared well and you've done your homework, then it can be downright enjoyable. And it is extremely rewarding. So I do recommend trying it if you think you've got it in you. It's a great way to experience PVP, I think. A few people have asked me if I'm going to try again in 2023 to do Charlie Miller again. And I haven't decided for sure yet. At some point, I would like to enjoy riding PVP in a more relaxed fashion, enjoy the food, enjoy actually getting some sleep. But adding a third Charlie Miller would be pretty cool too. So I've got to see what the next two years hold for me. But either way, I'm planning on riding in 2023. Again, I haven't decided which way yet. But thanks for your time. And if you guys wanted to email me, if you have any questions about the specifics or have anything that you wanted to know that I didn't address here, feel free to either leave it in the Q&A. Or if you wanted to have a more detailed conversation, I'm happy to respond to emails too. All right, thanks a lot. Thank you, Brian. If you want to end your share screen, and we should be ready to go to the next presenter, which is Eric. Eric, if you could unmute, please. Super. Eric Norris is a three-time finisher of PVP. And he has been riding Brevet as a Rusa member since 2007. Eric rides a wide variety of bicycles over a wide variety of terrains and distances, including crossing the continental divide on a fixed gear. Eric attended PVP 2019. And to his surprise, found that he was a bit of a celebrity as a result of his YouTube series, PVP Tips, which first appeared in the lead-up to PVP 2019. Thanks for presenting today, Eric. My pleasure. Thank you, Rob. And thanks to all of you out there for listening to us. I'm sure you've guessed that we will talk for hours about this stuff. So I will say, in terms of listening to the other folks, it's an honor for me to be on a panel with such great accomplished brandoneers. My brandoneering career, to some extent, has been how to do things wrong, but still finish. So in Rob mentioned or Rob mentioned that I started doing Brevet's in 2007 as a Rusa member, that's the year I did PVP. It was my first 1,200 cat, never done anything longer than a 600. I did it on a fixed gear in the rain. So just a lesson in how not to do PVP. But let's go into a quick show. Rob asked me to talk about lodging. So I'm going to touch on that topic. But in more general, just some of the things to think about when you're planning your trip to France to do PVP. PVP, to an extent, is like-- I've always likened a little bit to climbing Mount Everest. The climb is part of it. But the preparation and the logistics are almost as much a contributor to your success or failure as actually the training and being on the bike. I know my wife will tell you that in PVP year, I kind of mentally disappear for a little while. Because I'm thinking about all this stuff. Looks like you don't have your slideshow running yet. I do. Let's try that again. There we go. There we go, yes. OK, thanks, Rob. So some things to think about when you're planning your trip to France. So first of all, well, first of all, where to stay. And this has become a little bit different in 2019. So here's a map of the Paris region. And just one thing to think about is that Paris is over here. And that's where you'll probably be traveling into and spending some time. Rambouillet is way over here. It's about a 60 kilometer drive. So I just did a really quick routing on Apple Maps before the presentation here. So it's about 60 kilometers, an hour and a half by car. You can take the train there. But compared to being in the prior start cities or start city, it's harder to get to. It's more out in the country, which makes sense because it was originally founded as a place for Napoleon to get out into the country and go hunting. So it's a very nice place. I like the city. I was very pleased with what we saw when we were there in 2019. But it does bring up some challenges. One of those is just how you get there. Now, this is the regional train that goes into Rambouillet back into Paris. And it goes farther on. So there are trains. One thing I'll point out here that you can see, a lot of French people, this is their train. And this is what they use to go back and forth between Rambouillet and Paris. So you'll find, depending on what time you're trying to get yourself and all your stuff from one place to another, you're going to be on the train with a whole train load of French people who are maybe minorly inconvenienced by all these cyclists with all their stuff. So just kind of keep that in mind. So getting to Rambouillet, as I said, is easy by train. Check the schedule, because one thing that you're going to have to plan ahead for-- and this depends on what your start time is-- is are there trains that even get there? If you're doing the 80 and 90-hour starts, not as big of an issue, because they start in the later part of the day, if you're doing the 84-hour start, that can be a problem. Traveling with a bike box is something that many of us will end up doing unless you decide to buy a bike over in France, which is a whole nother adventure. It can be done. It's a little challenging, especially on the metro. If you've been on any other subway, if you've been on the subway in New York, you'll know. It's not really conducive to carrying large things onto it and moving slowly. The regional trains are easier, but even then, it helps if you're not trying to lug all your stuff by yourself. And as I mentioned in the last item here, depending on the day and the time that you're doing this, you're going to be competing with space for commuters. So just keep that in mind. It's really their train. You're a guest there. So put up with the dirty looks and smile, and you'll be off the train in a little while. So recommendations on some places to stay. First of all, Ramboyet is great, but it's a little bit small. And I'll get into that in a second. I would recommend, especially for the 2/3 or so of folks who are going over there for the first time, if you've never been to France, do plan to stay in Paris for at least a few days. You might want to think about getting into France ahead of time. Getting over jet lag is one of the things you'll have to deal with on an individual basis. But if you have time ahead of the ride, stop in France and spend a few days there. It would be, in my opinion, a terrible shame if you went all the way over there, went to Ramboyet, rode your bike, and then went home. But you have to go to Paris. If you do plan to stay in Ramboyet, you're going to need to book an advance. There's only limited places to stay. I'll talk about that in a second. I would recommend probably about a year ahead to start looking around and book your place. I had an Airbnb in the heart of Ramboyet in 2019 that I booked about eight or 10 months ahead of time. And it was great, but you'll find that obviously as you get closer to the day of the event, those places are going to fill up. And then finally, think about what's going to happen with all your stuff while you're riding. You're going to have a bike box, probably a lot of luggage. I pack pretty well, but even then I carry a lot of stuff. And while you're riding, that stuff has to sit somewhere. So think about what's going to happen with that. And we'll talk about that too. Now, Rob, I'm not sure if there's going to be a semi-official Rusa arrangement again. In 2007, 2011, there was a company that did that stuff for us. There was a company that did some stuff in 2019. By that time, I had kind of weaned myself off of needing the assistance. But one thing to look into as we get closer to the ride is whether there will be a company helping out with making travel arrangements to get over there. Getting there, by the way, is a whole nother thing in terms of looking for airline tickets and so on. But some more things about lodging. Hotels, as I mentioned, limited choices in Rambouillet. There's not a whole lot of places there. And there's not a whole lot of stuff around it, because it's just a relatively small place out in the middle of the French countryside. There are Airbnb places. There are probably other platforms as well that you can look into. But Airbnb has a reasonable number of places around there. Prices are pretty reasonable. I think I paid about $80 a night for the place that we stayed in. My daughter and I went over there. We had our own private part of a house right off of the square there. As I mentioned, start looking ahead. And piggybacking on one of the prior speakers, being able to speak French is going to be very helpful. It's not required. But particularly, I think, in my experience anyway, in dealing with an Airbnb host, they didn't speak any English. I spoke a little bit of French. And we were able to get through. So really quickly, here's just a quick search on Airbnb so you can see a fair range of places. And you also see that they're pretty cheap. You can get down as low as $34 a night to stay there. What I've done in past years-- I did this in 2015. And I did it in 2019 because of my daughter with me. She had to stay someplace. But in 2015, I found a very inexpensive hotel. I think it was a Formula 1. Very kind of micro hotel, but it was so cheap. I just rented it for the entire length of PbP. So I just left everything in my room. Didn't have to worry about where I was going to put it. So if you can find a place cheap enough like that, that's one option for you. Here are the hotels. If you went to hotels.com and looked up hotels in Ramblie. As I mentioned, there's not a whole lot of places. And you've got to go a long way outside of Ramblie before you start finding more hotels. So if you're going to stay in town, you want to start thinking about that a long time ahead and book that stay. So I think I've hit these items here. So in terms of getting to the start, though, first of all, as I mentioned, Ramblie is out in the country. There's not a whole lot of other stuff near it if you're not there. So again, for the 80, 90-hour starts, not hard to get there on the train. But they're going to fill up. There were a whole bunch of people coming to the start on the train at that time. It got pretty hectic. 84-hour start is a little more difficult because you're going to need to be there early in the morning. And there may not be a train coming into town at the time you need to be there. That's a time when you maybe want to check with your friends who are staying maybe at a hotel or an Airbnb in Ramblie and say, hey, can I hot sheet it? You're going to leave. Can I sleep in your place that last night before I start riding in the morning? You can get a friend to drive you if you know somebody over there who's maybe going to be doing some traveling around Paris while you're out riding. That's a great option. You can ride your bike to the start. If 1,200k is not quite enough, you can get another 120k and ride back and forth between Paris and Ramblie or just stay in town. That's the easiest of all. So as I mentioned, while you're riding, you need to find something to do with all your stuff. That's the pile of things that I brought in 2015 excluding our catch. She did not come on the ride. If you have a spouse, relative, significant other who's not doing the ride, you're golden. You just leave your stuff with them wherever they're going to be staying. Check with a hotel or the Airbnb that you're staying at. Ask them, is it going to be possible for you to just put your stuff in the storage room? A lot of places are amenable to that. But you're going to need to put all this stuff that you're seeing on the screen here somewhere while you're riding. And you can also look in the services like Nanny Bag. Nanny Bag is a website. I'll show a link to it at the end of the presentation here, where you can basically find a logic for your bags. It's pretty inexpensive. All right, go through it. And you'll have-- I will. I will. I need places to go. Oh, you got a pooper? Brian, mute. Brian, mute. Sorry about that, Eric. That's OK. A couple other things about staying in France, especially if you're going to stay in Paris. If you've never been there, hotel rooms, they're very small. Really small. A lot of them are charming, mostly. I've never stayed in a bad place in Paris. But look forward to staying in a small room. Look forward to stairs. They don't believe in elevators in a lot of places, especially in Paris, again, because you're probably going to be in a lot of cases in a more, let's say, historic building that weren't built with elevators, and they do not retrofit them. So the last place I stayed in Paris, I think there were like eight or 10 flights of stairs to get up to it every single time you wanted to go up and down. Just a little miter thing, especially in an older place where you don't have the card key. When you leave the hotel, they're going to keep the key. You leave the hotel, you give the key to them. When you come back, they'll give the key to you. Just I found it strange, because I've never done that before. But that's how they do it in France, and I would assume in a lot of Europe. Your bike might not be welcome in the hotel. So if you're going to stay there with your bike, just check with them ahead of time, say, hey, by the way, I'm going to have my bike with me. Is it OK if I bring that into the room? Back in the day when we all stayed at the Campanile in the start town, they actually had a bike room. You could not take your bike up to the rooms, but they had a conference room that they set up. And there were literally hundreds of bikes in there. It was kind of amazing. So all the bike boxes were stacked up. The bikes were packed in there like three or four deep to the walls. So look into that. One thing you'll find when you go over there in the hotels and generally around, especially in Paris, is that Wi-Fi is pretty widely available. When I first went there, it was not. But it's like anywhere else. It's becoming better. By the way, it's wefy when you go over there. They don't know what Wi-Fi is. It's wefy. And finally, just in terms of staying European plugs, keep that in mind, bring an adapter. You can buy cheap adapters on Amazon. I found it's really helpful just to bring one that has the European plug and then USB plugs coming out of it. Or you can bring your American USB adapter and plug it into your European adapter. But be sure and think about that before you leave. Or it'll be scrambling around trying to charge everything. So a couple of quick links. Hotels.com is a site that I use just because I have membership points there. Airbnb, there are many other places. But Airbnb has a fairly good selection of places there. Nannybag.com is a website for that service. And then I put just a couple of websites for the regional trains, the RETP and the SNCF. They have English websites, so you don't need to worry about reading everything in French. And finally, I'll just note, I think Rob mentioned, that I launched a whole series of videos about PVP on my YouTube channel. Just go to YouTube, search for PVP tips. You'll bring up my channel. I've got a list of-- it's up to 49 videos about all different aspects of PVP. Some of them are my take on some of the topics that have been talked about today. There's a whole bunch of others. So I welcome you to go there and check those out. And as Rob mentioned, it was surprising to see how many people from everywhere had viewed my videos. People who I don't think spoke any English, but they had watched my videos and knew me. My daughter was getting disgusted by the time we left. So I'm going to stop my share here. Again, thanks to everyone for listening to my presentation. I'll look in the comments for questions, and we'll get back to those at the end of the show. All right, Rob, back to you. Thank you, Eric. I apologize for not being quick enough with the mouse to mute one of our past presenters. Just a quick note, if you need tips on how to be a Randonore at the same time as being a parent of a toddler, I can put you in touch with somebody. So next up, we have Rose Cox. Rose has been writing gravets as a Rusa member since 2015. And she has attended PVP twice, representing Rusa and the Seattle International Randonores. She's finished several 600KMs and accomplished the ACPSR award twice. In 2020, Rose became the RBA for which has been historically one of the largest regions in Rusa by far, the Washington Seattle region. So I will turn the spotlight on Rose and take it away, please. Thanks. All right. So we've talked about how to prepare, how to ride, what to do. Now we're going to talk about the important things-- kits and trinkets, because looking good is really important when you're at PVP. My first PVP was in 2015. I was brand new to randonoring, so I didn't know what to expect. What I experienced was cyclists from all over the world doing what they enjoyed, riding their bikes. The event takes on a team spirit with clubs representing their areas with kits that describe their country and region. So how to make your club stand out at PVP? Starting in 1995, Seattle has created jerseys that represent-- Is she not showing? Rose, your slide-- Hold on a sec. Is she not showing yet? There we go. OK. Just a little walk to two. Sorry. Thanks, Greg. Yeah, I have someone driving for me here. Can you go to two? I have to explain. So over the years for Seattle, the designs have changed, but they always stand out at PVP. Members of the club come up with a design idea that work with Cycling Jersey Company to make the end result. We're currently working with Volay or Voler, as some people say. They're located in California, and all of their products are made in the USA. They have quality garments in many different styles that work well for any body type. I know there are other manufacturers out there, but Volay has really worked with our club to come up with outstanding jerseys. Here are examples of Seattle jerseys throughout the years. 1995 was the first year that folks from Seattle participated in PVP, and this was the first jersey we had. In 1999, the Cuoco Oodle makes its appearance, representing the Pacific Northwest, with a Native American theme. The Orca makes its appearance at PVP in 2003. It's an iconic jersey that still causes grins whenever a member wears it. The Seattle Blue makes its appearance in 2007. And in 2011, we liked it so much, we did it again. In 2015, the Coffee Bean makes its appearance at PVP. This was not a well-received jersey, but I still like the fact that we were representing the coffee industry in Seattle. Variations on the Seattle Blue theme. The photo on the left is the jersey that we prepared for 2019. And as you can see from the group photo, many different styles of Seattle jerseys were worn in 2019. And then other clubs, as you can see down below, I think those are the Italians. They're always looking good. So what we may see in 2023, hi vis is the way to go in 2023, yellow, pink, orange, and maybe green will make an appearance. So now we've talked about jerseys. Let's talk about trinkets. All randos like to collect trinkets. It's what we do. And what better way to meet new people than by sharing a club trinket? This can be anything from a net gator, which is very popular in 2021 due to COVID. Cycling caps, trading pins, stickers. In 2019, Seattle created a PVP trading pin. Folks gave the pins to other writers, volunteers at controls, kids on the streets. They're fairly inexpensive and a great way to meet people. So why do we care? Well, wearing a team jersey is a great way to assimilate into the random community, especially for first-time PVP writer. When you're on the road, it's a compensation starter with foreign writers. It's a good icebreaker. It provides an excellent way of trading. There's a longstanding tradition of trading jerseys with other writers. And it provides great memory for years to come. Every time you put that jersey on, you will wear it with pride. It's a great way to remember a truly remarkable experience. So beyond PVP, well, it's a good way for your club to be seen when you're riding locally. It may interest other writers to learn more about your club and bring new members into the random experience. And when you're out on a ride, may not know all the writers. You can always recognize someone from your club. So thanks so much for participating today. I hope this presentation provides some options for your club and that we see more clubs at PVP in 2023 with team jerseys in trinkets for trading. Thanks so much. Thank you, Rose. So if we can go in the order in which we presented and read the best question that we got during the Q&A session. So if Mark, if you could read aloud the best question that you got and give your answer so that we can get it into the recording. I had a couple of questions that I don't think will take very much time. The first question was about bag drops at PVP. The questioner said that on long rides here, they have access to a bag drop at night. Will there be something like that at PVP? And the short answer, I guess, is that the organizers provide nothing of the sort. They expect you to be on your own. There have been commercial services offering bag drop support in the past. I have no idea if any of those will be offered in 2023. It's certainly a possibility. A lot of people get bag drop support from family or friends who might be traveling along the way. But I wouldn't necessarily count on it. And it might be a good idea to think in 2022 about how you'd handle it if you don't have access to a bag drop. Another question was, can you just sleep anywhere? And the answer to that is a qualified yes. I did get chased off of somebody's lawn in 1999. Not 1919, but maybe that too. In 1999, who seemed indignant that I thought that I could help myself to it. But having ridden quite a few PVPs, I've seen people sleeping pretty much everywhere. I'd advise not sleeping in the road, not sleeping in any footpath traffic, not sleeping directly in any cow pastures and staying out of rose bushes. Thank you, Mark. Deb? I was asked a couple of questions as well. Most of them-- well, the ones that are most important were about the websites that I spoke about at the end of my slide. And I'm going to give you the basics so you can get to the website and then dive in. And you'll find the pieces that you want. One of them is HTTPS, you know, www.ridefar, R-I-D-E-F-A-R dot info. All one word, ridefar, dot info. And then it's slash riders slash safety slash sleep deprivation. But if you just get to ridefar dot info and then type in their search, what you're looking for, things will come out. The other one was Apidura, which is the name of a British bicycle company that makes bags similar to RuthWorks and other companies. Theirs was about managing your time on and off your bike. And that is Apidura dot com. And then, again, put in the search what you're looking for and stuff will come up for you. Really great sites out there. I was also asked a question about the bathrooms. Did I pee outside? The answer is yes, whenever I could. Similarly to Mark, the women's bathrooms are horrendous at Paris, first Paris, because there are very few women against the number of men, the percentages, men far outweigh the number of women. So men often come into the women's bathrooms and they're kind of disgusting. So ladies, bring a lot of your own stuff that you might need along those lines. I'll stop there. - So Dawn. - Yep. I had two questions and I'll be short on my answers. The first one, I had a few questions about Shermer's Neck. Someone said they're concerned about it, anything to do to stretchers so they don't develop it. It's a really great question. There's a lot of answers to that. I think in my case, the poor bike fit, I actually ride a 56 usually. I was stretched out on a 58 on the Rivendell Rambouille. I think that contributed a lot to my problems. I only did riding and not much cross training. So I think by having a proper bike fit with a core program, and then my random nearing maturity was so infant at that stage. So I think that would help. But reference the blog post, I have a lot of information about Shermer's Neck. Unfortunately, there's no random control trials or medical research on that. And then the other question was about women's specific advice about PVP. I just have a little bit, we have a breadth of randomnesses in random nearing USA. We have Harriet Fowle, who was the first female to finish PVP in 1975. Lois Springsteen, who has finished PVP seven times. Deborah, who's done it twice, Pamela Wright. There's a breadth of knowledge out there. And hopefully in the next six months, look for some more avenues for us to bring some of these women together to share more advice. And again, a lot more than I can share, but experience to women. I will say one of the things I would recommend, this is a great book by Stacy Sims. Women are not small men. Stop eating and training like them. I'd highly recommend that for women out there. It's a great resource on training, nutrition for endurance rides as well. So, and I'll just have to give a plug. The power of she. More women at PVP. - Thank you, Don. - Greg, you'll need to unmute. Thank you. - Cool, thanks. So there was a question about specific sources to recommend for media and radio. And we're spelled the same as in English. You can look for Radio France. There's an app that is full of many oodles of live stations. And I don't know, probably tens or hundreds of thousands of hours. I have no idea of recent and archival programming from documentaries to news, all kinds of stuff. You can also look for some commercial radio stations. The letters in English, some examples are RTL and RMC. You can listen to the Tour de France broadcast live. In my case, I have to get up early in the morning to do that, but that can be fun. There were a couple of wonderful points that I wanted to share and get into the recording. Someone was kind enough to mention that other languages are good too. There are writers from all over the world. And if you have some other language that you've worked with in the past or are good with, bring that with you. Maybe you wanna crank that up. Maybe you want to improve your Spanish or Italian or Mandarin rather than start French from scratch. And that's awesome. I had really bad conversations in a tiny bit of Italian and a tiny bit of German, anything you can bring. And someone reinforced the notion of this thing I mentioned about starting with a greeting, starting a conversation. Where I live, in my culture, there are lots of ways to be polite. It's rare that it's explicitly required for me to explicitly say hello to somebody when I want to begin to speak with them. In France, you might be considered a rude cretin if you don't explicitly say hello. So that's different and important. And I'm gonna say a lot of the things I'm gonna add to maybe to encourage folks about language. A lot of it, whether it's bringing my bike into hotel or bathroom, having language can help with all of those funny rough spots. I was at Ludiac on the return, standing outside those outdoors to the bathroom on the courtyard and the volunteers were there with some cleaning stuff. And we're all kind of waiting and the door opened and a rider came out and that bathroom was a hot mess. And the volunteers kind of looked at me with their cleaning stuff and said, "There are some other bathrooms right down the steps "if you want." And I mean, if I think if I hadn't been able to communicate, I would have said, "Well, thanks for letting me go first. "I gotta go." But I just popped down into the freshly cleaned bathrooms and it was awesome. So thank you. - Thank you, Greg. Brian. - Yeah, thanks. First of all, my apologies to Eric for neglecting to unmute after presentation. He had a little glimpse into my life of childcare. Anyways, there were a couple of questions that I was gonna address. One person was asking, actually there were two people that were asking about aero bars. I did not use aero bars for the times that I did ride PBP. And I think that they are forbidden unless they don't extend past the front of your shifters. So you're able to use short aero bars for PBP. And I think some folks actually do find that to be an advantage. And it's also a good way to give yourself another hand position. I know they've become really popular in bike packing. It's another place to put your hands. I personally struggle with hand numbness on long distance rides. So if you can make that work with your setup for me, it wouldn't have worked because of where my handlebar bag sits. But I'm seeing a lot more folks use them these days. And there's some creative ways that you can work your luggage around your aero bars if you find that to be comfortable. The other question that I had was what kind of time I should be shooting for on a 600K? If I'm preparing for Charlie Miller and you should be trying for around 24 hours on a 600K. I did not, in 2015, I did not achieve it in 24 hours. I think I was, it was 25 and change. And that was, I was still kind of getting things dialed in. And it was actually a little rough. So I used that intermediate time between May and August to really sort of work out some of the bugs in my nutrition, which I think was the issue. But yeah, around 24 hours, depending on the elevation, the SFR 600K is a little bit more challenging. It's a hillier than a lot of the other ones. I know that the Davis 600K, you should be able to do that in 24 hours, give or take, if you're shooting for Charlie Miller time. And I think I'll leave it there. All right, thanks. - No questions about cloth versus paper? (laughing) - I actually did, I was afraid that, I did get a question about bathroom stuff immediately after. And there are, as was previously said, there are many options at PBP for using the bathroom. - So thank you, Brian. - Thanks. - You'll need to unmute. - Unmute, there we go. Yeah, someone suggested a website, I checked it out while I was listening to the presentation called EOLWAY, so E-E-L-W-A-Y-A.com. It's another nanny bag type service that will take your bags and move them all over the place for you, so that's worth looking into. Someone pointed out another thing that's interesting about hotels in France. A lot of them don't have air conditioning. So if you stay in a hotel that's really aimed at Western, you know, American travelers, you'll probably find air conditioning, but don't be surprised if you don't. And you'll be over there in August. The place I stayed in 2015 did not have air conditioning, it got really rainy and humid right before the ride, so just kind of keep that in mind. And for Martin, if you're looking for books to kind of lust over, I would certainly advise you to find this one about Alex Singer. You all can see I'm a big fan of that shop. I'm lucky enough to have two singers. They're wonderful bikes, so I'm sure yours will be great too, but if you're looking for ideas, especially if you're into the very classic bikes, this is a great volume. Thanks, Rob. - Headwaters of the Nile, so to speak? - Yeah, and for anybody who's going over there, if you've got time when you're in Paris, go to the Alex Singer shop. It's the last really remaining old school French frame builder still in existence. They've been in the same location since 1949. It's an amazing shop. It's one of the best bike shops in the world. And I've been to bike shops all over and it's amazing, so. - Thank you, Eric. So Rose, what kind of questions did you get? - Well, a couple of things. Just, there are other manufacturers to use than Bollet, of course. Someone mentioned Jackaroo, who I've never worked with, and then Wallistic. Seattle's had jerseys done from them for years, so a couple other places to work. Also, if your club is not able to do a jersey, someone also mentioned that there is a Russa jersey that you can wear and be part of the Russa team. And then the final question was, do I bring an extra jersey to trade? Well, you could, or you could just trade the jersey off your back. - I understand that has been done. - It has. - Thank you, Rose. One of the things that some people like to do, in addition to taking things like their seat and seat post in their luggage, is to take their pedals as well. Should something go amiss with delivering the bike itself, you at least would have one of the contact points that you are familiar with with your pedals, and also that would mate with your shoes that you happen to bring along as well. - So carry my saddle on too. - Yeah, thank you, everybody, for reading these last questions. Dawn had one last link to share with us, and then we will wrap things up. - Yeah, thanks, Rob. Just getting back to the question about women and reandoneering, I just wanted to share for all women and those who identify as women, there is a private Facebook group, Women in Audax reandoneering, and ultra cycling. And we have a lot of the women I've mentioned earlier on there. It's a great resource for people to connect with other women and ask questions. So I'll just show you, I'm just gonna, I don't know if you guys can see that, but anyways, another resource out there for women and reandoneering in Audax cycling. - Right, thanks Dawn. So just to wrap up, as the attendees are leaving, there is a survey for you to take, and you can find that, you should be able to find that as soon as you're leaving the seminar. Please do fill that out. That will help us prepare for the next one as well, and get feedback on what it was that we gave this time as well. If anybody is having trouble getting in touch with any one of the presenters today, you all got an invite through my email address. You can send a message to me, and I will get you in touch with those people if you can't find that out yourself. So thank you to the presenters. Thank you for all of the attendees that are still here. We will see you in the next one. Thanks a lot everybody.