Full transcript
Okay, so welcome everybody. This is what I believe will be the first installment of a series of recordings where we discuss with various people, the ins and outs of qualifying for pvp registering for pvp writing pvp and remembering pvp when you've finished.
Tonight, I have with me, Mark Thomas, and Mark and I are going to be talking about the relevance of 2026, what it means to you now, why is 2026 important for an event that's going to happen, you know, 17 months from now.
So we'll get into that. But first, I think it's important that I introduce the people that you are looking at right now on the screen.
So I have a few things to mention about Mark and to give some kind of context for you know how he has come by all this great information.
So Mark Thomas is otherwise known to people as Russa number 64. He's been a member of randomers USA since August of 1998.
Mark was the RBA, the regional Brevet administrator for Seattle from 2000 until September of 2017.
He's been on the Russa board a number of times he he was on the board from 2003 to 2008 and then again from 2011 to 2016. He was president of the board multiple times.
Mark was named the American Randonore of the year in 2009. Mark is also the past president of Lay Randonors Mondial, and Mark during our discussion you might want to mention, you know, who that organization is.
He's been a PDP finisher every iteration from 1999 through the last one in 2023. And he's been the finisher of dozens and dozens of 1200 kilometer events around held around the world so Mark, which of those did I get wrong, and did I get any of that right.
I think you did a great job.
Okay, very good, very good. And quickly, who am I.
The, my name is Rob Hawks, I've been the regional Brevet administrator for the San Francisco region since 2008.
So I'm still currently holding holding that position I've been on the Russa board multiple times.
First as an open board seat member and later as the rent regional Brevet administrators liaison to the board. I held that position last two boards ago now.
I've been a finisher of PVP three times. However, I attempted to finish PVP more than that.
So I have some experience on not finishing.
So, let's kick off, Mark, with a quick I should I should interrupt to say that Rob Hawks is also the person that led a delegation of more than 100 San Francisco random nurse to the last PVP, which is a very impressive showing. Yeah, that was a goal of mine and I was so happy to have had that happen.
However, I didn't get the chance, as it turned out to actually ride with those other SFR members but maybe next time.
Okay, so quickly let's talk about how we got to where we are in the structure of qualifying and riding PVP.
So, so you've been a member since 1998, or rather a well a member since 1998, but a writer of PVP since 1999. Do you remember how you registered for PVP back in 1999.
Well, in 1999, the registration was all handled indirectly, and we sent our information into Jennifer Wise, who was then the president of Arusa, and she handled sending that to France, at least that's my recollection.
And I think that may have taken place for a couple of iterations before we went to what we have now which is a direct registration. Exactly. And my first PVP in 2007.
That was still the case where we essentially signaled to Rusa that we were that we wanted to be listed and then Rusa handled the sign up for that point. And I think, you know, this is part of where we might veer off into legend and myth.
But I recall having to submit a doctor's note, along with my application at that time. And I think the important takeaway for anybody listening to us tonight would be that neither of those things are true anymore.
You don't have to submit to Rusa you can, when you have qualified in to some level, register directly with the ACP for Paris, Paris, Paris, and you no longer need to be submitting a doctor's note to say that you're fit to do this.
So, that's how things have changed in 2010. That was the first year I believe that there was this notion of lining up in an order to register directly with the ACP for PVP and can you talk a little bit about that and maybe what it means.
So, I think we now have a system where you register for PVP directly with the ACP and you register according to a system that they've set out for us.
And we have some pretty good experience with the last couple of PVP is a good reason to believe that the next PVP will follow that same pattern, which I think we can talk about now.
It's important to kind of know just a little bit about the history I don't know if this is maybe the first session that people will see but the history of PVP is that it's, you know, it's well over 100 years old dating back to the late 1800s when it was a race and somewhere in the middle of the 20th century.
It stopped being a race and became the Rendeneur event that we know of today with some period of overlap in between. The first Americans to participate in the Rendeneur event did not participate until 1975 so we have a relatively shorter period of involvement with PVP although I guess that's 50 years now, now that we're all getting a little older.
And I'll note that predates the existence of Rendeneur's USA by quite a bit and at that time there wasn't even an any organization in the United States, Rousseau or a predecessor through which people could qualify they actually travel to Europe to do their qualifications there.
Okay, so now we have this system where what you do the year before PVP can actually be important to you for registering for PVP so let's talk about that a little bit.
Yeah, so first I think it's important to understand what you actually have to do to be qualified to ride your PVP. Yeah, that will distinguish what we're talking about for 2026 versus what actually happens in 2027. Correct.
In order to ride PVP you have to qualify and the qualification is basically that you have to ride a 200 kilometer Brevet, a 300 kilometer Brevet, a 400 kilometer Brevet and a 600 kilometer Brevet and you have to do those in the year of PVP.
The ACP has a fine notion of year so that will actually include November and December of 2026 in addition to the beginning of 2027 and you have to complete those in time to register for PVP and practically speaking that means that you're going to need to do those events by the end of
June or the very, very beginning of July of 2027. So from November 1, 2026, till let's say June 30, July 4, or 5 of 2027 you have to do a 200, 300 to 400, 600. There's some nuances that you can do for 600 you can substitute longer for shorter.
You can do LRM events, you mentioned La Ronda and Armandillo, that's the sanctioning body for rides of 1200 kilometers or longer other than Paris, Paris, Paris. So things like the Gold Rush, Randonnay and California, the Cooley Challenge in Minnesota or the Cascade in
Washington have all been LRM events and you can use those as longer events to substitute for 200, 300, 400, 600 but at any rate that's the actual qualification requirements and other than the odd inclusion of November and December, that's all a next year problem.
So, omitted from that list was ACP 1000K events, which I think you can also substitute. You can use those to substitute for shorter ones as well. Yeah, those would be, I would imagine thin on the ground in 2027 ahead of, or during the PVP qualifying period, because I think more people are focused on the specifics of
fitting in the qualifiers, but nevertheless it could count.
So, so basically, the actual requirements for participating in PV don't, don't require you to do anything in 2026.
However, the ACP has initiated in the last few sessions a kind of a pre registration scheme, where you register you pre register for PVP early in the year of PVP so next year that will start in January.
When you pre register you kind of hold your place in PVP and that place is held until you actually complete your registration and you complete your registration by actually doing those qualifying rides and, and filling out the rest of the paperwork etc.
And because PVP is increasing in popularity every year, there is a certainly a possibility that the ride will fill up. I think they had declared a limit in 2027 of 8000 riders, which there's a very decent chance that more people than that will want to register.
So, pre registering may give you the chance to get into that pot where you couldn't otherwise. So that's one thing to think about pre registration.
So, I'm sorry, did we mention exactly what a pre registration qualifier would be?
Not yet. So I was just, I was just going to kind of go into why you want to pre register. Okay, okay. And the other thing that pre registration does is when you pre register you get to set the start wave you want to take at PVP.
And so when you pre register you pick a start wave and that kind of holds your place. And so pre registration can be very valuable in both making sure you get a place in a limited capacity event and making sure you get to start the event when you want to start the event.
So, technically, the pre registration phase which you mentioned is likely to begin in January, is one at which you don't, and you mentioned this earlier, you don't have to have completed one of those pre qualifiers in 2026.
In fact, historically speaking, when this seeded approach to registering first started, as I recall, and you can correct me if I'm wrong here, by the time, so they did it in a particular order and by the time that they got through the order of people that had done events in
2010, there were spaces left over for people that hadn't done anything in that prior year. And so they could have waited until then and then just jumped in so it could have been a this year and only this year and in fact, as I recall, in the early days of the early
iterations, this pre registration period was not in January but I think it was in April.
And they've moved it for 2019 and 2023 to January and there's been some effects on that move there. So, sorry to digress.
So, so the relevance of all of this to the year 2026 is, is that the pre registration for pbp that starts in January will open in waves and you'll be able to register in the very first wave which is, I think set to start in the middle of January.
You'll get to pre register then if you've done at least 1000 K or longer 1000 K or an LRM event in 2026. If you've done that you get to sign up in the first group of people signing up.
And again, there's the thing about November and December. It's actually from November 1, 2025 to October 31, 2026. But in that time, if you've done 1000 K or 1200 K come January 15, I believe they've set in 2027.
You'll be able to pre register for pbp reserve your spot in pbp select your start wave for pbp and and be in a nice position.
So what I was going to ask you to comment on right there was the aspect of picking your start wave. And so,
might we say then that if your start wave is super important to you, then it might behoove you to do a longer ACP event than otherwise in 2026. Yeah, let's let's talk about just a little bit about start waves.
So if you haven't been to pbp before the way they've started to do it is that they have a series of waves that go out every every so often, both Sunday afternoon Sunday evening and then again on Monday morning so they send out five or six
hours of 80 80 hour time limit starters first in the afternoon of Sunday, and they send out quite a number of waves of 90 hours starts Sunday afternoon and Sunday evening, and they send waves out on Monday morning for people that have chosen the
24 hour time limit. And in general, when you start within that wave is only important to you if it's if you've got a ride plan that depends on you leaving early in the afternoon as opposed to later in the evening, etc.
But there was a kid there were some cases in the last pbp where, because the waves for 90 hours filled up people who wanted to register at the very last minute, we're asked to take an 84 hour start limit instead of a 90 so it actually made a bigger difference
than just a half hour an hour a couple hours this way or that it actually made a difference to the time limit they chose. Exactly. So, yes, so it, the advantage of registering early is you're way more likely to get your start wave, then if you that you
register later. I wouldn't lose too much sleep about not getting 90 hours if you wanted that was a pretty rare occurrence, but it's nevertheless it could happen. So, to continue with this kind of pre registration theme.
Early, mid January, you'll get to preregister if you've done 1000 or, or 1200 or longer. At the end of January to get to preregister if you've done a 600 at least in 2026 middle of February, if you've done 400.
And to February if you've done a 300 middle of March if you've done a 200. And then after that they have preregistration in case you haven't done anything in 2026. And then again later in this later in the season will be the actual registration where you have to fill in your
expenses and pay the rest of your money, etc. Right. So what I was going to say was, once they get through letting the 200 K finishers in 2026 register. In fact, in 2023, they actually ran out of spaces during that phase.
There are spaces left over, possibly there are potentially spaces left over after that. But in 2023 didn't work out that way of note, however, is that the overall rider limit is higher for 2027 than it was in 2023.
Who knows if that's going to work out exactly the same way kind of depends on, you know, how people have found out about it and just the swell of energy surrounding getting into PVP which, you know, I think every year you might have experienced this seeming like it's bigger than
the last time, and as it works out, you know, the US in particular sends kind of roughly the same amount of people every year.
I think that's fair and and there's also another thing that happens which is that many of the people who pre registered don't end up registering it right and and that can open up some additional spaces at that time for people who were told I'm sorry you can't
pre register because it's full may still get an opportunity to register. And it's important if it's really important you to participate that you be a little bit patient and and see if that may happen again.
And as well, I would add that for those people in that situation, if they're waiting for these spots to open up, and I think that doesn't happen until June right. I think that yeah that that people sometime in June, people will lose their pre registered spot if they haven't done, at least, is it
I think it's qualifiers in 2027 and 2027 in quotes, November to to June.
So, what I would say to people that might be in that situation is be prepared to take advantage of that if those spaces open up in that way and by be prepared I mean continue to do your qualifiers for pvp in 2027.
So to summarize, although you don't technically have to complete a Brevet in 2026 to qualify for pvp, completing a Brevet in 2026 will give you some pre registration priority which may be very helpful to getting you into the event and getting you into the event and the way you want to
get in, and the longer the Brevet you ride in 2026, the better.
Okay, I think this is a good segue to talking about less of the administrative benefits of doing a qualifier in 2026 and more of the personal preparation benefits of doing that so let's talk about that.
I think that's, I think that's good. I think riding along Brevet this year in order to get pre registration priority is a great idea, but it's a great idea for a number of reasons.
We, what we really want to do with 2026, especially pvp will be our first time at that kind of distance is to start to learn, start to get comfortable things you got to get comfortable with long distance, and you have to get comfortable with some of the things that go along with riding a four day 1200 kilometer bike ride.
There's a lot of work to do to kind of dial in your stuff dial in your bike dial in your bike fit dial in your lights dial in how you carry things and try to figure out how you're going to do all of that there's a lot of kind of tuning and learning that's really helpful.
I'd add two more to your list one is nutrition and the other is sleep.
Yep, I was getting there.
I'm stealing your thunder on and on and on absolutely fine, absolutely fine.
So, so there's the dialing in your stuff for sure, trying, you know, trying to just figure out what works for you.
And then there's trying to figure out how you're going to make yourself get through all of that not just not just what you have on your bike and what that's going to do and you allude to nutrition that's super important to figure out what works for you.
And to understand that what works on a one day ride or a double century or 300 K may not be what works for you for a longer ride.
So if you do longer rides this year you get some time to kind of tune that in at nutrition is one thing.
Another thing is how you manage your time off the bike because in a random event as many of you know, all of your time counts whether you're peddling or not peddling.
So being learning how to be efficient about your stops and what to do with your stops is also important.
And you mentioned sleep.
Sleep is something that you don't really think about with one day or you can even get through two day events without sort of worrying too much about sleep.
But how to sleep on a longer event becomes a really important determinant of success or failure at an event like Paris, Paris, Paris.
So learning what it takes for you to sleep during event what it takes for you to get to sleep what it takes for you to get up and get going the next day how to do that efficiently.
It's something that you can very fruitfully use 2026 to practice for so you're not trying to figure it out on the roads of France in August of 2027.
So many of the people that might be watching this recording will have seen and or filled out the questionnaire that was circulated pvp for first timers.
And among the responses that we got I don't know if you saw this one, but one one responder asked, am I going to like this. And I think that's something that 2026 can help answer personally for somebody you know get into doing the things that you haven't done before.
If you've done 600ks before try and do us 1000k and see how you like that. If you haven't done a 600k yet.
I think it's, it's something you should strongly consider to do in 2026 is a 600k.
I think that's absolutely fair. The other thing that's actually incredibly valuable about riding Brevets in 2026 in addition to figuring out how you do it how your bike does it how your equipment does if you have a great opportunity to learn from other riders who most places that
ride around the country to do Brevets you will probably ride with somebody or other, or maybe a dozen people, maybe more who have done pvp before, or have done 1200s before and there's a lot you can learn from people just kind of asking questions what worked for you how did this work how did you handle this and the rest of that.
So, riding with others, especially those with experience in 2026 can be hugely important to success in 2027, in my opinion.
So, where next in our discussion about 2026.
I think another thing that it's a little more subtle but it's just, it's just start to think a little bit you said, well I like it start to think a little bit about what it is you want from your pvp experience and as you ride longer distances you can think a little bit about it there's there's the
just so get all in there's a lot of culture and history behind pvp maybe you just want to go and experience all of that. Maybe you have a group of friends that would be very meaningful for you to go together, qualify together ride together pvp succeed together pvp support each other
maybe that's important to you. Many people go with time goals, although it's a non competitive event, there are certainly a lot of people who look at their performance at the event and want to do it quickly.
Americans have this society Charlie Miller that that they strive for that I'm sure will have some other opportunity to talk about and some other things. So, riding for time goals is a thing.
Some people just want to finish you may ride this year and discover that the biggest thing you can do is actually get through a 600k in the time limit get through 1000k in the time limit and so your goal is just to go and finish.
None of these are necessarily mutually exclusive but it as you ride you start to learn what's important to you what makes you feel good about doing a ride and you can think a little bit about what how you want your pvp experience to go.
And I think that's kind of useful to set the stage a little bit this year for what you do next year.
Yeah, I think it's pretty vital to consider at some point or other, what does doing this mean to me, how valuable is doing this and finishing this and I think that that would, in a way, dictate what you put into preparing for the event.
So, it's not something that you can just go and get on a bike and do, you know, there's some things that you need to have accomplished, leading up to that.
And we talked about, you know, being able to finish a 600k in the, in the qualifying time and so forth.
But, but that broadens out and covers a whole lot more there's there's just so much that you need to think about in terms of, you know, what is it that you want to get out of it.
Therefore, what am I, as I'm looking at doing this, willing to put into it.
And I think that there's a definite correlation between what you put into it and what you get out of it.
So there's actually a nice kind of synchrony, I think between what you should do in order to get the official pre registration priority that will help you out in pvp and what you can do and learn just by doing long rides this year.
So I think while I know plenty of people who started their randonoring experience in the year of pvp, and we're successful at pvp and had a great time at pvp.
If you have, if you're thinking about it now you have 2026. Let's go ahead and use it. Let's, let's get your pre qualification. Let's get the experience.
Let's get the learning from other people. Let's get the tuning of your, yourself and your kit all sort of sorted out.
So a lot of people over the over the years have looked at and talked about the prior year participation in terms of what, what do they get out of it, what is it going to do for them.
And I think that one other thing to mention is that, you know, let's flip this around.
I think that the ACP and Russo both have benefited greatly by this two year preparation two year pre qualifying qualifying arrangement because it has increased participation.
And, you know, is the, the population of people that are interested in riding alone, all the time, really that big, I think no, I think most people want to be surrounded by others, even if they're not riding with all of those people at the same time.
It makes for a better event if you are riding this among a larger group of people and so that's something that has been achieved by this two year approach to pvp.
Another thing that it's a, it's a smaller thing, but it's nice to spend some time this year kind of looking and thinking about the culture and even the language of France, so that you're not it's not completely foreign to you, whether it's the food or the, the, the politeness of greeting
people when you go into a place maybe learning a few words of French or a lot of French if you if you have the time and inclination can really add to the experience I won't say that I've learned very much.
But I know that people that know a lot more French than I do can get even more enjoyment out of the event.
Right, so quick question, do you consider yourself a fluent French speaker.
I am so far from fluent. It's right. So here we have a very accomplished pvp finisher who admits into not being fluent and yet it has been able to get more out of the event by making some kind of
approach to learning the language at least being able to understand what's being said to them or reading signs or whatnot.
I think that that is one of those. What you put into it is will dictate what you get out of it approaches.
And I will say that it is certainly possible to, to ride pvp and finish pvp without a word of French there's plenty of help for people who don't speak French there are translators at every control.
Like is not that complicated. You know, it's certainly doable. But there's there's a lot about you're being part of a cultural tradition that why not be a little more immersed in it.
And I don't think it takes much to learn such a small amount and that small amount can actually reap huge benefits for you, you know, use Nancy, use Bonjour, often. And, and I think that changes things for your experience.
So what next. I think go out and have fun. This is a great opportunity to start doing some riding and start and learning and enjoying and just getting ready for and getting excited about pvp.
Okay. I didn't tell you about this ahead, because I wanted these to be off the cuff answers so I've got five questions and I'm going to be asking this of anybody that I'm interviewing for this series.
So quick rapid fire just fire out the first response that you get. And I must admit that at least one of the questions that I'm about to ask you, Mark Thomas, I have an expectation for how you're going to answer and let's see if I'm going to be right.
So first thing, are you going to pvp to 2027.
If I can, I will be there. Okay, great. Certainly my attention. Okay, describe quickly, the best bike for pvp.
pvp is the bike that you feel comfortable on riding for 1200 kilometers. There is no best pvp bike and one thing I know from riding seven of them is that every kind of bike, just about is written there.
He bikes, not for those keeping score, I nailed it.
Okay, so next name one thing that you can't do without on pvp.
A good attitude. Okay.
I think we could talk long and hard about that particular one but as these are rapid fire let's go on to the next one, which control is the best one.
Oh, that's a tough one. I think the most festive one is probably La Jouelle, where there's especially on the way back when you've got 1000 kilometers on your belt, a little bit of celebration in your heart and the people are out all over up and down the streets.
I think that's probably up there.
A quick side note, pardon me. In 2027, that will be the only time we visit the La Jouelle is on the return. So, yeah, we no longer have that option on the outbound route.
And the last one here, favorite food at the controls.
That's an interesting one. I have tended to not eat at the controls all that often try to food before or after the controls just for my own efficiency.
So sometimes I'd say the food that I've eaten more than anything else at the control is the quick baguette sandwiches that you can get without standing in the line.
Yeah, describe those baguette sandwiches real quickly.
Picture a baguette with not very much in it. It is not a New York deli sandwich. It might have Riette, which is kind of a pork fat spread in it and might have ham might have cheese might have ham and cheese.
Might have butter and yeah. Right. Yeah, you'll see those I think at that almost every single control. And just to say a little bit about food at the controls. Yeah, yeah, there's there's there's very comprehensive nutrition available at controls.
There's a cafeteria at almost every control where you go through you get things rice based dishes, meat, potatoes, desserts. There's a lot there.
And it's a great opportunity to sit down with other people and chat with them and kind of catch up and catch your breath.
But it also takes time. And so in the larger scheme of things you start to think about how important it is to you to get all of that there. How important is it to you maybe move a little quicker through the controls.
PBP is such a big event at the time where in the places that it is that there are lots of vendors out preparing food there are people offering food, you know, in there at the end of their driveways there's a lot of other ways there are a lot of other ways to get food other than in the controls.
Oh yeah, absolutely. And I think that the reference you made there is one of the ways that you can experience more of France and PBP at the same time, by engaging at those impromptu setup stands wherever they happen to be.
You know, sometimes they're lifesavers in the middle of the night where somebody's offering hot beverages or, you know, just water and biscuits or something.
And just stopping and chatting and even if you can't speak the language expressing your gratitude for having something like that there having somebody out there waiting for you is a big deal.
Okay, so, thank you Mark for that. What I would like to do is give a little bit of a preview of some of the sessions that are being planned in the future that will follow these recordings that will follow this one that I've just done with Mark.
And as a quick teaser, I'm going to be talking with a couple of RBAs, and we can talk with them about what it is that they're going to be preparing for 2026 to relevant to this particular discussion and 2027 to aid people in pre registration and
registration and in what we alluded to in this discussion with Mark, preparing yourself, you know, getting the most experience that you can, as soon as you can.
We're also going to be talking with somebody that has run a bag drop service and get some perspective from them about, you know, what it takes on the, for those vendors to do that and what it's going to give you as a rider, if you engage their services.
And then I'm also going to be talking to somebody that has interviewed dozens and dozens of PPP finishers, Mark and myself among them, and get some of the takeaways that he has collected over all those many, many interviews.
Let me think that I cover everybody. I think I did. But those are the ones that we have planned right now. So one more time. Thank you again, Mark. I appreciate you taking the time.
And we'll see you in the next recording. Thanks.
Great.
Thanks, Rob.