A chorus of voices

Hi everybody. Today we have Peter Curley here with us. Peter is going to be talking about a wide variety of perspectives on the whole shooting match really, but gleaned from quite a number of people over 50 people that he has interviewed. So let me introduce you to Peter first before I open things up and turn it over to him. So Peter has been a member of Randomers USA since October of 2013. He's the organizer of a local cycling event known as St Patrick's Day Massacre. He is a two-time finisher of Paris Press Paris and he's the creator of a YouTube channel called PPP Stories and Tips where he's interviewed over 50 people and I'm not going to be specific because we know that there's some that are going to drop later this week or month so that number would go up and I believe Peter you also have other YouTube content. I do. I'm starting this other YouTube channel called Bike Every Hood where I visit different hoods around San Francisco. All right so when I think of Peter I'm often reminded of this quote and it has to do with friendship. It's attributed to C.S. Lewis and it's basically you know a friendship begins when you realize hey you too I'm not the only one and in this case the topic here is our obsession with PPP. We are both deep into this and who knows when this obsession will ever be cured. So Peter why don't you fill in the gaps that of my my intro for you or correct anything that I got wrong. You got it all perfectly correct Rob so thank you and maybe I'll start with a thank you to you because my obsession is because you introduced me to PPP and got me to that very first one so thank you. So I just very briefly my PPP history. The first one I did I did with two other people in 2019. I'm not a very organized person I just followed them basically I didn't have a bike computer didn't have enough clothes and I had some dark moments however I immediately knew I was going to come back every four years for the rest of my life okay that was because I loved it and particularly just the people came back in 2023 did it by myself hoping to kind of correct some of those issues. Had a great time but still there was more issues as well and that's the thing you're constantly learning so when I go back in 2027 I do hope I'll get close to an even better experience. You will never perfect PPP but the whole point of educating yourself is trying to get as close to perfection as possible. So is this the analogous situation to what mountain bikers joke about if you come home from a ride and you're not bleeding somewhere you didn't do it right? That's exactly. In this case you know if there weren't some dark moments or yes the fix did you do PPP right? Exactly yeah so maybe that's it in 2027 I want to return covered in blood okay that's the plan okay okay yeah all right so so the agenda today again very brief hopefully it's interactive we've done the introduction background I'm going to talk about the PPP stories and tips YouTube channel based on that the recommendations I'm going to give today so listening to 50 different riders what I learned from them then I'm going to do recommendations by rider type so that's fast versus slower riders and then some final thoughts no questions Rob I like it so far okay okay okay so this is the background the channel is called PPP stories and tips that's a hyperlink and you know I was really motivated by just documenting other people's experiences I find PPP culturally fascinating and it's an intense experience for many people for fast people for slow people people that didn't finish I really tried to come up with a format so it's a full interview some of them are 50 minutes some of them are an hour so that's long form but at the very end I asked people for three tips that they would give that guarantee a finish for PPP so I have a compilation of those tips as well diversity of interviewees so I wanted a broad experience of everyone so again people that DNF people that did a Charlie Miller young people old people fast slow the whole lot okay some notable interviews of those 50 that I think are very interesting first one is Deirdre Arscott originally English lives in Canada she's done 10 pbps every four years since 1987 which just blows my mind okay so she's fascinating Jan Hina bicycle quarterly he is a much faster cyclist for Charlie Millers of his seven pbps Mark Thomas I think he's done almost a hundred grand randonese around the world at this point which no one's even close to that he's done seven pbps one Charlie Miller and one Adrian Hans so he's kind of done the whole thing basically any questions on that Rob otherwise I'm going to move on yeah well I think Mark might be missing an 84-hour start group among these right I think so okay okay all right well maybe we'll get him on and we can confront him on that missing link okay all right so next slide so as I said these are basically I tried to take all the recommendations all those conversations and put them into very six recommendations I think in general when you approach pbp for the very first time it's difficult to know what to prioritize it's just overwhelming you kind of know you got to do all these things but in what order so I try to give a bit of order here for me the first thing is understand your goals number one why are you doing this you want to go fast you want to go slow you want to ride with your friends you want to ride along if you figure those things out first everything flows from that so really understand your goals that's one of the things that I like to impress upon people fits directly with this particular concept and that is to decide what it is you want to get out of that that determines what you're going to put into it and you have to understand that what you get out is dependent upon what you put in and and you know that you can't just assume that it's going to happen on its own I agree yeah like you really want to go in with an intention essentially this is what I'm going to do I also just have over communicate with teammates once you decide to ride with others and I'm not recommending that but some people do it introduces kind of a team dynamic and that can be very stressful particularly if you don't communicate with your teammates so before you go to PBP here's our plan here's plan A plan B plan C but once you get to PBP what's going to happen at the control you need to over communicate five kilometers away from the control John you're going to do this Mary you're going to do that you cannot over communicate enough otherwise there's problems maybe even have a conversation about okay what happens if someone can't go on further do we just leave them do we abandon them those kind of conversations I think are very very helpful and it really helps to you know overcome some of the negative team dynamics that can happen during PBP I want to stress one of the points that you made kind of in passing in that right now Peter is talking about communicating with teammates and that that implies that you're riding with a group and for for Peter's session today and all the other sessions that we have we are not presenting the one way to do things and riding with somebody or not riding with somebody is one of those things where there isn't one right way so we want to present as much data as we can so that people can pick and choose and decide which resonates with them and go with that yeah and maybe if I can just add to that that my first PBP as I mentioned I rode with two others and we were really fast when we were riding but once we got off the bike it was a disaster right we wasted so much time with controls mainly because we did not communicate the advantage with others is just morale also it's just more efficient riding on the road I don't know if I told you this story when you had me but but fitting right in with that about the communication part there was an instance where I was riding with a couple of people from San Francisco around the Norse we got to a control and we we couldn't communicate there was this point where we were just sitting at a table with plates of food in front of ourselves nobody's eating nobody's talking and that was definitely a situation where yeah some kind of communication was needed because it would have prompted everyone else to start doing what they needed to do cool yeah and I think sometimes it helps if you're in a group where someone is a little bit uptight and is kind of willing to be that over communicator that's important you know okay so number two and I think you've already talked to Lisa perhaps yes so every ride is a training ride when I got to pbp in 2019 I put on my handlebar bag and I noticed I'd lost a position for my hands because the bar the handlebar bag was so big I should have figured that out like a year before but I was just learning it then and that kind of was an issue so between now and august 2027 every ride you do if it's 10 miles if it's a thousand miles what are you going to learn from that ride it's all about trying to mitigate those unknowns you're never going to get to 100% then maybe you can get to 95% of all the details you need to have a successful pbp so just that mindset again every ride is a training ride what can I learn it could be sleep it could be nutrition it could be bike equipment things like that now Lisa came up with this term maybe it's not hers but train hard to ride easy the more training you do in the run up the more fun you can have at the actual event and I feel that very strongly because for me again I didn't really do a lot of active training and there was a lot of stress I didn't even have a bike computer right so you will have more fun if you know what you're doing and you're trying to mitigate those unknowns any questions about that or comments from nope okay okay number three to me after listening to 50 people talk about this minimize time off the bike that is the most six that is a thing you should focus on of all the things it's the best bang for your buck pretty much every normal ish person will end up with a moving time of between 50 and 60 hours right if you're on a 90 hour start that gives you either 40 or 30 hours off the bike right that's a huge amount of time so if you can minimize that off the time bike you can almost guarantee a successful pbp the way I really begin to think about this is on your bicycle computer the two metrics that I think are the most important are that moving time total time so you after every ride you say oh that took me two hours but it took me another 50 minutes I don't know where that time went so just focus on that total time versus moving time and minimize off the bike time and I think that is the best bang for the buck you can have any comments from nope okay well you're being very compliant so far I like okay all right this next one do not ask do not underestimate the stress of logistics and I will say this again the amount of stress just getting to that start line and particularly for people in California is huge right and people describe once you get to that start line you get you go it's almost a relief right because all the detail to get to the start line I just interviewed a guy this morning an Irish guy very very structured had lots of lists and everything he's at the start line he looks down on his bike he didn't have his water bottles with him Rob he had no water bottles okay and that just small little detail for such a structured guy it can happen to anyone so it's really try to again sort of mitigate those unknowns air tag your luggage I did that one year worked very well because they lost my luggage arrive as early as possible I know it's not possible for everyone but the earlier you arrive the more relaxed you'll be at the start line once you get to France do multiple training rides as many as you can because you're again you're just trying to get into the kind of rhythm of France etc personal experience I can I can verify that the arrive early part has clear benefits the very first pvp that I did I I was feeling like I had to really stay on top of what I spent and so part of what I did to do that was to arrive as late as possible with enough time to to register check in and all that and you know I there was plenty of time to do that however when I went back four years later I added two more days in front and it was completely different all the stress of the travel had been able to wash away I'd been able to get my bearings and adjust to the local sunrise sunset stuff and it made a huge difference and I felt as though I started that pvp far more relaxed and far more familiar with my surroundings so yeah privately it is a very good recommendation yeah so Rob I'll probably tell you the story but you know I don't like telling the story because I still have PTSD my very first one 2019 everything is going well I arrive in France early I'm riding with my friends and it's two days in the start and I get back to the apartment I'm staying in and I realize I lock myself out of the apartment okay and it was my brother's apartment and the person who had keys was on vacation so there was no way to get into this beautiful old apartment I was I don't have French I was trying to get a locksmith all this it was a nightmare and I almost was crying on the street I ended up having to fly my niece from Ireland with the keys so I could get into the apartment it was just awful so again give yourself time for things to go wrong essentially yeah right okay so number five things will not go according to your plan everyone talks about you know get a plan etc and that's important of course but the plan should have lots of flexibility and you also should approach the plan with that kind of mantra things will go wrong how do I respond to the things that go wrong that will determine your success in your mind you should also have kind of made decisions about okay if this happens I hope it doesn't happen but this is what I'm going to do because in the middle of pbp your brain doesn't work anymore you end up making rash decisions that don't make any sense so the more you can think in advance like I'll give you an example we'll say it's extremely hot day or whatever and you say yourself I just can't go on anymore I'm done don't ever dnf right you rest you eat and then come back to the decision right and I think that's part of this things don't go according to plan it's how you respond to that any thoughts on that one no that sounds that sounds good yeah and I think actually I just noticed I put why they're there that is the big unknown because I can change the entire and have color of the event I think Rob you did one that rained all the time is that one my first one was 2007 it rained every day what I had heard from people like I dnf'd on that so I didn't get to experience the whole shebang but I ended up staying in ludiac for several days and it rained every day there but I think the only time that people got out of the rain was just going into breast and then just leaving so they wrote out from under the clouds and then back underneath the clouds and and got so every single pvp that I've participated in I can't unfortunately count 2023 it's rained on me at some point yeah the 2019 one I did it was so cold at night didn't have the right clothing 2023 it was very hot during the days yeah right okay then the very last one is strive for type one fun can I stop you just for a moment and I'm sure that 95% of people that are going to watch this understand the conversations of fun here the type one two and three but just for those that are new to the concept here type one fun is you're having fun while you're in that activity everything's cool everything's working out type two fun is you might be kind of miserable or maybe you are really miserable during the activity but afterward you can look back on that and say you know that was great I'm glad that I finished if we want to put it into terms of what we're talking about today and then type three of course is you are not having fun during the activity and looking back on it you regret ever having participated in that so we are the fun you're having fun while you're doing it activity yeah and I think it's almost aspirational I think many of the longer rides we all do are naturally type two meaning it's not great in the moment but I know looking back on it I'll have this great feeling of accomplishment okay but you're striving for type one which is fun in the moment and also retrospectively you look back on it as being great okay and I think the way to have that kind of strive for type one is try to stay in the moment don't count I have a thousand kilometers left count maybe to the next control I've got 33 kilometers left otherwise it just takes you out of that type one fun I think there's nothing better than pbp and just interacting with the locals and the culture that's why we go and I think that really puts you in the place for type one fun hand out pins Rob every four years you organize these pins that we give out to locals particularly kids I am so happy I've done that both times it is just incredible you have these kids run up besides you you can give them a little pin and they're just so happy so it's an amazing thing final thing I'll say is dark moments will pass they always pass okay so just remember that and then get back to type one fun any questions about that Rob no I agree that certainly about the pins too but you're talking to the locals is great even if you don't really understand and can act out the language properly there are quote conversations that you can have with people I remember one time I was riding with Jack Holmgren he wanted to stop at this cafe we're in tiny little village and it was a tiny little bar or whatever and he went in to get some coax for us and there was a guy that came out and he wanted to talk to me I knew even less French than I know now which is not much at all yet we had this conversation I remember we talked about how far it was to the next control and and not just that but me realizing during the course of the conversation that I had forgot to convert from miles to kilometers kilometers to miles and then I had to correct it and you know we had this conversation and and if anybody's heard me say anything in French they know I do not speak French and yet we had this conversation so so yeah and then the pins are the way that you can start these conversations you know you mentioned not the kids which is like the biggest thing about them but handing them out to volunteers or people that set up these roadside stands where they hand out food you know because they just want to meet the world that comes past their their driveway every four years the the pins are the great thing to start that conversation yeah maybe just to add to that Rob like I remember one kid in particular I think he was with his grandfather he was probably eight years old he was reigning I gave he was out helping gave him this pin you know as the Golden Gate Bridge on it his eyes just lit up and you think about that multi-generational experience that these people have in Brittany like maybe in 10 years time he's volunteering himself for maybe 20 with his own kid and it's just such a special connection those little pins so yeah that's a big recommendation I think I'm gonna have a whole trailer behind me next time thousands of pins that's my strategy cool okay I'm gonna move on then Rob's next one this is just more specific to the rider types okay so the the first six recommendations kind of universal but maybe a little bit more specific so broadly there's kind of fast or Charlie Miller types and then the slower full value Adrian Hans types if you really want to do a fast time it's like those six recommendations but more so okay so think about minimizing time off the bike you don't even get to be off the bike in my mind first thing to really work at is trying to qualify for the first three waves so A B or C and that's where the fast people are that's where you can draft that's you got to get there to have a chance at Charlie Miller and to qualify for A B or C you're going to have to do at least a thousand miles a thousand kilometers the year before anything you want to add to that Rob yeah so as you say you don't really qualify for any of these starts and what you do is you complete your pre-qualifiers which will allow you to pre-register and claim a start wave and typically the A B and C begin to fill up now the people that are speedy riders and in particular for Americans the Charlie Miller types you can accomplish that goal and not necessarily be in the A B or C wave but I think the A B and C wave has a certain kind of of content in it if you will it it's people that are far more focused on pack riding at speed they certainly better be able to do that in those groups but you can accomplish Charlie Miller I know of someone that accomplished Charlie Miller in the 84 hour start he and a group of people so you know that's you not certainly A B or C at all in just a bigger perspective on the slide that we're talking about here keep in mind that these videos certainly this was what happened in 2022 they're seen by people around the world and these two categories or societies the Charlie Miller Society and the Adrian Hans Society these are Americanized things that you know they're specific to well certainly the Charlie Miller is I believe though that while Adrian Hans was an American rider that there are people from around the world from other countries that do end up being inducted into the Society of Adrian Hans but they are American perspectives on finishing PvP agreed yeah and then just the other two bullet points if you are going to ride with your friends and all of you are telling me a Charlie Miller again you just got to communicate because you really don't have a lot of time to make any mistakes or you just have to optimize the entire experience across multiple teammates essentially as I said like those universal six recommendations I offered before everything is just more so right the last one being minimize time off the bike so everything that you do is about minimizing time so that that moving time versus time off the bike metric again is just so important any last questions by Charlie Miller or comments sorry about no so then just the slower full value Adrian Hans and what I mean by that those are people who've decided to really just chill relax and just enjoy the event for what it is I'm not really talking about people who really will struggle to get to 90 hours no matter what so the Adrian Hans thing as Rob pointed out it's really become very much a thing and it's kind of a way to celebrate I'm going to get as much value out of this event as possible so it's all about interacting with the locals savor the people people and culture and that kind of thing comments sure before we move away from this and well are you about to tell us more about Adrian Hans or not at all okay so before we move away from this I wanted to do two things I wanted to kind of talk about the broader question that people that are going to be watching today will have about start waves and all of that so in in in the broad way there are three large groups there is the 80 hour group and as we mentioned those will likely be the people fast people trying to achieve a very you know their personal best time and a pretty rapid completion of the route then they start on the Sunday on later on the Sunday it'll be the 90 hour people and I think the 80 hour groups might be there might be five maybe six start waves within the 80 hour group and then it begins with the 90 hour groups and and they will almost finish the alphabet and new in 2027 I heard report that there will be a start wave specifically for women I'm not sure if it's going to start in between the 80 and the 90 regular 90 hour but you know there's more to learn about that group but I think people that you know if they've heard this notion here and and it intrigues them keep looking for more information about that and then starting basically the next day in the morning so the the 80 and the 90 are afternoon and evening starts the 84 hour group starting on Monday will start before the sun comes up a couple of waves and and those there will be probably three maybe four groups of waves of 84 hour group the 84 hour group is definitely the smallest then comes the 80 hour group they're probably twice the size of the 84 hour group and then by far and away the 90 hour group is the largest you can have a fast time starting out of the 90 hour group you know there's nothing that's going to prevent you from doing that what people may want to hear today is tips or perspectives on you know which which wave that they might want to pick and I'm going to do two things here I'm going to just say some general things here and and it's impossible for Peter or I to tell you which one is going to be right for you it's really something that you have to learn I can give you my personal experience and I started the 90 hour group in 2007 things didn't go well and so maybe the 90 hour group was poisoned for me in that regard however I also when I came back in 2011 and decided you know I was going to do the 84 hour group I had a body of knowledge about myself that allowed me to to be a little comfortable in picking the 84 hour group and quote giving up six hours of riding time actually quote this very disturbing but go ahead it's not a quote it's called mathematics Rob. No there's more mathematics I think there's some variables that you're leaving out of your equation but I knew that I had a track record of doing very poorly starting events at night and so you know that had relevance for me starting in the morning and you know turned out to be the perfect thing for me and I will never go back to the 90 I am definitely not an 84 hour or excuse me an 80 hour rider even though all the times that I was able to finish were all under 80 hours I don't want to be in that group that's not my mindset and you know perhaps during this series of video recordings somebody will interview me and ask me questions about stuff and I'll talk to you about why I think the 84 hour group is a very good option for people but the last thing I wanted to do before wrapping this up this slide with my comments is to ask you Peter how did you decide what what did you pick in both iterations and why did you pick that and how did it work out for you yeah first of all I think it's always a very interesting discussion 84 versus 90 and I know you're a big advocate for 84 I just went along with my two friends in you know 2019 I didn't make a decision but to your point perhaps Rob if you have a problem setting off into the night then maybe the 90 hour is more of a challenge but fundamentally for me you're giving up six hours not six hours six hours right okay by doing 84 so I would almost focus for many people if it's a struggle to ride through the night or start through the night work on that to give yourself those extra 90 hours and I'm full value that's my entire approach to pvp I want to experience every last minute out there on the course therefore 90 hours is the best approach for me but Peter is not telling everyone here is that the people that start in the 84 hour group get six hours more of sleep on pvp okay okay we will end the hostilities there it's not hostilities but I think it's interesting do you think that you can actually sleep the night before you know what I mean yep I don't like I personally can't sleep the night before anyway so it wouldn't really help me I have every time I haven't done a full eight hour sleep mostly because when I do the 84 hour start I go and watch my friends start in the 90 hour waves wave them off see them off take pictures for them and then I go and have a dinner and then I go to sleep and then I get up stupid early in the morning to start but I've got a big chunk of of sleep the biggest chunk of sleep that I will have for the entire pvp so that's just one way to look at it can I ask you a follow-up question Robin yeah yeah is your kind of broad strategy because this is my strategy and I think it's for many people is to try to write as far as possible from the beginning before sleeping right like I'm trying to get as far as possible essentially is that your approach or not no it's not my approach at all I've found that for the the iterations of pvp that I have written and written successfully 2011 2015 2019 I was ready for sleep when I got to Ludiac the same spot every time and you know it was dark still so I didn't well it was it had been dark for a while and wasn't going to be light for a long time so like I was right in the middle of the the nighttime phase so it was very easy to go to sleep there my thoughts would be that if I left if I tried to go as far as possible I would that would introduce too much stress for me thinking about is there going to be a bed for me when I get to the place where I can no longer pedal for that day I know somebody that we knew in common Bruce Bird he did that and did it very successfully in 2007 we were actually supposed to be sharing a hotel room but when he got to Ludiac outbound he's felt like I'm just going to eat and then go on and he did go on a road much further and slept somewhere else and so I had the hotel room to myself when I was DNFing in 2007 but yeah it doesn't it's not the same experience for everybody personally I would worry too much about the accommodations that I would have that planned like I know this sleep topic is it's another two hours just by itself yeah definitely what I think is interesting is the first time I did it my friend had booked a hotel or two along the way they didn't work out at all none of us could sleep or maybe one of us could sleep but the other two couldn't so for me at least having a hotel room it almost added a certain amount of stress just thinking like so there's no perfect solution I think right is the answer and yeah I the most recent 2023 I actually was able to do my first ditch nap ever I was never able to sleep on the road and that was a huge breakthrough so yeah it's cool I may have told you this story before on the first 600k where I had closer to type 1 fun than type 2 but definitely not type 3 which had happened you know I had a lot of type 2 and a half experiences on 600k and to the first time that I rode a 600 and enjoyed the hell out of it from start to finish was one where I had planned to sleep at the clubs overnight control and when we got there I was riding with two other people who were expecting to just stop eat and then go on but I talked them into stopping and as it turned out you know I told them I want to sleep here and they said okay those two guys fell asleep and I stayed awake listening to them snore and I didn't get any sleep and I finally woke them up and said okay you have your way let's go so you know there's best laid plans right there yeah I saw I supposed the takeaway here is no surprise there's no perfect solution and everyone's exactly I think anything else you want to say on this slide um what did you do in 23 start wave broad group which start it was it was earlier so I think I left at around 4 p.m uh which meant I had five hours of daylight and I knew I was going to ride through the night so I don't remember how far 90 hour oh definitely yeah yeah 90 always 90 Rob okay okay cool um should I do the next slide yes please okay cool okay so some final thoughts and then maybe some hyperlinked resources at the bottom I'll start with the resources at the bottom right uh that's just a link to my channel I really feel the best way your best chance of success is just to listen to the experiences of others to me it's a little bit like childbirth uh people can tell you everything about it but until you do it yourself you'll never actually know what it's really like um I also have a tips playlist so each of those 50 people will give three tips at the end of their interview so there's a lot of tips if you have like 40 minutes you'll hear all these tips many of them are the same because fundamentally the solutions are the same then the very last one is what does pbp mean to you uh I just interview people one of the questions is what does pbp mean to you and if you ever want to be motivated just listen to that okay because so many people love pbp they just keep coming back and fundamentally it's all about the people and with that in mind these are two quotes of many many quotes I've heard from many people that I think a lot about okay I'm going to read the first one it's from Eric Nichols he's done it three times now that I've done three pbps I've come to realize that pbp is so much more than after than an athletic challenge it is a very special cultural event the preparation the qualifying all the sacrifices are just the cost of entry into a unique cultural experience the ride is the backdrop the people and the places are the centerpiece for me this completely resonates the more you do this ride it's almost like the riding part just fades away and it's that cultural immersion and that's why I'm going to keep coming back personally Rob I suspect you would agree with that too yeah and I wanted to point out so one of the respondents to the survey had asked the survey about pbp first timers they had asked well why do people come back and you know Eric is telling us one perspective but you know we can drill down into that and talk about how it's an absolutely different ride each time you do it you are different you know in 2027 we'll have a vastly different route there'll be some familiar a lot of familiar parts to it but a lot that's brand new to us but even still when pbp was using really close to the same route 2011-2015 would be examples the difference between the two iterations was pretty stark even though you were on the same course you're different as I mentioned you know the weather would be different everything would be different and and you would approach the second and subsequent ones with so much more knowledge about yourself and about the event that would shape the the experience that you would have on the next iteration I agree and I should remember you making that point in your video very eloquently the next quote from Greg he did in 2023 every Brevet is a lifetime compressed into a day what I love about this very simple quote is it's basically saying pbp any long ride it's like a lifetime so you have ups you've got downs and things will constantly change nothing will stay the same but as I mentioned before dark times will pass happy times will pass and you just got to remember that okay and I think it really captures that nicely comments about that Rob or anything else these are great great quotes Rob that is all I have okay I've got a lot I've got lots more but as I said I think for people go to the tips playlist or go to the interview playlist there's some amazing interviews there and it really gets me excited just thinking about 2027 great so before you go I've been doing this with the other people that I've interviewed so far this series I'm going to ask you five questions it's a fire off the question okay fire off your answer okay move on to the next one because I want your off-the-cuff reaction to here okay yes here so first off are you going to pbp 2027 yes okay describe the best bike for pbp oh okay that's interesting okay this may take a little bit okay so the first one I did it on was a 25 year old coffee with 23 millimeter wheels tires it's an amazing bike but I had a lot of numbness afterwards okay like it's an incredible bike next one was a steel bike land shark 23 millimeter wheels same thing a lot of numbness this next one thick tires that's going to be the big difference and I do look forward to the fact that I don't think I'm going to have any issues afterwards I think thicker tires are just a game changer person yeah I think the takeaway from what Peter just described here is that put in the work to find the bike that works for you I have to admit that this question is a bit of a trick question because there's you know I don't really want somebody to end up giving a make-and-model of of the bike that they think is the perfect one so yeah that you're telling us of your learning process is the value that I wanted to get out of this question so the next one name one thing that you can't do without on pvp the cultural experience that's why you go completely like if it was take away the people the cultural experience it's just a ride through in a place in France right the next question which control is the best control oh wow I'm never good with the names okay but there's one and you're going to help me with this one it is like a a rock a rock concert right you come into this town and there's microphones are calling out names and lined on either side of the street and just the energy is just a lot as you will completely yeah that one and do you go through once or twice well in the past we would go through outbound and inbound and in both cases it was always a big party going on however for 2027 we will only pass through it on the return okay which is probably the best time to experience well yeah yeah yeah cool okay so last question favorite food at the controls wow okay so I'm vegetarian but I've never found that as a challenge at all just simple stuff like bread and cheese and potatoes right that's simply that's it yeah very bland food but it's one potage a puree the puree is the I believe the potatoes the mashed potatoes okay potage is the it was a really thick soup okay I just generally point so okay that was a good word stuff that works and you're not the only one doing that yeah oh Peter thank you for your time today sitting down and giving you and you giving us rather all the analysis of all the 50 plus people that you've talked to you about PvP you know that's quite a broad pool of information and so I appreciate