In article
,
David Dermott wrote:

On Sat, 24 Jun 2006, Tim McNamara wrote:


Is it longer than Paris-Brest-Paris (1200+ km)? Many people ride
that in one go, other than stopping in at the required checkpoints.

Do (or can) people ride the whole 1200km P-B-P without a rest stop? I
thought the ckeckpoints forced a minimum time for completing the
course (min 40 hr max 90 hr??).

The controles along the course are open for specific time windows, set
by a maximum and minimum average speed. There are no required rest
periods in the randonneur PBP which is ridden "allure libre" ("free
pace"). However, there are required checkpoints (controles) as well as
secret controles where the riders have to stop and have their route book
stamped to prove they rode the entire route with no shortcuts.

So even while there are no required rest periods one does not ride the
event non-stop, although the fastest riders are probably off the bikes
no more than an hour total over the 1200 km. The fastest riders finish
the event in the low to mid-40s. In 2003, however, the fastest group of
riders was disqualified for violating the spirit of PBP. PBP is
peculiarly schizophrenic, emphasizing the democratic nature of
randonneuring and bicycling, yet hailing the "winners" with great
fanfare while proclaiming that it is not a race.

IIRC the absolute fastest time was around 38 hours, when PBP was a
professional race. The route has changed and is somewhat harder now,
and of course it is no longer a UCI event.

I've been trying to sort the different names for "Challenge_riding"
events. What's the difference between "Brevet", "Audax",
"Cyclosportive" and the Swedish concept of "motionslopp" (for example
Vätternrundan) What does GTOS fit into?

"Brevet" is just French for "certificate" but refers to rides sanctioned
by Randonneurs Mondiaux that comply with the rules. There are standard
distances (200, 300, 400, 600, 1000 and 1200 km) and some variable
distances rides (fleches). There are "brevets populaires" which are
usually 100 km and intended for the general public to get a taste of
randonneuring (there's a Franglais word for you).

"Audax" was the original term for such riding, and the promoting club
for PBP is the Audax Club Parisien. The root of the word is "audacieux"
or "audacious" in English. However, there was a split in the long
distance cycling community many years ago, resulting in two PBPs- the
randonneur "allure libre" ride that gets most of the publicity and the
Audax ride which gets less publicity. The Audax version is ridden at a
standard pace with ride captains setting the pace. Riders can go slower
if they must, but cannot ride faster.

It's a magnificent event that may be killed by its own success. In
1976, there were 666 starters which was, I believe, the largest field
that had been seen up until then. In 2003 there were almost 4100
starters! It was a magnificent thing to be part of, but I wonder if
that number of riders can be accommodated indefinitely on French back
roads and in villages with fewer people than the riders. All the French
were incredibly supportive and enthusiastic, maybe the fact that it only
happens every 4 years is a saving grace.