PBP 2019: It's bigger than you

Conversations quoted below were originally conducted in French; they're retold from memory here, and written in English.🗣🇫🇷

Many of the card-stamp areas at controls look about the same as the others: half a dozen tables set up, volunteer event staff sitting in pairs behind each table, lines of riders (short, long, or nonexistent, depending on the ebb and flow of the moment), probably a clock on the wall.

You present your ride booklet to the volunteers, who review it to ensure that everything is looking ok; they stamp the card with a stamp unique to that control and hand-write the current time next to the stamp.

Checking in at one of these stamp control rooms one afternoon on the return -- I don't recall which one, they generally blend together in my memory -- I thanked the volunteers who were processing my booklet:

"Thank you!"

"You're welcome."

This was quite perfunctory on both sides; indeed, the volunteer hadn't skipped a beat in his work to process the card when he'd made the obligatory reply.

While such an exchange is important (and certainly secondary in importance to saying "Bonjour" at the beginning of the interaction), it lacks depth and is quite forgettable. That's kind of a shame for what may feel like a thankless job, processing the cards of thousands of tired, cranky randonneurs.

I wanted to recognize their effort and commitment:

"But no -- without the volunteers, all of this is impossible."

The gentleman stopped processing my card and looked up at me  over his reading glasses. Looking straight into my eyes, he pronounced quite seriously:

 "We do it for the love of the sport."

Shazam! That was not expected. Wow. He just went next-level on me! And boy howdy, did it ever hit me. I could totally dig it.

Now, there was a lot going on here.

For starters, the subtext was completely "Look, son, we're not here for you, we're here for the sport, so don't think that you're at the center of any reason for us being here."

You know what? That's also a big part of what draws me to PBP. Sure, I get personal satisfaction from the challenge and the camaraderie and the food and the people and-and-and; I sincerely hope that most participants do.

But what if...What if nobody showed up to ride PBP? What then?

Sure, the event goes on if you plus or minus one, ten, a hundred...even one thousand riders. But what if interest just wanes? What if nobody cares? The tradition only has life if we all collectively participate.

There is a Star Trek character -- Benjamin Sisko -- who is passionately in love with baseball in a not-too-distant future where the game is all but forgotten.

Will PBP continue forever? Forever is an awfully long time.

Before it disappears, will interest in PBP wane? What will that look like?

That's hard to know, but I know what a healthy PBP tradition looks like, I think, and a big part of that is thousands of riders, volunteers, onlookers, and others doing thankless, behind-the-scenes work for the love of the sport.

Do you love the sport? Ride your bike! Volunteer! Tell your stories! PBP does not depend on any single one of us; it depends on all of us. Allez!

Star Trek character Benjamin Sisko, as played by Avery Brooks

PBP 2019: Scary-good bike food

Enjoying my magic pastry from Boulangerie Lemaire Sizun on the return

Conversations quoted below were originally conducted in French; they're retold from memory here, and written in English.🗣🇫🇷

When you take a look back, French as the common language of France is a fairly recent turn of events, having been established just a couple of hundred years ago -- think letting them eat cake, democracy, and all that as the motivator to promote a common...er, lingua franca.

This movement to establish a nationwide common language came at the expense of regional tongues like Breton.

During the first mid-century runnings of PBP as an ACP event, some one million inhabitants of the course's region spoke the Breton language.

The Breton language has been well on the decline during most of the history of PBP, although in our day it is on the increase again, with some 200,000 contemporary speakers. You may not know it, but you're sure to encounter some people along the course who speak Breton. I did!

Now...we need a quick language + pastry detour as background for a conversation I had in Brittany on the return. Hang on tight; we'll be back on course in a sec.

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You see, there's this pastry that some of you may be familiar with, found in fancy bakeshops in the U.S. (and elsewhere), sold under a peculiar-looking name: kouign-amann. These words are from the Breton language, and they mean butter cake.

Here's a skillfully-made example from a local (to my U.S. home) bakery:

As delicious as they can be, this version usually seen in U.S. shops is like...I dunno, some kind of twisted weird pastry backronym or something. Don't get me wrong -- they're delicious! -- but they're not the real deal.

You see, the real deal -- the original -- is a full-sized cake, and is made very differently. It was invented by M. Yves René SCORDIA in 1860 in Douarnenez, Brittany, France. It was invented out of necessity, as M. SCORDIA was trying to rapidly get some additional product out the door on a day when they were selling out of regular pastries. The traditional kouign-amann is slapped together quickly; and although it's deceptively complicated to get right, it is not a delicate pastry compared to, say, the croissant.

I am a (virtual) student of patissiers bretons, and have worked hard -- through countless hours of watching & re-watching YouTube videos, and preparing some 50+ cakes over the past several years -- to be able to prepare a pretty good example. Here's what the original-style full cake looks like:

Now, this cake is considered the pastry of Brittany, and is a foundational component of the Breton regional identity. There is even an association whose mission is to protect the appellation kouign-amann, just as the name champagne is only allowed to be applied when narrow requirements are satisfied.

People in Brittany also do an individual version in the tradition of the original cake. This is often presented in a dense spiral form -- not the airy, four-fold-symmetry fancy version that is well-known in the U.S. (People do the fancy version in France, too, but it may be called a kouign-amann exotique -- and purists will vehemently decry the use of the words kouign-amann for this derivative delicacy.)

Examples of single-serving-sized kouign amann cakes, done in the traditional style.

Guess what? I enjoyed a kouign-amann during my 2019 PBP; let's get back to it.

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At a bakery in Sizun on the return (between Brest and Carhaix-Plouguer) I picked up a delicious veggie sandwich, a huge meringue, and an individual kouign-amann; see photo of the kouign-amann & link to this Sizun bakery at the top of this piece.

This kouign-amann was everything it was supposed to be: sweet and salty, crunchy and soft, and very dense; flavored of butter and caramel. A piece of heaven in Brittany.

Late Tuesday afternoon I parked my bike at the Saint-Nicolas-du-Pélem control. A French rider, adjacent, was tending to his bike, too. He was chatting with a couple of non-riders who were speaking Breton -- at him: they were teasing the rider (clearly a friend or acquaintance) because he could not speak Breton!

GPS trace of my visit to the control at Saint-Nicolas-du-Pélem on the return.

Because I'm there at PBP to experience everything I can -- especially to meet people from around the world -- I joined the conversation:

"I only know how to say one thing in Breton: kouign-amann."

These folks lit up with joy -- physically lifted, in body and expression -- as if they had felt seen, their Breton-ness recognized and validated. They sang out confirming tones of "Ahhhh!" and "Oui!"

I let them know that I'd enjoyed a kouign-amann earlier in the day, and that it had been fabulously delicious. (More smiles and confirmations.) I added:

"A bit heavy for bike food, but very delicious."

The non-rider closest to me laughed at this. He immediately echoed my sentiment via gentle sarcasm by saying:

"It's a great cycling food!"

The way he said it clearly indicated that he meant that this heavy pastry was not great cycling food. However, his mood instantly turned to one of intense self-reflection as he considered what he'd just said.

He then repeated the same words, as if hearing the words again would facilitate his re-examination of the phrase. This time, however, he did not laugh as he spoke; he put the words into the air as a plain statement to test the validity of the assertion originally made in jest:

"It's a great cycling food."

Upon considering the words this second time, his countenance changed again, indicating quite clearly that he had resolved this issue internally. He became gravely serious; he fixed his gaze deeply into my eyes, as if to glimpse my true soul as he began to speak once again, this time much more slowly and deliberately than the first two times:

"It's... a... great... cycling... food."

This was no longer a joke, no longer a reflection: it was now a challenge, and everything that would follow hinged upon my response to this challenge.

Clearly, to disagree would have had nothing to do with the nutritional suitability of butter, sugar, flour, butter-sugar-butter-butter-sugar & butter. To disagree would be to challenge the very Breton identity, his identity, his family, his family history, his pride for the history of the very land upon which we stood together at that very moment.

Our eyes still locked, I responded:

"Yes! It's a great cycling food."

He nodded to close the social loop -- to add terminating punctuation to my recognition and reflection of his proposition of the one true reality -- and to mark his challenge as resolved.

The palpable tension that had been created in the air between all participants in this conversation dissolved immediately, with everything now comfortably set right between us.

Have you tried a real kouign-amann in Brittany? It's a great cycling food.

PBP 2019: It's much nicer here

Conversations quoted below were originally conducted in French; they're retold from memory here, and written in English.🗣🇫🇷

As Tuesday evening turned to full night inbound from Loudéac I was feeling tired-but-quite-good, in that Rando sort of way.

I'd started off the day in fine form at 5:30am Tuesday morning outbound from Carhaix-Plouguer, en route to Brest, after a lovely night's sleep at a little bed & breakfast. For Tuesday night, the plan from the get-go had been to wing it, whether sleeping at a control, taking "ditchnaps," or happening upon some gracious soul's yard or barn. I was looking for the classic PBP experience Tuesday night!

At about 200 miles in on the day I was approaching Quédillac. It was the 10pm hour, but since I was feeling good (hey, it's relative!) I was quite sure that I could keep my momentum through to Tinténiac only about 17 miles farther down the course before sleeping. Why not strike while the iron was hot, and wake up that much closer to Paris? (Er, Rambouillet?)

Quédillac was not a control proper -- no timestamp-on-card done here -- but the site hosted a full set of event services. My supplies were in good shape, too, so I had no reason whatsoever to stop at Quédillac.

Even though I was 100% certain that no check-in was required, the last thing I wanted to do was make an error due to bad memory -- let's just say that I was 99% certain that no check-in was required.

I rolled up to the entrance to do a realty check with a volunteer there at the side of the road:

"This is not a control, right?" ~ "No, this is not a control." 

"No stamp?" ~ "No stamp."

"Ok, thank you very much! I will continue to Tinténiac to sleep."

Then the volunteer said:

"It's much nicer here than in Tinténiac. You should sleep here."

Whoa wait what? Huh? Why's that? But I have a plan! Why is the volunteer saying this?

The mind races. Look, Greg, you have a plan. It's to press on. Get it done...but wait! Your personal policy is to always go with PBP volunteers' suggestions if at all possible, since they're doing their best to look out for you. Each and every one of them wants you to succeed, and they're there to help.

What does this volunteer know that I do not? How much nicer could one gymnasium be than another? I came back with:

"I'm feeling pretty good, probably I should continue on."

The volunteer continued his line:

"You'll get to Tinténiac and there won't be any spaces left for you, and it really is much nicer here. Come! Let me show you."

Ok, my policy is to go with the flow. Let's check it out!

The Quédillac volunteer proceeded to give me a tour of all of the accommodations. First he walked me (and my bike) over to the bike parking, and found a spot for my bike. Our tour continued with the canteen, under fancy, enclosed tents, where he showed me the lovely array of food. We continued into the main building, past the restrooms and into the gym.

The mood lighting was on point: plenty dark enough to aid sleep for most people, but lit up enough for most folks to make their way around without bumping into things.

And it was warm. Ohhhh-so-warm. Wait -- had I been cold? That gymnasium was comfy-warm, sit-by-the-fire warm, hot-chocolate-on-a-rainy-day warm.

Rows of lovely mattresses were arranged on a grid across the entire gymnasium floor, each sleeping station with a lovely blanket and a convenient plastic-and-metal stackable institutional chair -- and the whole place at only maybe one third occupancy.

Oh -- and showers right there, too.

"I am convinced. I will stay!"

The volunteer was so pleased, his mission accomplished. :)

I popped back out to my bike to get the sparse subset of my belongings that I'd want to access there at my stop (jersey, shorts, USB battery, etc.) and headed back to the canteen tent for a lovely meal of pasta, crêpe, and warm milk -- plus some bananas-to-go for later:

I took a wonderful shower in the gym (yeah, usually I dislike that probably more than most people, but Rando changes you!), got dried off and dressed in some clean clothes, and made my way to the sleeping area check-in desk. I was assigned a numbered bed, and asked for my wake-up time. (I can't remember precisely, but it was likely around 4am or 5am.)

I took stock of my things as I prepared to settle into bed in the symphony of snoring that filled the gymnasium. I plugged my phone into the charing battery and set an alarm just in case. I placed my "for tomorrow" bananas on the floor next to the bed, as I know that one can wake from hunger during these events, and I wanted something easy to grab so that I could scarf it and get back to sleep.

I also draped the previous day's tired synthetic SFR jersey on the back of my sleep station's chair to let it air out overnight before it spent the next day trying to get all funky, crammed in my saddle bag.

I slept fairly well for some hours, but found myself more awake than asleep in the 3am hour; might as well call it a wrap and head on down the road to what lies ahead.

Ok, get things packed up...alright, my bananas...wait, one banana? Hey -- why is my second banana right there next to my neighbor's mattress? It's still within reach, but no way I put it there when I went to sleep!

Was it actually my banana, though? What are the odds that it wasn't? Maybe it's "great Rando minds think alike" -- but, no, I bought two bananas in the canteen. Er, ok...maybe one of my bananas had been unintentionally kicked in the night? Who knows; I scooped them both up and put them into my little bag.

Gather the clothes: Wait -- where's my jersey?!? The jersey that I had specifically draped over the chair to let dry?

Vanished; nowhere to be found.

Ok, cut my losses: at least I'll have one thing fewer to schlep down the road, and maybe it'll make a nice memento for someone. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I got out to my bike in the damp night air. I transferred my overnight gear back into my bike bags, including my...three bananas. Ack! I am a banana thief!! I must have placed one by my mattress and the second in my bag...having stolen the third from my sleeping neighbor!

In the end, wherever my jersey ended up, instant karma had left me down one jersey and up one banana.

I made my way to Tintinéac before dawn, and was becoming drowsy in the wee hours; I definitely needed to lie down for ten or fifteen minutes to refresh before riding off into the breaking morning. (Another one of my policies is to NOT ride drowsy!)

Tintinéac was a mess, with overflowing people sprawled out everywhere on the concrete floor of the big building lobby. I got a bit refreshed from a few minutes of restless shuteye on the cold, hard floor, and then made my way into the breaking day.

It really had been much nicer in Quédillac.

This derivative artwork courtesy of Irving Pham.

PBP 2019: Watch your language

Italian trio and Eric Walstad ~ Photo credit: Megan Arnold

As a native English speaker, I'm fluent in what's probably the most-popular second language among PBP participants. This facilitates lots of little conversations, and even if the person with whom I'm speaking only speaks a little bit of English, we can usually make do.

I have also steadily worked on my French for decades, and can speak conversationally with native French speakers. This enables me to speak with French riders, control volunteers, and just about anyone else out and about along the course, whether involved in the event or not.

I find the language and communication scene to be one of the most-fun aspects of PBP. Each of the thousands and thousands of people involved in the event, from the many corners of the globe, comes with their own individual language background. Whether rider, rider support, volunteer, or onlooker, most have some relationship to cycling, and language is both a pathway and a barrier to connecting with these fellow participants of this grand event.

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A fun combination is meeting a rider who knows little or no English, but, like me, knows French as a second language. This means that each of us is at least a little out of our element, but we have this bridge between us.

I spent part of one afternoon riding with a rider sporting the flag of Portugal. He didn't speak any English, but he was living and working in Bourgogne (Burgundy, France). Bingo! We had a great time chatting in French about cycling, language, France, and all of the other bits of randomness we chat about to help the kilometers roll by.

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Other times connecting is more of a stretch. Wednesday afternoon on the return, I had been riding with Megan and Eric (back-home clubmates) for some time when we found ourselves riding together with an Italian trio. We were setting about the same pace, and we all fell in together.

We quite rapidly determined that, between our two groups, there was no linguistic common ground of any significance. That was kind of a bummer. I mean, we all "spoke" the unspoken language of cycling, and could ride together, but regular banter was out of the question.

Or -- nearly: I'll confess to having taken two years of Italian in high school. Whatever I had learned had become more than rusty, and mostly lost, aside from random words -- predominantly ones that have close relatives in French.

After some hours of riding together, our group of half a dozen approached the Mortagne-au-Perche control. The road kicked up for the final couple of blocks getting into town, so we were all groaning (good-naturedly) that the course demanded this last little effort from us before granting the opportunity to get off of the bike and recharge ourselves.

Now, controls are often places where groups break up: some riders may pop in & out, others may linger a while, and, in my case, I had reserved a room in town where I planned to sleep for at least part of the night. I figured I'd likely never see this Italian trio again, and I really wanted to exchange goodbye pleasantries.

This short little kicker of a hill had spread our group out right away, as hills can do. I found myself alongside one of the Italians. I offered her one of my SFR pins as we ground up the slope, and I dug deep into that rusty Italian vocabulary to try to express my appreciation for the afternoon of riding togther. It started out pretty easily enough: "Grazie" for "thanks," and I was able to add "Grazie per..." for something like "thanks for..." and then it got tricky for me.

She had understood so far, and was eagerly waiting for me to try to lob the next piece of poorly-spoken Italian over that language barrier to complete the thought. I came up with "tutti" for "all," and then, somehow, from the depths, I came up with "insieme" for "together," which word-for-word kind of translates as "Thanks for all together." Her face totally lit up, and, smiling, she replied with "Sì! Sì!" ("Yes! Yes!")

Connection made, spirits lifted, and those minor aches and pains of some 72 hours of being out on the course briefly forgotten.

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Sometimes it doesn't go so well, as one might expect. At one point on the return I came upon a pair of Russian riders. Their home country was revealed not only by their rider frame cards and spoken language, but by one rider's flaming-red kit that proudly broadcast his homeland. I had a go to see whether we had any language in common.

I asked (in French) if they spoke French; blank stares. I asked in English of they spoke English; they looked at each other, and at me, but no dice. I asked in Italian if they spoke Italian, and in German if they spoke German...and, as I recall, I even asked in super-super bad Spanish if they spoke Spanish. Zilch, nada, zéro.

The rider with the flamin' red Russian kit pointed to his kit, looked at me like I was an idiot, and said, in accented English, "Russian!"

Heh...yep, thanks, friend -- loud & clear! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Other times it does not go so well...in very surprising ways!

On the return, I came upon a solo Irish rider. We quickly exchanged pleasantries, thanks to our overlapping vocabulary, and a conversation began to evolve on a quiet road in the late afternoon.

Now, this rider was quite friendly and fairly chatty. He began talking to me about...wait, what was that? Hang on (I think to myself), I didn't quite catch the next bit, either.

I quickly realized that I was not able to track the thread of his conversation whatsoever: He had been speaking English, but I couldn't follow it!

While I was completely (and pleasantly!) bemused by how silly this was -- I mean, didn't we both speak English? -- I was also terribly concerned that I might be asked a reasonable question that depended upon having understood at least half of what he had been saying. I did my best to complement his monologue with "mmm-hmm's" and "yes's" where I thought they'd fit in, but set my mind to finding a way to make a graceful and natural separation and bid this kind gentleman farewell.

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I hope to return to PBP again, and I'm looking forward to more unexpected connections. For me, they're so valuable that they're worth the risk of all of the awkwardness involved. If you're similarly inclined to make connections with Randos and event participants from all over the world, I hope you can take a little inspiration from my experience and spend some time expanding your own language horizons before touching down in France in 2023. Vas-y, le monde t'attend!

PBP 2019: Whatever you'd like, but....

I made my way into Loudéac before sundown on Tuesday on my return. My personal to-do list of business to get done at that control included a visit to the restrooms facing the bike-parking courtyard; individual restrooms, exterior doors.

A couple of control volunteers were already waiting outside the restrooms with their bucket, mop, and cleaning supplies when I walked up.

Soon enough a restroom door opened and a rider exited. The volunteers looked at me, and I at them, to see who was going to make their move for the open door. (Given the condition of the restroom, it was immediately apparent that I may have had almost-impeccable but oh-so-bad timing.)

Now, I have developed a personal strategy of doing whatever it is that control volunteers suggest I do, if at all possible -- they really are there to look out for riders, and they know more about what's going on at the controls than I do. That's their charge, and they know what they're doing...but whatever you want to do, if you have your own ideas, well, you go ahead and do your thing; that's fine with them, too.

One of the volunteers said that I could go ahead and use the just-vacated restroom if I wanted to....buuuuut there were also additional restrooms just down a very short set of stairs in the adjacent courtyard. Either way, it was fine with them.

I thanked them and took their suggestion to go out of my way to the lower courtyard (where members of the local public were enjoying a live band on stage as part of the control festivities) rather than use the vacant restroom immediately in front of me.

I popped right down to those other restrooms -- which, quite clearly, had just been cleaned and restocked. :)

Thank you, volunteers!

Loudéac bike parking courtyard, outbound Monday: control stamp room, canteen, officials' tent and first aid station beyond; courtyard restrooms off-camera behind me.