Nah, but still fast! So, my time had come. A week after Thomas, I was able to compete in my first Brevet. My first ever!

The whole thing is Thomas' fault anyway (it has to be somebody's). If it hadn't been for him, who wouldn't leave me alone about it at the Cape Epic last year, I wouldn't have known that something as sick as "Paris-Brest-Paris" even exists. Maybe I would have been better off without this knowledge - but "oh well" that's a different story .

I myself, infected Guido with the "P-B-P"-Virus and we will be taking care of this thing together, so that the three of us can do it together in August.

The registration for the Brevets has come and gone. Paris-Brest-Paris is scheduled, the training has been adjusted to it and go time… We were off, as previously mentioned, on Saturday with the 200 Brevet

The start was - how else could it be - not right in front of our door, but in Brühl. That's 174m/280km away, which meant a trip the night before and getting up bright and early he next morning to start the ride at 7:50am, after an extensive breakfast buffet (there were about 60 starters, which is quite a lot for a Brevet). Right on schedule with the start, a light rain set in, so the rain jacket that I brought with me wasn't packed in vain. Otherwise I would have gotten upset. It was cold, dark and wet - just like it should be!

My expectations as far as the altitude is concerned were confirmed after the first 31m/50km. Absolutely flat (that's just the way the Rhein is) and that's how we made our way east to the first control point. Once there, we picked up our first stamp and swung ourselves back onto our bikes.
My comments about the evenness of the route were met with, "Just wait, it's about to go through the roof!", and lo and behold, vertical feet as far as the eye could see - and more than I wanted. Overall, the next 62m/100km offered a stately 1305 vertical ft/2100hm and had I known about that earlier, I would have paced myself.
While everyone was still pretty tight together on the first 31m/50km, no one could speak of a combined group anymore. Blast apart, everyone was now riding his own race. In some spots I couldn't see anyone in front of or behind me and I began doubting whether or not my course was right, without a map or a route description. However, I was able to find the control posts every time, so I couldn't have been riding in the complete wrong direction.
Luckily, I met up with a few of the starters at the last control post and we formed a pretty homogenous group of 5 that worked together well on the last 31m/50km. Since the last part of the route was similar to the first, riding in a group made sense. Washing hair goes faster, but after a good 8.5 hours it was all over. In 14 days, 186.4m/300km are on the schedule - and they will be going through hill country - and this time I'll be ready for the altitude .
Andreas