Posted 27/10/03

“It seemed like a safe bet at the time.”
By Mike Hunting

I don’t know how many other people Linda had approached before she got to me, but they obviously had more sense than myself. “If I can get hold of a recumbent tandem trike, do you fancy doing PBP on it next year?” The short answer was NO; I had ridden a solo recumbent trike before (very briefly) which was fun, but what I knew about the tandems suggested that they were far from the ideal machines for long audax rides. Pete Gifford and Noel Simpson had completed the last 2 PBP’s on their Greenspeed very close to the time limit, and there was no way we were in their league. Dave and Linda had completed the ’99 event on a conventional tandem just inside time with no sleep and there was no way I was anywhere near as strong as Dave. No was the sensible answer.

…………..On the other hand…………I didn’t really fancy repeating PBP on a bike either. There are, in my opinion, much better routes of similar length available in the UK without the hassle of qualifying and getting Doctor’s notes, photos etc., not to mention the expense of getting to Paris and back. But then there was the challenge, there had never been a mixed sex recumbent team attempting it before; with the odds stacked against us it was starting to appeal to the English eccentricity in me. More to the point, initial enquiries suggested that there were probably only about 8 such machines in the country, the chances of one of them being available to us for PBP seemed remote, and so I agreed. After all, it seemed like a safe bet at the time. I had, of course, overlooked Linda’s persistence and persuasive powers. At one stage Inspired Cycle Engineering at Falmouth, who manufacture the Trice range of recumbent trikes, considered building a machine for us to borrow, but eventually declined. Westcountry Recumbents (the Greenspeed importers) were prepared to hire out their own machine to us. It was getting a bit uncomfortable really. The worst news, however, was at the Semaine Federale last year where a chance encounter with Noel Simpson revealed that not only was he not riding PBP this time, but he was also quite happy for us to borrow the Greenspeed, and for as long as we wanted it to get used to it before the event. Thanks a lot Noel!

At that stage there wasn’t the remotest possibility of us doing it, it was time to make plans. We both have a mainly touring background to our cycling and it was time to try and make ourselves fitter, stronger, and lighter. We intended to lose 3 stone in weight between us, to run during the winter evenings to improve our fitness, then to train on the road once the evenings got lighter to improve our strength. Linda had no suitable bike to train on so a visit was made to Certini at Saltash shortly after our return from SF last year. I knew that they had had a good range of race frames made for them and luckily they had some small enough for Linda. They offered a good deal on a complete kit and we built the machine the following week, with Linda building the wheels herself. She was more than a little doubtful, however, about riding a machine which was bereft of granny ring, mudguards, and the several pounds of superfluous paraphernalia that she used to think essential for any ride that went further than the end of her street. Fortunately the novelty of riding a bike that actually moved forward when she pushed on the pedals won her around and, riding it whenever she could, she soon made significant gains in strength and was climbing hills in gears she had previously reserved for the flat.

We did lose the best part of the 3 stone too, as Linda’s new wardrobe testifies, and I can actually get my Audax Cymru jersey on again. Sadly the rest of the plan didn’t quite work out, the running soon aggravated one of my old knee injuries and it was quite a while before it recovered sufficiently to allow any beneficial evening training rides.

We had a few problems with the Greenspeed too. For various reasons we didn’t get up to Fishlake (near Doncaster) until the end of January. Noel and Dee made us very welcome and a test ride of about 25 miles passed very pleasantly, other than both brakes failing by the time we got back (fortunately the roads are billiard table flat around there and the verges are soft enough to slow you down). The machine hadn’t been used for a while and was in need of some maintenance but we were, and are, very grateful to Noel for the loan and drove back to Tavistock with it on the roof of the van, leaving Dave & Linda’s upright tandem trike for Noel to play with in the meantime (thus creating enough room in their garage to accommodate the Greenspeed). Much tinkering, cleaning, adjusting, and modifying followed and the hydraulic brakes were eventually sorted with help from Ian and John Morse. Moving from the Yorkshire flatlands to the hills of Devon and Cornwall revealed a couple of other dormant problems and John’s services were called on again to sort out the hub gears, thanks John!

Meanwhile time was getting on and we ended up doing all of the qualifiers on 2 wheels, much to my annoyance. By the time we got to the 400 I was all for giving the whole thing up as a bad job, and it was 20 minutes or so after the start time before I decided to set off and keep my options open. Fortunately the enjoyable Window Ride shortly after made me feel a little better and the Bryan Chapman 600 was a bit happier. Dave & Linda were on their Roberts tandem and Dave was noticing a lot more power from the stoker, we finished a couple of hours quicker than usual.

I still didn’t think we had a chance for PBP, however. The gains we had made were not enough to make up for the difference required to transfer to the recumbent. There was another problem by now though. We had both got converted to the trike and, PBP or no PBP; we didn’t really want to go back to two wheels all the time. Linda had already been back to ICE at Falmouth and got a quote for having one built for herself. I wasn’t happy about her laying out that kind of money by herself, nor with the specification she came back with.

At the end of May we both went to Falmouth and had quite a lengthy meeting with Neil and Chris, the ICE directors. It was a breath of fresh air! They had been making a few tandems, basically for the touring end of the market, but many of their solo models include performance features developed as a result of their involvement with human powered vehicle racing. We wanted a machine that would be suitable for our style of riding which, after too many years of riding audax events, tends to generally involve riding long distances in a fairly short time scale, with light loads. Between the four of us we came up with a specification which did away with a lot of the standard equipment, normally required for large load carrying, and substituted quite a bit of their performance features and knowledge. It would be unlike any tandem they had built before (and the only one with rear suspension) but not only were they happy to put their name to it, they would also build it in time for PBP. On this basis I was prepared to pay half towards the cost, which was just as well, the new specification had added a dialling code to the telephone number that Linda had come back with as a quote.

Five weeks later, and a few days earlier than scheduled, it was ready for collection. When we got there mid-morning on the Friday they still had a few parts to fit, and the final setting up, but they were going to get it done so that we could ride it in Graham’s Devon Delight on the Sunday. Most of Saturday was spent fiddling about with it in Dave and Linda’s garage (the Greenspeed had moved into next door’s garage). We fitted a few of our own extras, and removed most of the eight bottle cages etc., so Sunday was literally its’ first outing. We were about the last back, but not actually as slow as I expected. ICE had done us proud, it was down to us to now.

Over the next six weeks, leading up to our departure for Paris, we spent much time fine tuning seat angles etc., making and fitting bags for our hydration packs, deciding on lighting positions, and fitting and wiring dynamos, battery pack and lights etc. The Trice was gradually transformed into a machine that was ready to tackle 1200km of day and night riding. The question was, were the riders? We got out on training rides in the evenings when we could and made some gains in speed and strength, the hills were a bit easier and faster, though still significantly slower than we would have liked.

A couple of very wet training rides revealed yet another problem, conventional cycling jackets were of little use in the reclined position. In particular, water would collect on the front and work its way under the storm flaps and through the zips, whilst more would be driven into the front of the neck opening. Linda eventually resorted to putting her jacket on back to front which was more effective, though a bit inconvenient. Outdoor clothing specialists had little to offer either and eventually I e-mailed ICE to see if they knew of anything. Neil’s reply was that Freestyle in Plymouth were developing a recumbent jacket, though they hadn’t seen one, and he sent a link to Freestyle’s website. This looked more like the business; it was in the very latest Gore-tex and seemed to address most of the problems.

By now, however, time and the budget were running short, but we e-mailed Freestyle anyway. Were they prepared to let us have a couple of jackets for PBP and make it even more of a Westcountry venture? Expecting a negative response, we were a little surprised when they asked us to go and see them. I was on holiday with Sue and the girls at the caravan when their reply came so Linda went to see them by herself. It turned that they were just as helpful and prepared to listen to their customers as ICE were. Linda suggested a few amendments that we had come up with and they offered to make us a jacket each, incorporating our ideas. Not only would they be ready before we sailed 10 days later, but they were going to be in Red and Black too, DA colours no less! True to their word, Freestyle delivered to time and we collected the jackets on the day before we sailed; excellent pieces of kit they were too! The whole process of dealing with ICE and Freestyle had been such a positive experience, if only the rest of the cycle industry was like them!

We had been the first to book our PBP parking space at Pam & Dave Pilbeam’s house at Denmead, near Portsmouth, and we were the first to arrive too, on the Thursday morning. Dave & Ian unloaded their bikes from inside the van whilst I took the straps off the Trice which had travelled up on the roof. All duly unloaded we were shown to our parking space under a tree and in a bush next to the fence (there were to be many more to follow us). I imagine their garden must need most of the 4 years between PBP’s to recover!

Our route from Denmead to the Ferry consisted of the A3, a cycle path, the private path through IBM’s grounds (oops), a puncture by Ian, more cycle path, and a pub. After the crossing we finally got to our B&B hotel south of Caen at 11.40pm. From Caen we had another 2 days to cover a further 150 miles to Paris. Noel had organised a route, and intermediate accommodation at Evreaux, for about 70 fellow Audax UK members and we met up with them, in various disjointed groups, on the Friday morning. We got to the AUK Hotel, close to the event HQ, at 3.30 on Saturday afternoon.

Sunday was bike check day at the HQ, where the machines are checked over (briefly), lights and spare bulbs are scrutinised (possibly), and documents, jerseys, souvenir bottles, SR Series medals, tee shirts etc. are collected. After 6 weeks we thought we had got used to the interest the Trice caused. Riding it into a crowd consisting of a few thousand of the World’s most serious long distance head bangers, however, produced a level of response beyond our anticipation. One of the checkers decided he wasn’t going to miss this one and picked up the front end almost before I’d got off it (Linda had had the sense to bail out earlier), and with me hanging onto the back end for dear life he barged his way through the checking area to get it all to himself. Several innocent cyclists who had the misfortune to be having their bikes checked at the same time were trampled to death; many more are still receiving counselling.

Once through the check we had to run the gauntlet of getting to the parking area before collecting the documents etc. in the hall. It was several minutes before we were allowed to even get out of our seats; everyone wanted to photograph us on it, except for the Italian men who wanted to be photographed next to Linda. This year the organisers had set up a temporary “Departure Village” close to the hall with stands selling food, and displaying bikes etc. and there was a small arena where a number of odd machines like unicycles, high ordinaries etc. could be ridden. Since there was also a bar we thought we would give it a look. Fortunately the crowd around the Trice parted sufficiently for us to ride it across. Once there it attracted more attention than the official stands until the one promoting the local area started handing out free wine in retaliation.

It was the same on Monday morning on the prologue; one of the French lady photographers in particular seemed to take a liking to us (though Linda thought it was my legs) and pursued us relentlessly. She would get our photo then tear past on her motorbike and stop again for another, seemingly all the way around the route. The prologue, incidentally, is not compulsory, and it adds about another 30km on the day that you start the 1200. It is a chance for all the locals to get involved with the atmosphere of the event. More importantly you get a free tee shirt if you do it so, naturally, AUK won the cup for the largest foreign participation.

Back at the Hotel we had the rest of the day to kill and it was taken up with resting, packing the large panniers which were to stay there with things we didn’t need on the ride, checking the trike over, oiling the chains and throwing out most of the things that Linda had tried to smuggle into her bar bag for the ride (there were TWO torches in there-we already had five lights on the front of the machine for goodness sake). I was pretty worried by now, it was unlikely we were going to get any more sleep until Friday night and even then I still didn’t give us more than a 50-50 chance, not that that would stop us trying. Before we set off from the Hotel for the pre-event meal and then the start, I checked the odometer on my computer and, giving a wry smile, showed it to Linda, it was 666!

We were to start with the other “special machines” at 9.45pm, the other bikes in the 90 hour entry were to start in groups at quarter hour intervals from 10pm onwards. The marshals cleared a path through the bikes for the specials and we ended up in the front row under the start banner, facing yet another wall of photographers and TV cameras, trying to stay focused while the commentator wound the crowd up. Finally we were off, gradually dropping back through the group as it sped through the red lights behind the official vehicles. Things gradually calmed down, as they do in any audax ride, and we could concentrate on finding somewhere to stop for a pee (we had both wanted to go before the start).

The first of the bikes passed us just before 11pm, and they continued to do so for the next 3 days. I think we saw nearly all of the riders at some time or other and few passed without comment. First reactions varied from a few “ooh la la”s (honest) to “ah damn crazy Brits”. Linda spent much of the time trying to stop people ride off the road or into oncoming traffic whilst they took our photograph.

Meanwhile I was more concerned about the lights which were flickering quite severely right from the start. Our main lighting was from two of the excellent Hella micro units powered by a pair of Litespin dynamos. One of these was a new one, another “freebie” we were testing, whilst the other was Linda’s old one which had been a bit unreliable on our last evening training ride. I assumed it was starting to expire. About 20 miles into the ride the lights started to point downwards and we stopped to investigate (fortunately Linda had packed a head torch!). The lights hadn’t been flickering; the light bracket had fractured some time during the latter part of the ride to Paris and was now on the point of breaking completely. A few cable ties were hastily wrapped around it and I prayed that it would hold out until Villaines-la-Juhel at about 200k where I hoped to get a couple of jubilee clips and make it a little more stable.

We had over 3 hours in hand when we got to the Control at Villaines, but by the time we had had breakfast then made three trips to different garages before we got a couple of clips and sorted things out, much of that was gone. The bracket still rattled a bit but I thought it might just last out now with a bit of luck (it actually collapsed completely when the clips also fractured 30 miles into our ride home from Paris). Shortly after Villaines we picked up a puncture as well, just to make our day complete.

Despite what the “upright” people may tell you, there is very little flat road on PBP, and what there is is mostly concentrated within 100k of Paris. We were well into the hills by now and with not much time left in hand I was already worried about getting to Controls late, there being little chance of making up any time now until the last stretch back to the finish. The next section to Loudeac was a lot harder than I remembered and by the time we got there in the early hours of Wednesday morning there were quite a few worried looking AUKs still around. They were right to be worried too. The next bit over to Carhaix I remembered as being the hardest section in ’99 and I though it might all end here now. Sadly my memory was correct but miraculously we still had 90 minutes to spare at Carhaix with 529k covered. The night had been tough but we were surviving better than I had expected. It had been a cold night too (as were the subsequent ones) and I regretted not packing any gloves, or even mitts. Linda had resorted to wrapping her hands, arms, and shoulders in a piece of my survival blanket, whilst other pieces were tucked into her SPD sandals, she hadn’t brought any socks either!

A lot of riders seemed worried about the next section to Brest, mainly because it includes the long climb over Roc’h Trevezel. It may be long but it is also fairly gentle and we got over it fairly well and still had the 90 minutes in hand when we got to Brest at 4pm. Actually I must admit that we’d already been to the summit earlier in the year on a training day-trip and Linda had then led to the top on the Certini and turned straight back down again at the roundabout without so much as a second glance!

Brest was a turning point in more ways than one. We were pretty knackered by now, having not slept for nearly 60 hours, and we used up several of the 90 minutes at the control, but we knew that there was slightly more time allowed for the return to Paris, it was still looking feasible after all. Also the attitude of the peloton and spectators towards us was changing from amusement to respect.

Carhaix to Loudeac was just as bad on the way back and arriving at Loudeac on Thursday morning at 5.27 we were down to 38 minutes in hand. We gained a further 10 minutes by Tinteniac, losing them again on the stage to Fougeres, back to 38 again! By now it was early evening on Thursday and the next 2 stages to Villaines, and then Mortagne-au-Perche were crucial. They were both hilly (particularly the latter) but after that it was easy riding back to Paris. My aim was to get to Villaines with about an hour in hand leaving enough time for the hills to Mortagne, and then hopefully gain an hour or two on the final push back to the finish. It was all still possible; we had actually ridden the 300k from Brest to Fougeres faster than we had covered them on the way out. The comfort gained from riding the recumbent was paying dividends as the distance covered increased. Rumours of a possible mixed team recumbent record were now spreading among the French riders.

Sadly none of this did anything to fend off my mental exhaustion and as it started to get dark for our 4th night without sleep my concentration was going and, to be honest, I remember very little of what happened after that. Linda tells me that we were in a small group of mixed nationality riders, which got caught in a loop resulting from someone moving the direction arrows, and we lost a lot of time before we got back on the correct route. We got to the control at Villaines at 11.38pm, 7 minutes before it closed. Even then things weren’t too bad, we were only about 200k from the finish and had over 16 hours to do them in. We could afford to be a little late getting to Mortagne, provided we made up time before Paris. Given daylight and the flatter roads we should manage that OK. So we set off again into the night.

Some time after 7am on Friday morning I woke up on a mattress at Villaines control! Apparently a short way out of the town I had pulled over to the verge and passed out. The Red Cross had taken me back to the control and left me to sleep it off. Everyone had assumed I was packing and hadn’t thought to wake me after a couple of hours. That was it then, the record had gone out of the window. We took the opportunity to have our first wash and change of the ride, there being no time for such luxuries before, and set off again with fellow AUK Mark Rigby. He had also got caught in the loop and, despite a request to be woken, had also been left there, he wasn’t impressed!

An eight-hour 200 was out of the question so we had nothing else to do but enjoy the ride back to Paris. Recumbents and uprights don’t actually go together too well, the former being slower uphill, but faster on the flat and downhill. Mark seemed quite happy to sit behind us uphill, however, so we, in turn, didn’t push it too much on the flat.

At Mortagne we thought we would see if we could still get a stamp. Whilst we parked the Trice, Mark went into the hall; we heard the cheer outside! The controllers had cleared most of the hall and were now having a party at the far end. They insisted on giving us some champagne. I took the Trice into the hall and they took turns riding it around in circles whilst we shared their food (proper stuff, not what they were serving the other riders). Somebody asked how much the machine cost, we did a mental conversion to Euros and told him. Everyone sat down again! We did get a stamp, and eventually they let us go, after many congratulations. Nobody seemed to care that we were out of time, we were still doing it and that seemed to be all that mattered. It was the same at the roadside; everyone who saw us still cheered or shouted congratulations or encouragement. One of the shops where we stopped for food and drink gave us the water and fruit for nothing.

There were still also a couple of people at Nogent-le-Roi, and we got the cards stamped there too. As we got near Paris the direction arrows were starting to disappear. We learned later that they had been replaced 6 times as riders and spectators took them for souvenirs. We got lost several times, once by quite some distance and it was about 3am on Saturday before we finally got back to the hotel.

If we hadn’t had the problems with the light bracket, and the moved arrows, who knows, we may have saved enough time to get a couple of hours sleep earlier and got in within time. On the other hand, of course, if we were faster we would have had enough time to deal with the other problems and get some sleep anyway, so we’ve only really got ourselves to blame. Overall we enjoyed the experience far more than doing it on 2 wheels in ’99, and I think we added something to the atmosphere and spectacle of the event. In over 120 Audax rides covering more than 35,000k I had never failed to finish or been out of time before, I suppose you could say it was about time I tried something a bit more challenging!