The race that left pros crumpled, cold & crying

So tough it was only held every 10 years, the final edition of the Paris-Brest-Paris professional race was staged 70 years ago this month. But as Giles Belbin discovers, today the event lives on as the pinnacle of the randonneuring world

- Paris-Brest-Paris

As Maurice Diot and Edouard Muller sped side-by-side towards the Parc des Princes velodrome in Paris on 9 September, 1951, no one knew that it was the last time professional riders would contest a race that had left its mark on all who had ridden it.

Nearly 1,200km and 39 hours earlier, Diot and Muller had been among the 41 professional riders who had rolled out from Paris for the seventh edition of Paris-Brest-Paris. Some wore goggles perched on top of casquettes; others wore woolen hats. All wore a look of trepidation.

Those fearful faces were because Paris-Brest-Paris was no ordinary race. Some 60 years earlier Pierre Giffard of the French daily Le Petit Journal had followed the first edition of Bordeaux-Paris with interest. Despite widespread skepticism that man and machine could withstand 570km of racing, the event had been a success. Three weeks later Giffard announced his paper was seeing Bordeaux-Paris and doubling it. “La Course du Petit Journal,” ran a frontpage headline, “Paris à Brest et retour: 1,200 kilomètres.”

That first Paris-Brest-Paris would be a race for French nationals, open to amateurs and professionals. The paper whipped up interest in the race with a series of pre-race articles, illustrated with simple sketches depicting heroic cyclists suffering in wind and rain, searching for food and bed, falling from broken bikes; all before being shown triumphantly returning to Paris and toasting their achievement.