You have to enjoy something a lot to do it non-stop for up to ninety hours, except for snatched doses of sleep. Cycling the 1,200km of Paris-Brest-Paris (PBP), the world's most celebrated long-distance amateur ride, requires just that.
It's not a race, of course. As participants will stress, before talking details about timings. Riders get little chance to enjoy Brittany's rugged scenery, culture or cuisine en route. The maximum time allowed to do it in is ninety hours; the average is around eighty hours; the best is a delirious 42hr 26min by Germany's Björn Lenhard in 2015.
It's not the longest non-competitive endurance ride (variously known as a 'randonnée', 'brevet', or especially in the UK, 'audax'). London-EdinburghLondon (LEL) for instance is 1,500km. And 'P'B'P' doesn't even start in Paris, but in Rambouillet, 20km south of the capital. Nevertheless, it's the one to do, the audaxer's bucket-list challenge.
Denne historien er fra August 2023-utgaven av Cycling Plus UK.
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Denne historien er fra August 2023-utgaven av Cycling Plus UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
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