claire

And it was so much better than last year!! First, we didn't start too fast. Then we stopped for a nice plate of pasta in a restaurant. The night was quite cold (3 degrees) but no rain, so we didn't stop to sleep and rode all the way, with my two teammates. I was feeling OK until about 5am when I really felt sleepy! The worse time is definitely 5-7am for me. After that we found a cafe and had a nice breakfast. As usual, it felt much much better after that and the last 100 km were fine. So in the end we arrived quite fresh and in good shape, my legs hurt a little bit but I was still feeling fine enough to get back on my bike to go vote once I was back in Paris!! Also, we were lucky with the weather because we had no rain and also no punctures!

spokenword

congratulations, claire! out of curiosity, when did your ride start? most of our long brevets (more than 200K) start at 4am or midnight, so that we can get the dreaded pre-dawn hours done while our minds are still fresh. I also remember feeling extremely sleepy around 5am during our fleche, which we started at 7pm the night before, so that by 5, I had been awake for almost 22 hours.

claire

It started at 2pm, so that we do have to ride through the night.