unterhausen

Plenty of fast people do the 90h start, just hook onto a train when they catch you. The 80h start group breaks up after the first control anyway, or even after Mortagne, which is just a food stop on the way out. I saw a video of the 'A' group from 2015. It was fairly close to the start, and there were a lot of people in that group. Then there were a lot of people in the 'b' 80h start. I assume there were similar numbers in 2011. I saw the 80h start group going back to Paris as I was approaching loudiac, as is common for 90h start riders. There were no more than 50 riders. And I didn't really see many more returning riders later. So I guess they were sleeping somewhere.

Hopefully I get to enjoy this ride more. Gotta lose some weight though.

clasher

I'm definitely a middle-of-the-pack rider most of the time and tend to doddle at controls more than anything else so it's probably best to just stick with the 90 for the first crack this. I'm on the weightloss train this year too and am hoping to be well under 200 by the time the summer rolls around.

clasher

Looks like there's about a 1000 places left according to the PBP site as of today, ~500 for the 90h start with the remainder split between the other two times. Anyone with a 300K better be at the computer right when the next wave opens up!

unterhausen

they announced they are going to add 850 more slots. Will be interesting to see who gets in since the 300k riders have yet to register.

Looking at the stats from 2015, 40% didn't ride in 2014 or only rode a 200k. So if that holds, there will still be a lot of disappointed riders.

ThermionicScott 

I started winding up to make a judgy comment, but decided to look back through the records first, and I didn't ride a single brevet in 2014, either. Wow. So many things went right for me in 2015 that I didn't completely deserve.

clasher

Looks like they added some earlier departures for more riders... which are all full, I assumed from people moving to an earlier start time. I moved my start up to 18:45 which is nicer than 19:45 so that's nice.

unterhausen

actually, they moved us all forward and added start times later. I'm starting at 5:30 now
the announcement probably makes more sense in French, because their expression for moving things forward is moving them back.

clasher

This was the email I got:
So I guess the option to choose depended on what time slot people had originally chosen. The 18:45 was the earliest slot on the dropdown that had any room left, I'd have liked even earlier but I didn't check my email until later at night... oh well, shouldn't matter in the end.

unterhausen

any time slot that was full before is now a time slot that is full 1/2 hour earlier. I never did find this announcement in French, I suppose I should look on the website

kingston 

My start is still the same 5AM. I did have the option to move it to one of the later times.

unterhausen

they didn't mess with anything the second day, just consolidated the 80 hour starts to 5 and they moved the specials forward a half hour so they could add 90 hour starts and still finish at the same time at night. I recently saw a video of the 80h groups, it's going to be nuts now that they are 20 percent bigger.

atwl77

Just checked, my start time remains the same at 5AM. Had the option to change to 5:15 or 5:30 but decided to leave it as is.

unterhausen

Did you already ride the qualifying rides since October?

atwl77

Not yet. Already done 200k and 300k, and I'll be doing a 400k this weekend. Assuming all goes well, that leaves 600k remaining.

unterhausen

I hope it went well. 300k riders preregistration is open now

atwl77

Thanks, I completed by the skin of my teeth. I posted my ride report in the 2019 Randonees thread.

atwl77

600km done. Posted my ride report in the 2019 Randonees thread. I guess this completes all my qualifying rides for PBP, just need to wait for my official homologation number for this ride to be released and I'm good to go. Then I'll need to think about my travel and accommodation plans, getting the necessary visa, and all that stuff. And I'll also have some questions for those who have ridden PBP, or at least ridden in France, in the past, but that'll come later once I've gotten some semblance of a plan formed in my head. As for now, I'm just dead tired with a massive, literal pain in the butt so I'm gonna take it easy for the rest of this week!

unterhausen

congratulations. I somehow managed to finish my 200k qualifier with a minute remaining on the clock. I might try to be more rested before the 300k in 2 weeks.

joewein

From the Newsletter of Randonneurs NL, the Dutch organisation (translated by Google):

Eric Norris says so too in his "PBP Tips" YouTube series:

atwl77

Yikes. Lodging especially, is gonna be a major problem as I haven't even started looking. Can't believe this got so popular and exploded just like that this year. I wonder if it will be feasible to expand the hotel radius to maybe 40-50km away and just ride 2+ hours to Rambouillet... (and no, I haven't actually researched, just typing what's going on in my mind right now)

unterhausen

I'm with you on lodging. But I think SQY is far enough away that you can get lodging there.

People stay in Paris and take the train out. My start is at 5, so plenty of time to make my way to Rambouillet. Apparently they have had special accommodations for cyclists on the trains for previous PBP's.

Machka 

From what I've heard through the Audax Australia chatter, there's less accommodation at Rambouillet than there was at the usual starting place and it was booked up about 6 months ago.

I suspect a lot of cyclists are going to have to use the Paris option.

atwl77

Just did a very quick Google Maps routing check, Paris to Rambouillet is about 56km which is about 2-3 hours ride by bike, assuming train and bus services may be overbooked/packed as per the video's concern. On the other hand, Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines to Rambouillet as @unterhausen suggests is 27km distance, a lot more reasonable assuming one intends to ride to the starting point rather than rely on public transport.

Just browsing around the map, seems like a couple of other places like Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines (15km), Chartres (38km), Epernon (14km)...... but that's just with map browsing, not sure how feasible these places actually are to find lodging and so on...

Hopefully as the August draws closer we'll here more about how they intend to handle this large influx of riders in regards to transportation and ferrying riders to Rambouillet.

unterhausen

it's possible that hotels are booked because travel agencies have reserved the rooms. But I haven't looked into that.

ThermionicScott 

Cliche, but it's a good problem to have. I'm happy that there's so much interest in long-distance cycling these days, when I'm never sure whether cycling as a whole is on an uptrend or down.

It was nice being able to ride to the start in 2015, hope they can figure out something out in time.