PBP Stories: An “Alan Burke” – PBP in 110 hours or less

PBP Story #58
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This week we have Alan Burke from Galway in Ireland. Alan rides with Audax Ireland and attempted his first PBP in 2023. Unfortunately due to a number mechanical mishaps and other issues he finished the ride outside the time limit of 90 hours.

Read Alan’s excellent ride report – https://www.cycletraffic.com/notes/paris-brest-paris-2023

Paris Brest Paris: PBP Stories and Tips
Join Peter Curley (PBP ’19, ’23) as he interviews the riders who have completed (and DNF’ed!) Paris Brest Paris, the most famous (and oldest) endurance ride in the world. Learn firsthand what to expect and how to give yourself the best chance of a successful PBP.

Paris Brest is a long-distance cycling event with a rich history. Established in 1891 as a professional race, it has evolved into the premier amateur endurance cycling event. Every four years, thousands of cyclists from around the world attempt to finish PBP’s grueling 1,200-kilometer (745-mile) route, within the 90 hour time limit.

10 PBP Stats (2023)
Participants = 6431
Finish rate = 76%
Average age = 51
Oldest female & male = 69 & 79
Youngest female & male = 17 & 17
Female participation = 7.24%
French participation = 29.03%
Charly Miller (56:40) = 12
Adrian Hands (88:55) = 62
Club with most riders = San Francisco Randonneurs

‼️Please subscribe, like and to support the channel consider buying Peter a beer:

Uh, you know what I’m thinking is you may have invented a new way to do PBP, right? So, you’re you’re familiar with Adrien Hanss, are you? I am. Yeah. Yeah. So, basically what you’re going we’ll call it Alan Burke. Okay. That’s what it’s going to be called. And so, it’s basically you’ve got 110 hours. Is that right? And you go from bar to bar asking people, random strangers to sign your card. I like it. Well, I mean, like I I I knew my history in the old days. That’s how you got your card stamped. You local shop and or a local cafe and you got them to stamp the card and sign the card. That’s how it used to be done. So I’ll say it again. Amazing tenacity to finish. This week we have Alan Burke from Gway in Ireland. Alan rides with Odex Ireland and attempted his first PBP in 2023. Unfortunately, due to a number of mechanical mishaps and other issues, he finished the ride outside the time limit of 90 hours. Alan, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Pleasure to be here. Peter, you live in a lovely part of Ireland. My sister lives there and I love visiting Gway. It’s my favorite city in Ireland. It’s cool. Yeah. Yeah. Very happy living here. I’ve lived in a few places around the world, but ended up back in my home village again. Nice. Cool. Well, first question as always, what does PBP mean to you? Yeah, at the moment it means unfinished business. Um, so as you mentioned, I I finished it, but finished it out of time. So, you know, right right now it means unfinished business. I want to get back there and, uh, do it and make it inside the time cut off. Uh, but I mean, aside from that, what it meant to me was like a challenge. So, um, a very comfortable life at the end of the day, you know, you know, compared to what most people around the world have to go through. So, you know, I take on small challenges and this was another one. So, I’ve done climbs is is an exaggeration, but I’ve tackled the four highest peaks in Ireland, the highest peaks in Ireland, England, Scotland, and Wales. And this I saw as another thing. When I heard about it, I was like, “Okay, this this sounds interesting. There’s a challenge here.” And uh perhaps naively looked upon it with in in the context of being something I could just tackle. I got bitten by the oddex bug now. Cool. So, next question. What did that finish line feel like? Can I We’ll go into more detail, but do you have any Do you remember the emotions or anything? Um, relief. Yeah, just relief. Um, I I distinctly remember from possibly as far back as something like Ludiac, like maybe 400k to go. It was un very unlikely we were going to make the time cut off, but we had to make a um had to make a train back uh sorry, not a train, had to get a car back to the ferry and the ferry was going at a certain time and it wasn’t going to wait for us. So all this logistical planning is in my head going, you’ve got to make it home. So yeah. Yeah, that that was the the overriding emotional relief knowing that all that was in hand. Yeah. Like it’s interesting to me and we’ll talk more about this that you completed it in about an 110 hours perhaps 20 hours outside the limit. Um but it was an incredible effort to actually finish. I think so many people just quit along the way. But to keep going despite not knowing that you weren’t going to make the limit, I think is a certain amount of grit. I know you’re not going to agree with me there. You you were being No, you were being practical. But it’s true. like you know many people myself included in other events I’ve said you know what I’m done but you you got back I I did but genuinely I was thinking okay if if I quit like what what is the plan and I had read plenty of ride reports from other people who had failed to finish and they describe how hard it was to get back to the start h between getting to a train station getting your bike on a train getting a ticket on a train all that kind of stuff so I was So, it looks like if the legs will keep turning, the easiest way to get back is just keep cycling. So, that was always plan that was plan A and I kept going. Now, in fairness, I I had been in touch with my my wife back at home and she’d looked up train timets and where we might get to a train and yeah, things like that. So, I had a I had a plan B there in the in the back pocket. I distinctly remember passing a particular village, can’t remember the name of it, one of the larger towns actually, and going, “Well, this is it. There’s a train station here. Either we take this train or Yes. or we just keep cycling to the finish. That was the the point of no return. Yeah. So, we just kept going. Seems like you don’t want to take the compliment, but we can move on. Okay. Like in your ride report, I’ll just confront you once more. There was a sign. You posted a photograph uh in a village of directions to get the train home for people that couldn’t finish. And yet, you chose to keep going to to Paris. So, congratulations. No. No. I remember seeing that sign. It was a we we were you know definitely not going to make the cut off but I remember that was a pretty good point and we I remember had just left a really good bundy wellfed it was a nice time of the day so spirits were relatively high so wasn’t tempted uh to take that and it like I remember the sign and the time didn’t think too much about it but look back it was 75k I think to the train station so it wasn’t even that easy of a of a get out of jail card you still have to cycle 75k so we kept to the route yeah Like I think if there’s sort of a a continuum, that’s the right word, of between DNF and finishing PBP beyond the time limit. I think like the beyond the time limit is so close to actually kind of completing PBP. You know what I mean? Well, we can move on because you’re only going to argue with me again. Okay. Well, I also had an argument with the uh the organizers, you know. Well, I got someone to do my arguing for me and you know, I submitted my uh stamped prebe card. I got my stamps anyway even though I didn’t make the cut off time. And they do list people in the in the finishers as finished out of time. But they decreed that because the timing mats have been taken up. They said, “No, you’re you didn’t even make the timing mats.” And they they were down, you know, a couple of hours beyond the the actual cut off time. So, we didn’t quite make those either, only by an hour or two, I think, in the end. And uh so, yeah, I did attempt that as well. So, okay. All right. Well, let’s take a step back. Tell me about your background in cycling. What was your earliest memory? Why do you ride that kind of stuff? Um, mainly for practical purposes. Um, so I’ve never, if we sort of go backwards, I’ve never raced or done any long touring like that. Maybe one long tour. Uh, but you know, we’re talking 50 60k a day, that kind of thing. Um, and growing up, pretty much always had bikes. use bikes to get at least part of the way to school or cycle into the local town to to work in a part-time job, that kind of stuff or had psych bikes when I was at university most of the time. Not always, but most of the time. Um, so that that was the main, you know, I never saw myself as a competitive or long-distance cyclist or anything like that. Um, I did a lot of running. I’m still heavily involved in the local athletics club. Um, don’t do quite as much running as I used to, but that was by probably my main sport as an adult. Um, and cycling was just something else he did and eventually fell into the the world of longer distance cycling. Yeah. Like it’s funny, probably very similar to you. Um, I grew up in the country and, uh, like bikes were always just there and they were practical, right? It wasn’t like we were talking about our drivetrain and our, you know, our shifters and things like that. It was just single speed bikes that just took you from place to place. Yeah. Well, I’d cycle to my friends houses, to sporting activities, to Yeah. you know, part-time jobs, that kind of stuff. You know, you needed like grew up in Ireland in the, let’s say, the 90s, late 80s, and uh there was less traffic on the roads, so therefore cycling to places like that, even as a young kid, wasn’t really a big deal. I I was thinking back on this, and I had a part-time job when I was around maybe 13, 14, like a summer job. I used to get up at the middle of the night, cycle in to meet the milkman, and do a milk round. So I had some nighttime cycling experience in my in my distance past even even in the context of just you know functional cycling. Did you even have a light or a helmet back then? Because I don’t remember any of that stuff growing. Oh, I definitely had lights because Okay, it was pitch black. I needed lights. Okay. Um helmet. That’s a good question. I’m not so sure about a helmet. Yeah, it was very different. Like it was very practical. The whole thing about riding back then was practical, which I think you see in general in poorer countries. It’s not really about exercise or whatever. Yeah, that’s a very um cool. So then um I’m just looking at my notes here. So then when when did you kind of cross over from practical to more longer longer distance riding? Yeah. Well, I can I can blame a man called Barry Feling for this. So he was a manager in the gym I used to go to, like used to work on the university grounds, though not for the university. And he talked me into doing a charity cycle around County Gway. So it was maybe 370k over two days. So he took me into doing this and uh brought me off and bought a a bike secondhand and uh trained for that and you know raised a little bit of money for a local charity and that was a very supported cycle. You know there was I think they split into two groups. A faster group doing around 30 and a slower group doing about 25 kilometers an hour. Um done over two days and there was always a support van and support stops and that kind of stuff. But that was, you know, I had to I trained for that, you know, did early morning cycles and um it was probably around then I first heard about ODX. I I went for a cycle, met a guy called Endoduli and he told me about OAXes and the distances and it sounded bonkers. Still does but that’s probably, you know, the two it overlap there. That’s where I first heard about ODX. Didn’t do anything about it per se, but that’s when I first heard about it. Yeah. Interesting. brief aside like how would you describe the riding around Gway Aenry where you live? Um that’s a good question. I I don’t know if I’ve done enough cycling in other places to really give a very good answer, but I I can say this. Um there are a lot of what a lot of other cyclists refer to as poor back roads. So poorly maintained, a lot of them single, you know, single car width or single vehicle width. Um, but actually really nice for cycling. Yeah. So, if you’re not worried about making big speed, you can cycle on these roads and you’ll never have to encounter too much heavy traffic. And you see a lot of the like I’ve seen an awful lot of county go that I never would have seen uh by cycling those roads. And you can, you know, come up with routes that go places you’ve maybe only heard of in the news or sports reports or something like that. And um so that’s really enjoyable. Um the if you were into cycling, I guess competitively, maybe not so good. Some of the other surfaces aren’t in quite good condition. Um it’s not particularly hilly, but at the same time, you you couldn’t find a route of 100 kilometers in where I live and not cycle less or not climb less than 500 meters. So, it’s undulating. Yeah. But never particularly hilly. Uh Alan, any comments about the weather? The elephant in the room? You can’t change the weather. Okay. So, you you can learn. You can choose not to ride your bike though. Yeah, you can. You can. Or you can, you know, is it a Norwegian saying? There’s no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothes. Um, funnily enough, I don’t The winter cycling is fine. When it’s cold and wet, it’s fine. It’s easy to dress for cold and wet. Summer cycling is actually often more tricky on a long day in Ireland, the west of Ireland, you can get all seasons. So, it can be very hot and next thing you’ll have two hours of rain. I get you. You got to be ready for it all. Um, that that’s probably the trickiest part, you know, dealing with heavy rain in the summertime. Cool. Okay, back to PBP. I’m easily distracted. I apologize. So, you did this 370 km ride. I think uh that was 2013 maybe. And then a few years later, it was in the back of your mind you said, “You know what? I’m gonna try this PBP thing.” It was during CO, I think. Is that what you mentioned? It would have been Yeah. like maybe 2021. Yeah, I think that sounds about right. I kind of I don’t know. I saw a news article or something and I thought, “Oh, right. Yeah, I’ve heard of that before. I I must have heard about it back 2013, something like that, but um read about it and went, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll take that on. I’ll every four years. 2027. Yeah, that sounded great. And then another part of me said, you know what, maybe I could have a crack at it in 2023. And it went from there. Yeah. Yeah. It went from there. That’s great. Bit naive really to think about that. It’s actually Declan I feel sorry for. So this is the guy you ride with now, right? You recruit, you recruited this guy. And did you persuade him or he persuaded you to do this? I persuaded him. I sent the message out to a few people uh who I would have done cycles with or knew were into cycling and uh he was the only one silly enough to go, “Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. Sign me up.” Um and during co because I think I remember my uh siblings cousins talking about there was it was much more restrictions in Ireland for riding bikes and things. Is that right or not? uh by the time I was preparing for PBP, yeah, that had pretty much passed. So, yeah, but yeah, there was there was points where we couldn’t you couldn’t go more than 5 km from your house or even 2 km from your house, these kind of restrictions. Um, but you you can you can get a good bit of cycling done in a 5 km radius and a 2 km radius. Um, that’s true. So, I was even doing bits of cycling then. Uh, I yeah, I wasn’t really worried about cycling long distances. just a couple of loops around on those back roads I talked about. So yeah, and because I lived at the country, those rules weren’t as rigidly enforced because people had to travel further to get into towns anyway. So um Gotcha. Yeah, it didn’t cretail me at the time. By the time I got into cycling longer distances, the restrictions had all been removed. And I think you mentioned you’ve got two kids and they would have been pretty young at that point, but was that a challenge or not? Uh yeah, training. Yeah. um you work around it. So I generally do most of my cycling early Saturday mornings like really early like my terms anyway getting up at say 5:30 6 get a couple of hours in back for 9 or 10 and they need to be brought to places or just hang out with them at the weekends that kind of stuff. Um but yeah they were they were a bit younger. Um, I funny enough I didn’t really think much about it at the time, but I used to cycle about about 10k every morning. 5k down to the school and 5k home again with a big cargo bike. Oh, that’s great. I had them in the front or I had one being towed along at the back and I’d bring their bikes back home. Um, and that I didn’t really think about it as a lot of training, but you know, it adds up and I didn’t really appreciate that it was actually good training. I didn’t I wouldn’t have counted it when if I was counting my mileage, let’s say, but it would it did it did definitely did help. You weren’t tempted to bring the cargo bike then. No. No. Although I have seen some of the other uh bicycle style devices at uh PBP. Cargo bike would have been more appropriate than some of the things I’ve seen. Yeah. So then tell me about the uh qualification OEX Ireland. Like what’s the whole culture there? You’re obviously in Gway. I I would imagine it’s probably based in Dublin or near there. Is that right? Um there are more cycles that start from Dublin, but if you want to cycle a 600 km cycle out of Dublin, you’ve got to see at least some of the country. And there they’re the the good people of Dublin are forced to uh go beyond the confines of the pale and see some of the rest of the country. Uh, no. Most cycles start in Dublin, but there are enough based in the west and south and around that you can easily pick up cycles. So, I didn’t have to travel too far. I mean, I did remember if we say 2022 and doing some because I knew about pre-qualification, I was determined to try and, you know, get a long cycle in. So, we did a I did a 200 up in Mayo, you know, maybe in 90 minutes from here to the start line. So, very very manageable. So, we did a the 200 up there. I think we did a 300 a Mayo as well and then skipped the 400, had a go to 600 but ran out of time on that one. So the way that worked was he got to a point with about maybe 480k and there was 120k to go but we weren’t going to make it so at all no chance. So we said right that’ll do. Lessons learned. We learned a lot just from cycling that distance. So then waited 300k pre-qualifier and that was enough to get us a pre-entry then or yeah pre-entry I guess it’s called in early 2023. Um and then yeah so I did like a 200k in January again you know starting at a place called Burr only 45 minutes from my door here. So you know there’s plenty of ODAC cycles around here. Yeah. And typically are they small groups of people in Ireland that do these ODAKs? It’s like 10 people max or um they vary certainly the the couple of Yeah. So I probably should point out I’m not exactly an ODAX uh veteran or Okay. I had to thought it up. I think I’ve done less than 10 oxes total. I got you. You know. Yeah. So may may take this with a pinch of salt, but like certainly in the 200s I’ve done there’s been 30 40 people there. Yeah. Okay. That’s great. That’s cool. like so certainly the club some of the 200s I’ve done there’s been they’ve been run out of cycling clubs and or cycling clubs have that used them as a as a long cycle so there’s been a good number of people in the start line and then um so before PBP before you set off what was your longest ride before that date? Well the 600 qualifier. Yeah. Okay. Beyond that. That was tough though. That was done in Eastern Ireland, so maybe April and in some of the most horrific cycles I’ve ever done or weather I’ve ever cycled in. Yeah. And barely made it back maybe an hour of despair. It was really tough. I remember there’s a guy, I can’t remember his name, was an Australian cyclist who had come over to Ireland to do it was a an SR series in a week organized by uh Sheamus Low all out of Balanau Mayo. Beautiful cycling routes. Um, but yeah, there was a horrific hail storm. Like I I thought my face was being cut open. It felt so hard. It was blown inside my face. And I met this Australian guy standing outside a supermarket in June. And he he couldn’t go on. He was not prepared for the weather at all. And I remember him telling me he’d never ever h dropped out of an ODAX. This was the first one. And here and I was there going, “I’m going to keep going. Something’s not right here.” But we kept going and we made it around. Yeah. Yeah. I I do feel that all bike events should should factor in the weather. Like for example, I always think stra what is it festive 500, you know that Strava thing every winter and it’s it’s pretty okay to do it in California here. It’s not that hard, right? Right. But then you think about someone in, you know, Gway or Mayo doing it. Man, that is impressive. Right. Maybe if they they should just have to do 100 kilometers or something and they’ve qualified. I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know. I I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it. I haven’t tackled it. I I haven’t done much over the winter. That That’s going to have to change this winter if I’m going to tackle BBP again, but I wouldn’t do a whole pile over the winter. So, did you ride this the 600 with Declan? Yeah. Yeah. I think all I think I’ve done all the oddaxes with Deck, so I don’t think there’s one that I’ve done that he hasn’t and vice versa yet. There’s been a few where it’s been tricky to schedule them and that kind of stuff, but so far, yeah. And any logistics in getting to France? Probably not. from like yeah I’ve listened to some of your other um videos and bike planes trains and automobiles and all that but no no we had I would say relatively easy you know there’s regular ferry services and the one we got was the PPP ferry there was another maybe 30 people going over to do Paris Paris and um yeah so you just drive down to the ferry um it’s an overnight ferry it’s very comfortable sleep there get off the boat in France and off you go Yeah, that’s cool. So then the plan was to ride with Declan, but I’m sure you knew some other people as well. Any thoughts about riding with others or not? Really? No one talked about it. Um, so the Yeah. So, uh, the plan was to to ride with Deck. Uh, we’ done all of our qualifiers together, so there wasn’t really any other plan. If there was people there that we knew, we we would sort of let people do their own thing. Yeah. uh it’s very easy to get caught up and and push yourself a bit too uh hard. Like we’re we’re at the time at least definitely slower. Um so it was easy to sort of fall in with a faster bunch and then pay for it later. So we kind of um the way it goes, you’re going to meet people along the way and say hello to them and that kind of stuff, but we never really thought about cycling with, you know, wait for other people or anything like that. Um how did you feel at the start? Were you nervous? Oh yeah. Okay. Like surprisingly nervous or just that you were expecting to be nervous. I know. I knew you’d be nervous like Yeah, you should be like I Yeah, I personally remember, you know, I don’t have many feelings, but I personally remember like the day two days before thinking, “Wow, I feel really nervous. I’m not sure why, but it definitely in the back of your mind you’ve been thinking about this for so long. It’s pretty incredible.” Yeah. Yeah. There’s a number of reasons like I mean one is you’ve spent so long preparing for it and it can go wrong in a in a heartbeat you know you miss a a corner hit the curb and next thing you know you wake up in A&E you know or um it can go really well I mean the the I was definitely expecting to be nervous that didn’t surprise me at all but it was there was a anticipation and excitement too and that they were the overwhelming emotions. Yeah, I get you. Yeah. Like it was a be it was beautiful weather, beautiful evening and like you know getting to ride your bike for four days solid, you know. Exactly. That’s great. That’s great. No matter what the circumstances are. And you know it always fascinates me when you know you ride with other people. Did you and Declan talk a lot about okay if one of us can’t make it you go on? Like was there any kind of pre-ride discussion about strategy at all? Not a whole pile. No, like we, you know, we’ve done most of with like all the other oddaxes and yeah. Um I I think the only difference was as long as we were both able to get home somehow, I think that would be it. Um but yeah, no, we we were I was definitely going to wait for each other and uh unless you know, I don’t know, very severe. Yeah. And and even in a scenario of a very severe, let’s say, medical issue, I think, well, I I I think I’d like to think I’d help out. Maybe he might feel five kilometers from the finish, huh? Not so sure. I’ll come back for you. Um, okay. Well, maybe you want to just talk about the ride itself because again, you have an excellent ride report and there’s a lot of drama in there and I know it started very well. Am I correct in saying that? Oh, yeah. Beautiful. It was it was a fantastic summer’s evening and uh we we you know stayed out of trouble in that we didn’t get caught up in any big groups or any big spills or anything like that and you know I remember the first maybe 50 60k it was really quiet there wasn’t much chat in the groups like we we stayed out of groups initially the first 50 maybe 30 40k and then okay now we feel a bit more comfortable we’ll start sitting in in groups and you know trying to let them set the pace or whatever um and it took a long time before chat that started I felt because I remember I started chatting to the guy cycling along beside me and I nearly knocked him off the bike with fright. You just it had been so quiet for so long. Um but uh yeah so that that went really well. There’s really nice roads. Yeah, it was living up to the to the billing let’s say at this stage. Yeah. And did it feel dangerous in the beginning because I think you mentioned that you definitely tried to avoid other people. you didn’t have great experience riding in large groups, etc. Yeah, I still don’t. I’ve done a little bit more sense, I guess. Um, I think when you read ride reports and you hear of people having a crash within 10 kilometers of the start line, you think, well, I do not want that to be me, you know, completely completely. Uh, but but, you know, you read a bit more and you realize, well, actually, that’s that’s predominantly people going for a time and they’re, you know, trying to stay in the big pelaton at the start and that’s mainly where it happens. It’s not much of an issue further back from what I can tell. But look, if you if you’re in any kind of a pelaton and you lose concentration or somebody else fall asleep on the bike, there can be disastrous consequences. It was just that kind of stuff. Very conscious of avoiding that. So then um when did the wheels, you know, literally come off the vehicle or whatever you want to call it. When did that start? I think we maybe 200k done. Deck. Yeah. Had a puncture. give me a shout. So, we pulled in, found a spot beside the road, started working on trying to sort out the puncture. Uh, so far so good. Head head to torches on and uh try to I think I got the tube back in and go to pump it up and it won’t it won’t inflate. The hell’s going on here? So, you know, stay calm, you know, work the problem. Um, so, okay, look, we got plenty of tubes. Just give us another tube. Try it again. So tried it again. Same thing happens. And at the time I thought it was I was giving it a pinch or something. Work it out. So okay, right. Something’s wrong. Maybe there’s something in the tire and I can’t see it. It’s dark. There’s a piece of glass there or something. I don’t know. So go over to the side of the road, start shouting it. Not too many. We were in group T, I think, which is the second last group on the Sunday night. So there weren’t too many people behind us. Yeah. But um you know within five minutes of calling for a spare tire, someone stopped like it was a maybe a Japanese rider living in Germany off the top of my head. He uh gave us a spare tire. So we tried that. No joy. So now hindsight’s easy, but I know now what I was doing wrong. I think I was breaking the valve with the pump. Just so much excitement and adrenaline. So, I bought a pump sensor that has got a screw on valve. Exactly. So, oh my whatever that little mistake again I won’t make again. So, anyway, look. So, we’re like, okay, what are we going to do here? You know, can I ask you to be clear? This is Declan’s bike. Isn’t that right? It’s X bike. Yeah. I I was doing the mechanicals on it. So, you didn’t think about leaving him. I’m just kidding. No, I didn’t. If I’m honest, I didn’t. I’m looking for controversy, Alan. Okay. No. Okay. You You were going to stick with him. He sounds He sounds high maintenance to me. Yeah. Well, I think it’s only fair that uh you get reach out to Deca and ask him to do an interview. He can give his side of the story. No, I think by mentions No, you’re the record of what happened. Okay. I’m not going to interview him, so you can say anything you want. Okay. Yeah. History is written by the the victors and all that. Yeah. Um so, okay. I’m I remember reading something in in all these oxins. It’s a self-supported event. You’ve got to treat it like you’re an astronaut on the moon. No one’s coming out to help you. You’ve got to just stay calm, work the problem. As long as you keep trying something, just keep going. So, that was always the mantra. Just keep trying something. So, you know, we worked out. We weren’t too far from the control. Um, let’s start walking, you know, just to walk. So, he starts walking with the bike. Um, I was packing up, you know, tubes and yeah, pump and that kind of stuff. And, uh, I spot a van. I fly down the van. I say, “Hey.” And I I I don’t speak French. I speak what I call junior French, which is don’t know how that translates into other parts of the world, but very poor French. Yes. Very very poor French. So I I try and communicate with this van driver. My buddy’s up the road. You’ll see him. He’s pushing his bike. Can you give him a lift to this place? So I I write down a little note for Deck. And the van driver, you know, he seems to agree. So I thought, “This is great. Now, you know, Deck will get to the control, get the bike fixed, and somebody will give us a lift back, and you know, we’ll we won’t have lost too much time. Yeah. So, that’s fine. I start cycling up, and I spot Deck, and he’s still there on the side of the road, pushing spike, and I go, “What happened to the van driver?” And he goes, “Was no van driver?” So, obviously, this van driver had just tolerated me for a few minutes and then just drove on. Thought you were a serial killer or something. Yeah. He just smiled, nodded, and drove on. Serial killer with bad French. Yeah. Really poor French. So, um I don’t know. I got the notion, look, give me your wheel. I’ll cycle to control with your wheel. Get it fixed and somehow we’ll get back to you. And he’s left with a bike with no rear wheel. And he always talks about the people who must have passed by and spotted him walking with a bike with no rear wheel and wondering what’s going on there. Yeah, but you you were on a bike with you were carrying a wheel. You must have got some weird looks as well, did you? I did. I did. again, you know, you’re just like, “Okay, just get on with it.” Like, you know, um just holding it in my hand and cycling as much as I could. People probably thought you were being really cautious with an extra wheel, basically. Yeah. Ultimately prepared carrying a spare wheel. Yeah. Um so, yeah, I got to the control and handed to the mechanic and said, “Can you please sort that out?” He started doing his business. Found some of the the volunteers and we’re we’re very much at the back of the pack now. This is is it uh Van Ljour? I think it’s Van Ljul. Yeah. And it’s pretty much emptied out. So, there’s plenty of people there who have a discussion as to what they’re going to do to help. And eventually, one guy goes, “Look, I’ll cycle back with the wheel and uh where is this guy?” So, I rang up deck and a bar owner, and bear in mind this is probably 7 a.m. Some bar owner had spotted him with his bike and said, “Come in, sit down, have a cup of coffee, you know, they’ll they’ll sort you out.” And he was right. So the the guys drove back, met deck in at the bar. Um he got his wheel back on and cycled on to the land where I I don’t know I’ done my eating and got my card stamped and that kind of stuff. So yeah, bit of adventure. Yeah. So at this point I think you lost maybe quite a few hours, maybe three or four, but definitely three or four. And you lose what you lose more when I look back on it isn’t really the time is bad. It’s the momentum. Oh, completely. Yeah. It’s all gone, you know. Yeah. So, were you very anxious once you got going again? Like you really felt under the gun or not? Yes. But in the sense that as long as you keep moving forward, you’ve got a chance. And and the other side of it was I didn’t come all this way just to stop that soon. So, yeah, I think there was a part of me going, we’ll just cycle and see what happens. Yeah. Um so, yeah, we you know, we cycled and we kept catching people who were nice. Uh yeah, that definitely helps. You know, when you’re when you’re when you’re catching people on the road, your your spirits pick up all the time. We’d see someone in the distance and go, “Right, let’s chase them down, sit in behind them for a few minutes, go again, do the same thing again.” So, yeah. And I I think I read you got to breast in 40 hours. Is that correct? We did. Yeah, we made the time cut off all the way through actually. Yeah. That’s amazing, isn’t it? After it would be more amazing if I had some sleep as well, but no. Yeah, it was we got to breast. How much sleep did you get then to breast? We took some sleep in it’s not a control it’s in between uh I think Ludak and Kah maybe St. maybe. And yeah, maybe slept there for like an hour and a half, 90 minutes that I think. Like it really sounds like you and Declan were very like calm and you know, you didn’t stress out too much. You just kept moving forward. Is that accurate? You could look at it like that. I I mean I actually I don’t know how much different we would have been even if it hadn’t happened. We’re very much we knew we’d be under the kosh to make the time limit anyway. Yeah, you know, to make it, you know, we’d only done 1 600, barely made it in 40 hours. This was the same objective, you know, 600k, 40 hours. So, um I think it would have been a similar attitude, I guess, but you know, you’re out riding your bike, you’re having fun. It’s it’s not that much of anxiety either at the same time. What’s incredible to me, Elm, is so you you obviously were quite helpful to Declan, right? Okay. I absolutely okay. Uh but then you started getting problems. Am I correct in saying that? You had some derailer issues. Is that correct? Yeah, there were niggles. I’d say you’d call them, you know, it just wasn’t click. It wasn’t shifting as smoothly as it would you’d like it to do. Yeah. Uh nothing that was going to stop me cycling or anything like that. Just annoyance like grit in the bottom of your shoe. Um and yeah at one point maybe in carhe I asked the mechanic to have a look and I think he just uh index them a little bit but then few hund few k out the road. Yeah you know obviously the cable was fraying so um but look I was able to change them. I was a I had enough gears so it wasn’t really cool that big of a problem just just I think Declan described your bike as possibly the worst bike in all of PBP. Is that correct? Well he’s right I think. Yeah. Really? So, like I I it’s a I don’t know. I remember I bought it secondhand in 2014. It was an old bike then, but you know, in some ways it’s not about how old it is or how fancy it is, how well maintained it is. Yeah. Exactly. So, my brother-in-law is a proper bike mechanic. He Yeah. Um he works for himself, Bikeman Joe, and he has done a lot of work with team Ireland. He’s been to the world championships. You know, that’s great. He’s dealing with machines a lot more complex than mine. uh and I think he only works on my bike out of sympathy or something like or family family obligation. So in terms of Yeah, it’s not a fancy bike. It’s you know aluminium frame, really old carbon fork, but yeah, I get it ran like a dream apart from those very minor issues. Yeah, completely. Yeah. So then maybe describe the return back from breast things start getting stressful. Yeah. So like you know you read your your uh root profiles and all that kind of stuff but the section from from breast back to uh it’s car it’s just that’s a hard section or I mean I know the route changes slightly every every time but I found that extremely difficult. It was just you know climbs that and we were doing in pretty much the the hottest part of the whole trip as well. Yeah. Um, and the climbs were just, you know, nothing too long, but you never really got any momentum up and then, yeah, just pace wasn’t great. Stopping for drinks in different places just to try and stay cool and that kind of stuff. So, we definitely weren’t making good time like that. Alan, that was my memory, too, because I remember coming back just it was very hot. I remember just the hills were really hard. I remember pulling over into a graveyard and just sitting there because my feet were so so kind of swollen or something. And luckily I I managed to keep going, but I just remember how tough that that section was. Yeah, it really it really was. I mean, I I I do like cycling in in the heat. Um I’m not particularly well prepared for it, but yeah. Um I I like it and enjoy it, but yeah, that certainly weren’t in a scenario where we needed to keep pace. It wasn’t very conducive to that. So then when did things start like getting under pressure in in terms of time? Um we were out of time when we hit carhe I think but not by much maybe maybe only an hour. Um and I knew that you know Paulo Dun who I’ve spoken to before just keep moving. Don’t let them take your card from you. Get your card stamped. If they don’t stamp it just keep your card and keep going you know. Uh so I was very conscious of that but there never was any problems on any of the controls. They just stamped move on thing. Yeah. You know, they were very much more encouraging than perhaps you might I might have thought. Um, so yeah, we got this card stamped at Carhei and I think I went out the road and I get a phone I to use the facilities as it were and got a phone call from Deco and now my gears are gone completely. It’s like, okay, okay, all right. Let’s not panic. Go find the mechanic. Yeah. So he went back to find the mechanic and I cycled back in and we arrived at the mechanic stall. He’s packing up because you know time’s gone. We’re the last people there and uh he had to be convinced to take a look at Dex bike and he said no I’ll do it but you got to come to my shop. So we’re like oh yeah okay fair enough. So we his his shop was really close within maybe kilometer from the control. So that was great. And uh I remember there was there was two other guys there and there like it kind of put our predicament into perspective. um the two mobilebiles and one of them had been told you know you can’t continue you’ve got heat stroke so his colleague had said no look I I’ll stay with you and and uh you know try and sort this out so they were storing their bikes at the bike shop and they had to go off and get accommodation and trains home. So kind of put in perspective we while we weren’t making time at least we were still going. So yeah, mechanic did his magic, got um Dex’s gears working again, and uh you were back out on the road, and it was cooler now. You know, this is nighttime, so you know, ironically, we’re going a bit faster. Um but then yeah, we did this climb up a hill and uh I’m not joking here. So, and we weren’t alone. There was a bunch of maybe 10 people with us who had Yeah. followed us up the hill and uh pull out the up to then I hadn’t been navigating with a with a bike computer just using the signs because they’re everywhere and you can’t miss them supposedly. Yeah. So, turns out we had missed one at the bottom of the climb. And I looked at, you know, trying to see, can we get back onto the course anyway without, you know, I was like, no, we got to go back down, rejoin the route, keep going again. So, that that again, it’s momentum, you know, time was bad, but momentum really being sapped. So, we got as far as the next, it wasn’t a control. I think a sleep stop somewhere and uh I was like, no, I I needed to sleep. I needed an hour or two. Um the dorm dor dormatory was full so just slept on the floor and uh that wasn’t great. Got maybe an hour of sleep there. Woke up saw deck was awake cuz it’s right look no point lying down here just staring at the scene. Just get on the bikes keep going. So we kept going to um Ludiaak and yeah the control was closing up at this point but they still had food, they still had hot showers. They still had beds. Um timing. Say it again. Do they have timing mats? They were still there. Oh, yeah. They were They were still there. Yeah. Yeah. That’s the key ingredient, it seems. Okay. They were still stamping and there was still timing mats. Yeah. Yeah. So, when we came out of Ludiac, there was a lot less activity. You know, people had moved on. We’d slept for maybe, I don’t know, three hours or so and uh got back on the bike. Yeah. I definitely had a low point at that point. I was like, I done the maths. I was like, there’s no way we’re making it back. Yeah. No matter what, like no matter how well we go, we’re not going to make the time cut off. So I remember yeah I I called my wife to say right what what do we do here? And uh yeah that was an emotional moment but yeah she was great. She looked up you know options for trains and hotels and that kind of stuff. So you know we had like plan A was just keep cycling. Plan B was well here’s where you could get a train. Here’s where you can stay. That kind of stuff. So you know we kept moving and I remember chatting to this guy who was in our group T. We bumped into him on the road. who chatted to him at the start line and he was like, “Oh, no, no. We’ll still make it back.” And I was going, “That can’t be right. You’ve done the maths wrong there. There’s no way we’re going to make it.” And he was insistent and I was like, “Well, okay, maybe he’s right. So, we’ll just keep Maybe we we haven’t done them. It’s right.” Yeah. So, yeah, we keep cycling. Yeah. It is funny at that time like math seems very malible. That’s the term. You’re not 100% sure how it works at that point. So, maybe there is a chance. Yeah, there’s a chance. Yeah. Like maybe we’re the ones who are on. So yeah, we kept cycling and then I think we got in. Yeah. Did controls is it Tentineiac were still open? Still loads of people there. Loads of people who were bailing and and getting a lift back and that kind of stuff. And that’s hard because you’re like, you know, maybe that’s the right thing to do. There’s people there to help you as opposed to, you know, maybe having to stop in a village in the middle of nowhere where there isn’t any assistance. So yeah, but you know, foolish or not, we just kept going uh until we got to uh let’s see now, Fujer. Um and the timing master is still there and the controls are still there and we thought we will sleep for a few hours of a jer that was the plan. But they were like, “No, no, you won’t. We’re closing up here so you have no you can’t sleep here.” So you know, a few more people were in the same predicament. We like all the best thing about this, we weren’t alone. There’s plenty of other cyclists there. Yeah. Obviously not huge crowds, but there were other cyclists and we said, “All right, okay. We’ll just have to get a hotel because sleeping on the side of the road for a longer sleep isn’t really going to work. It’s okay for a short catnap, but we needed a few hours sleep.” So, we got a hotel. It was it was fine. Slept there, got up in the morning, went, “Okay, right. Let’s see what happens.” So, yeah, we we kept cycling. And it was only when we got to maybe what’s the next control after Fujer the land. Yeah, that’s when the timing mats were gone. The control stamps were gone. Uh very few people around. Uh so I remember you just walking around and just knew somebody to stamp my card. Somebody, anybody. So we found someone in the town hall who stamped the card. I love it, man. Got some food there and kept going. Yeah. Just keep going. Um I don’t want to miss the local drunk. Was the local drunk there or he’s later in the story? Uh the local drunk was in slightly later on. Uh okay, let me think. Yeah, we kept we kept going. Got to uh Mortan, I think. Yeah. 120 to go and that one is there’s nothing there. You get to control it’s really closed up now. Yeah. They’ve signs they’ve signs up for 2027 at that point. Yeah. Yeah. So, we cycle down to the um the the square and uh find a little tobac, a little cafe and uh get some whatever food they had and Coca-Cola and the barman stamps the card and we go great, another stamp got. So, we can keep rolling. So, um and that was fine. You know, we were we’re relatively good spirits at this stage because, you know, you know, 120 to go. That’s that’s a Saturday morning spin. We can do that. So, we kept going and I think at a low moment after that, maybe the Coca-Cola ran out and uh in I think it’s Cenotees is the name of the town. So, we had to try and find some food and uh get to the a little supermarket, mini market, and buy whatever food I can eat, biscuits mainly. There was no bananas left or anything like that. And the local drunk decides to engage me in conversation, which ordinarily would have been great fun. It’s part part of the color. But I was so tired. Yeah. And and really wasn’t in the mood for a chat with anybody, much less somebody whose language I don’t particularly speak well and don’t really want to talk to the, you know, anyway. So, I don’t know. He tried to convince me it was all over. Get off the bike. No, it’s not happening. Yeah, I like a good positive local drunk, not the one that tries to talk you out of, you know, PBP. It’s not what I needed. Cool. And yeah, so then we went on to to Drew and Drew was Drew was definitely the first place where there was no evidence that there’d ever have been PBP there at all short of again still a few cyclists on the road. We we Yeah, we small places with a guy called Bob. I I haven’t been able to find them since, but a an American writer he maybe done five PBPs. Yeah. Well, maybe he’ll see this. You never know. Maybe. Yeah. He um he was struggling a bit at at Drew and we were chatting to a local who was like you know what’s going on here and he was collecting his son from was a sandwich bar maybe a subway or something like that. Yeah. And uh so we told him the story and he was I’ll get my son to stamp your card because I we were thinking okay we’ll go up and try and find a bar that’s open. So he goes in knocks on the door son is brought out is you need to come out and stamp these guys cards. So he stamped our cards you know myself and Deck and Bob. Bob stayed with us then for the last Ben home for the last 30k and that was good because you stories about cycling PBP and I think as far back as the 80s certainly the 90s. Wow. Yeah, that was really good. So, you know, kept going and then yeah, till about 10k to go or so and then suddenly I I was expecting to be hit by a run of adrenaline and it was the opposite. The adrenaline ran out and it was a really slow last 10k. Really slow and painful. Uh, you know what I’m thinking is you may have invented a new way to do PBP, right? So, you’re you’re familiar with Adrian Hans, are you? I am. Yeah. Yeah. So, basically what you’re going to we’ll call it Alan Burke. Okay. That’s what it’s going to be called. And so, it’s basically you’ve got 110 hours. Is that right? And you go from bar to bar asking people, random strangers to sign your card. I like it. Well, I mean, like I I I knew my history in the old days. That’s how you got your card stamped. You local shop and or a local cafe and you got them to stamp the card and sign the card. That’s how it used to be done. So, and I’ll say it again. Amazing tenacity to finish. Well done. Okay. Pigheadedness perhaps. Yeah. No. Okay. That’s good. Great. Okay. So, I’m going to ask you the next question. Do you plan to do PBP again? I do. Yeah. Okay. Does it feel like Okay. Does it feel like But that is Okay. Uh, does it feel like unfinished business or it’s not really that you just enjoyed it so much? Oh, it’s both. It’s definitely both. Yeah. No, I really did enjoy it. I like it. No, I know. If you listen back to what I talked about there, maybe it sounds like torture, but there was loads of good bits and a hell of a lot more good stuff than there was bad stuff. So, yeah, like it’s it’s it’s such a privilege to do something like this. You know, you’re it’s like being on another planet. You know, you’re on your own. Okay, there’s a lot of people around, but you get to cycle your bike for four or five four day solid. It’s it’s an absolute brilliance. Yeah. You know, random question. Um, I grew up in County Limmerick, as you know. I always feel Britany where that where we do that ride. Feels very like Ireland. Do you feel that at all? The tractors, the agriculture, you know, you didn’t have to speak to the local drunks and uh random band drivers. It didn’t seem like Ireland then, let me tell you. Okay. Um, yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah. like it’s not it’s not Provence, you know, it’s not the Riviera. It’s certainly a hell of a lot closer to the west of Ireland in those in that context for sure. Yeah. Uh in general though, you would say that the local populants were very supportive. Is that correct? Oh, they were fantastic. Yeah. Like among the various places where I stopped to to fill the bottles like I remember stopping in a hairdressers in a small village just knocked on the door said right I need some water. See if we play. Yeah, no problem. Fill up the bottles, interrupt some poor man’s haircut. Yeah, fill the bottles. Um Yeah, there was camper vans on the side of the road, family stalls, like that stuff is amazing. Completely. It’s everything. It’s everything. It’s It’s built to be. It’s And more. Agreed. Um so before I ask you your three tips, which are perhaps related to my next question, like what are the big things you will do differently when you come back in 2027? I’ll have more miles in my legs. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that that’s the big one. Like Okay. If I had to ride the exact same bike but with more miles in my legs, it’d be fine. I do intend to have a new bike as well, but um yeah, I think that if we were, you know, if you look at the maths are kind of funny in this like if you Yeah, if we were only two kilometers an hour faster over the whatever 60 odd hours of cycling that we did, that’ll bring us in on time or something like that. You don’t you don’t need to be a hell of a lot faster than we were to make it in on time. However, however, and this is the the difference is to really enjoy the experience, I need to be another 3 or 4 km an hour faster again because you get to have the time to stop at the roadside stalls and chat to people and not have to worry about, oh, I’m not going to have enough time. So, my intention is to go back a much faster cyclist. Not to do it in a in a fast time, in a you know, 60 hours or whatever. It’s to do it in 90 hours, but to to be able to enjoy all the stops along the way. That’s the plan. Are we are we bringing Declan again with us? De can make his own mind up, but I think he’s managed to do it. Yeah. Okay, good. Great. All right, let’s end then with your three tips that guarantee a finish in 2027. Well, yeah, I’m reluctant to give any tips given that I didn’t finish in time. Um, but you know, I I’ll give my tips for what they’re worth. You know, they come with the caveat of that I haven’t actually finished it inside the the time cut off. But um uh the first one is just to appreciate the um the chance that you have to take part in this. You know, it’s it’s not something that someone forced you to do. You chose to do it. And it’s such a privilege to be able to take part in something like this. I I’m I’m certainly not aware of any cycling events that are anything like this. Like with 7,000 people for four days, it’s just, you know, 200 fans only has 200 people. It’s it’s just not the same. Um, so yeah, yeah, they get a few more people on the sides of the roads, I guess. But, you know, yeah, I think that’s it. I think that’s number one thing and and to have that in the back of your head as you go through it because it’s easy to feel a bit sorry of yourself if if you know your legs are a bit sore, but really you’re in a very good spot. So, that’ll be my first tip. Um, the second one is I I kind of always bank the hard times from the qualifiers or from just other cycles and make sure they bubble to the surface if you’re having a bad time in France. Like that’s 600 qualifier, the hardest cycle I’ve ever done in the worst weather I’ve ever chosen to be out in. And you know, if again you’re having a a bad moment or thinking, “Oh, is this really worth it?” You think back to things like that. Um, yeah. And I like similar to to other people who’ve had to sacrifice things for for me to be there. You certainly think about that because you know my family have had to put up with this. Um and you know that’s not easy. They’ve had to sacrifice as well. So you can’t give up easily. You know I think think back to what other people have had to sacrifice. So you know in the in that context you really got to give it everything you have. Fair enough. If you have a medical issue that forces your withdrawal, that’s one thing. But otherwise, I think it’s, you know, it’s important to just keep moving. Yeah. Great. And the the last tip then is cycle, eat, or sleep. If you’re not doing one of those things, you know, you’re just uh you’re making hard work for yourself later on in the trip. Now, I’m I’m I’m not going to follow that one too much. I intend to be faster to have the, you know, opportunity to to to speak to people, to stop at the roadside stalls, but mainly I’ll be stopping to eat and uh stopping to sleep. Uh yeah, but yeah, you know, I think certainly for the first 600k that that’s probably a thing to think about. You know, really try and bank some time to enjoy the spend homeland. Alan, three great trips. Thank tips. Thank you very much. Uh pleasure to meet you. Uh maybe I’ll see you in Gway one of these days, but definitely 2027. Okay. All going well. All going well. Okay. Talk soon. Bye-bye. Thanks, Peter. Bye-bye.