This one is for @bikesaviours and @communitycycles After 62 hours and 548 miles, Jenn’s shifting failed. The rear derailleur’s unserviceable parallelogram spring had snapped. This left Jenn with 2 gears, as she still had the derailleur to pull tension for front shifting. But if she shifted the cassette down, she wouldn’t be able to upshift. PBP is non-stop hills, and muscle memory is strong. The first “fix” was a couple bands of old tube. While I rigged the derailleur, Jenn called a shop in Fougeres, 40mi away. A few miles later we switched to an elastic cord salvaged from Jenn’s bag, tied to a brake boss. When we arrived at the shop all they had was a SRAM 1x derailleur, which the mechanic thought he could get working even though it didn’t have the take up for a double. It was a no-go. She could have the big chainring or the small, but not both. We’d been there for an hour, and needed to get rolling. The broken derailleur went back on. Having seen the elastic cord solution, the mechanic dug around and found some sturdy rubber bands that I attached with a zip tie. That gave Jenn 9 of 11 rear gears, which she rode another 215 miles, to the the end of Paris Brest Paris. Nicely done Jenn
Paris Brest Paris is, bittersweetly, over. Finished in 85h05m with a couple nights of pretty good sleep, and more than 2 hours dealing with a freak mechanical. Post on that coming later.
In Dreux. 4am. Mind good. Body good. 20 minute nap. Coffee. 26mi to go. Back on the bike!
We’re through Carhaix again, nearly to Loudeac. Tinteniac seems doable, but the night can be unpredictable. Updates infrequent and such, usually while I’m waiting in line for something.
Made it to Carhaix last night, took awhile to get to Brest this morning. Headed to Tinteniac.
PBP Day 1, unedited. Waiting for food in Tinteniac. Napped in Villanes last night. Going to try to push on to Brest today. Sporadic, non existent, or unintelligible updates to be expected.
And we’ve arrived in Versailles, where we’re staying until the start of Paris Brest Paris on Sunday
After years of use, both of our randonneuring bags were in need of some love stitching before shipping off for Paris-Brest-Paris.
