Paris-Brest-Paris: A 1,200-Kilometer Sleepless Odyssey

PBP (Paris-Brest-Paris) is the world’s oldest and most prestigious ultra-distance cycling challenge. I spent two years preparing just to complete this 1,200-kilometer journey across France within 90 hours.

What Is PBP?

Paris-Brest-Paris, known as PBP, is held once every four years and stands as the temple of randonneuring. The route departs from the outskirts of Paris, heads west to Brest on the Brittany peninsula, and then returns along the same course, covering roughly 1,200 kilometers in total. Riders must finish within 90 hours (the most generous time group), with no mandatory rest breaks along the way — you choose how much to ride and how much to sleep, but the clock waits for no one.

To qualify for PBP, you must complete a series of brevets — 200, 300, 400, and 600 kilometers — all within the same year. That process alone is a long trial in itself.

Two Years of Preparation

I started preparing seriously for PBP in 2022. The first year was a foundation-building year — building fitness, practicing fueling strategies for long-distance riding, and learning the technique of taking brief naps on the bike. Yes, you read that right: at the level of a challenge like PBP, knowing how to maintain riding capacity on minimal sleep is essential coursework.

2023 was the qualification year. I completed the 200 km brevet in February, the 300 km in April, the 400 km in June, and the 600 km in July. Each one was a small-scale rehearsal for PBP, gradually acclimating my body and mind to the demands of long-duration riding.

The 600 km brevet was especially unforgettable. I set out from Taipei, rode via the Southern Cross-Island Highway to Taitung, and then rode back to Taipei. I only slept for two hours the whole way, passing out on a chair outside a convenience store with my head resting on my backpack. When I woke up, my body was as stiff as a plank, but after riding for another ten minutes, everything felt normal again. That experience gave me a much more concrete mental preparation for PBP.

Flying to France

In August 2023, I flew to Paris together with six other cycling friends from Taiwan. We brought our own bikes and completed registration at Rambouillet, south of Paris. The atmosphere at the registration site felt like a carnival, with more than six thousand riders from all over the world gathered together, the air thick with the scent of chain oil and excitement.

The night before the start, I lay in my hotel bed unable to sleep. It wasn’t jet lag — it was the endless stream of fellow riders wheeling their bikes past my window, the clatter of metal and the chatter of many languages bringing the whole little town to life.

The Start: Finding Your Own Rhythm Among Six Thousand Riders

I was assigned to the 4 p.m. starting wave. When the starting horn sounded, more than six hundred riders surged onto the road at once — a spectacle striking enough to raise goosebumps. But I reminded myself: don’t get swept up in the atmosphere, ride at your own pace.

The first 300 kilometers passed in darkness. The French countryside lanes were surprisingly quiet, pitch black beyond the reach of my headlight. Occasionally, passing through a small village, residents would stand by the roadside ringing bells to cheer us on — it felt like riding a stage of the Tour de France.

Every control point (Contrôle) was a small paradise of resupply. Croissants, ham sandwiches, hot soup, and coffee prepared by French volunteers became something I looked forward to every few dozen kilometers. What moved me most was the volunteers’ attitude — even at three in the morning, they still greeted every arriving rider with a smile, stamping cards and handing out food.

The Turnaround at Brest: A Psychological Turning Point

By the time I reached Brest, I had already ridden nearly 600 kilometers, taking about 36 hours. At the control point at the turnaround, I let myself sleep for two hours — lying on a simple mattress on a gymnasium floor, surrounded by the snores and groans of hundreds of equally exhausted riders.

My mental state after the turnaround was completely different. On the way out, Brest was a clear goal that gave me a reason to keep pushing forward. But on the way back, the goal became Rambouillet, 600 kilometers away — a distance that felt especially remote to an exhausted body.

Hell on the Third Day

The second day of the return leg (the third day overall) was the most painful stretch. Accumulated sleep deprivation began producing hallucinations — I saw trees by the roadside turn into human shapes, and a distant barn that looked like a castle. The most dangerous moment came on a downhill stretch, when I realized I was riding with my eyes closed; it was the shout of an Italian rider beside me that snapped me awake.

That afternoon, I made a difficult decision: to stop and get proper sleep. I wrapped myself in an emergency blanket on the grass beside a control point and slept for a full three hours. When I woke up, I felt reborn. The cost of those three hours was a tighter time margin, but I knew it was the right choice.

The Final 200 Kilometers: A Race Against the Clock

After that sleep, I felt like a different person. For the final 200 kilometers, I maintained a steady average speed of 25 km/h — a solid performance for legs that had already ridden 1,000 kilometers. The French countryside in the morning light was almost unreally beautiful — golden wheat fields, ancient stone churches, winding country lanes — and if I hadn’t been racing against time, I would have loved to stop and take it all in.

In the final 50 kilometers, I met up with my fellow Taiwanese rider, Lao Zhang. We rode side by side in silence, with no need for words — just being there together was the best encouragement of all.

The Meaning of the Finish Line

When the finish arch at Rambouillet came into view, my eyes welled up instantly. Total time: 87 hours and 22 minutes. Before the 90-hour cutoff, I had completed the longest ride of my life.

At the finish, an elderly Frenchman placed a medal around the neck of every finisher. As he hung that heavy metal medal around mine, he said quietly, “Bravo, vous l’avez fait.” (“Congratulations, you did it.”)

Back to Ordinary Life

It took two full weeks after returning to Taiwan for my body to fully recover. But what PBP left me with wasn’t just a medal and a number — it was an entirely new understanding of long-term goals. Two years of preparation, four qualifying brevets, and over ten thousand kilometers of training mileage were all condensed into those 87 hours.

The most important lesson PBP taught me is this: in an ultra-distance challenge, speed is not what decides the outcome — consistency is. Being able to make the right decisions at your most exhausted moments — when to eat, when to sleep, when to push, when to slow down — that is the true secret to finishing 1,200 kilometers.

I’m already looking forward to the next PBP, four years from now.

Related Reading

• The Century-Old Tradition of Unstructured Long-Distance Riding: Randonneuring and Audax
• Paris-Roubaix, the Hell of the North: The History and Challenge of the Cobblestone Classic
• In-Depth Analysis of the Paris-Roubaix One-Day Race: The Legend of the Cobblestones from the Hell of the North
• Paris-Roubaix: Tactics and History of the Cobblestone Hell