Road to PBP 2019 Part 2

So when Ties Urie Photography first approached me and asked if he could do a documentary on my (long) road to PBP* I was hesitant to say yes.

Not because I thought it would be awkward to have someone following me around with a camera (though that was a big part of it) but also because endurance riding isn’t… well… it isn’t exactly exciting to watch. 

*Road to Paris-Brest-Paris (PBP) means qualifying first:  I needed to complete a full Super Randonneur series of ACP brevets between November 1st 2018 and mid-June 2019. This is a set of four rides of four offical Audax BRMs of four different distances: 200km, 300km, 400km, and 600km).

It’s not racing, there isn’t any jostling for position, or fist pumps and champagne sprays at the finish line (well, not usually anyways). It’s a lot of long, consistently-paced kilometres out in the middle of nowhere. With a lot of sitting down and eating. Some have suggested that ultra-endurance riding is more of a food eating competition with some cycling in between.

I know why I love it, but also understand that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. So when Ties then handed me a Go-Pro and asked me to shoot the 600km qualifier from a first-person perspective I was even more nervous. I knew how to write up a blog about how the ride went afterwards… but to do it during the ride? What do I even film? What do I say? Ties said just shoot whatever I could, talk about what was happening, how I felt, and show what the ride was like.

And then he’d work his magic.

So here it is: 600km in 6 minutes. Or as I see it, my slow descent into madness. Erm, slight language warning.