Report on India’s participation in Paris-Brest-Paris Randonneur 2011

The first Brevet de Randonneur Mondiaux was conducted in India in January 2010. In the year-and-a-half that followed, BRMs were conducted in 3 cities. Of these, 15 Super-randonneurs, 5 each from Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore, registered to ride in Paris-Brest-Paris Randonneur 2011. This was the first time that India was participating, and only one woman had qualified and registered.

Many riders almost lost their chance to come for PBP 2011 as the French Consulate in Mumbai refused visas to five riders. However, thanks to an official invitation letter from ACP and a personal guarantee by the Pune Organiser, the Consulate finally did grant visas. All 15 participants from India started the PBP 2011, although one rider was granted his visa only two days before PBP and managed to reach Paris just the day prior to his ride.

Two riders (Samim Rizvi and Kailas Patil) completed the route successfully within their respective times. Another rider (Shreyas Kumar M.) completed the route outside of 90 hours; a claim is being investigated by the homologation team, and his final ride result is still awaited at the time of writing this report.

All the others had to abandon the ride at various stages between Carhaix and Dreux... an outcome that was not up to the expectations we had set for ourselves. The high dropout rate could be attributed to the challenges of travelling to a foreign country with cycles for the first time, dealing with climate and environment changes, jet lag and obtaining the right food (for the vegetarians amongst us), as also the fact that India was debuting at the PBP. However, the combined experience and guidance of this pioneering team should help India put up a much better performance in PBP 2015.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the organizers and their team of volunteers who extended every assistance along the route to all the riders and made this ride a truly memorable one for all the participants. And a very special “thank you” to the people of France for being such gracious hosts, especially those along the entire PBP route, who encouraged us in every possible manner.

On behalf of all the Randonneurs of India,

Divya Tate and Anil Uchil