The start was at 9:30pm, but the common wisdom was that we ought to show up earlier to get a decent place in line. There were more than 3000 riders registered for the 90 hour start, departing in six waves of roughly 500 each, and if you didn't get a good place in line, then you weren't going to start until well after 11pm. The start time was tough, and intentionally so. It meant that you started a little more than an hour after darkness fell, and that you would have to ride through the night before arriving at the first checkpoint. By the time the sun rose, you would be tired and sleep deprived, having already ridden 100 miles with little resupply and waking to the quiet reality that you weren't even a quarter way done with this event.

This and a hundred other worries were buzzing through my mind as my group approached the starting arch at 10:10pm. A light rain had come in as we shuffled through the stadium,and I wasn't sure if I had enough sleep beforehand. I wanted to delay, stall and wait. But before my nerves could get to me we were off -- hurtling past the arch and into a gauntlet of spectators and well-wishers, clapping and shouting us onwards. "Bonne Courage! Bonne Route! Allez! Allez! Allez!"

The first stage was a 140km trek from St. Quentin to Mortagne-Au-Perche, a medieval town that as the name might imply, was perched on a not-so-small hill. The route itself seemed to be pretty gentle, a warmup for the challenges ahead, and it felt thrilling to be zooming past these dark open fields in a pack of hundreds. I had lost the friends that I started with, all of us scattered in pockets of velocity across the countryside, but I knew that we'd regroup later on. For now, I just tried to focus on the ride at hand, and getting to the next checkpoint, one kilometre at a time.

Thirty kilometres in, the crowds had died down and the cheering had quieted. It was nearly midnight by this point, and I expected that most of the well-wishers had gone home for the night. Still, I was proven wrong as rolled into a village, where a single cafe stayed open, light spilling out into the street and welcoming all who would choose to stop. Stop, I did, aiming to get a cafe to keep me up until dawn, and instead getting one bought for me by a local who made me promise him to finish this thing. I didn't have the French to describe how, for the last year, I'd be telling friends, family and co-workers that I would ride and finish PBP, and that if I were to fail in this endeavor, there would be more than one man in Chateaneuf who would be disappointed, but I welcomed his encouragement and made the promise to him all the same.

Still, I wasn't sure of myself. The rain was relentless. The international crowd reinforced the fact that I was surrounded by strangers, speaking a dozen different languages, none of them I felt to be my own. A queasiness in my stomach indicated that my Sustained Energy might already be spoiling. Still, I arrived in Mortagne Au Perche a little after 3 in the morning, dumped the Sustained Energy, scrubbed out the bottle and mixed up a new one while picking up a plate of pasta in the cafeteria. With all of my food squared away, I set a fifteen minute alarm on my cell phone, then promptly fell asleep. Maybe when I woke up it would turn out to all be a dream.

My alarm bolted me awake and with my mind on autopilot, I gathered my things and headed out. The rest was enough to get my body to cool down, and as I headed out into the wind and the wet, I could feel my body shivering as I tried to remember where I parked my bike. As I remounted and headed out into the flourescent lit streets, I hoped dawn would be near.

Despite the catnap, I could still feel myself nodding off as the ride progressed. I tried my old tricks -- singing, eating, counting backwards in French, and these would eventually work for a bit, then my attention would lapse, and I'd start nodding off again. Eventually, a fast pace line of cyclists flew past me, and I grabbed their wheel. Suddenly, the focus that I needed to keep up, ride hard and stay in the next rider's draft was enough to wake me up. As the sun rose, I found myself in the company of a quintet of Japanese randonneurs and a lone Bretonnian. The Japanese had sent a large delegation to PBP -- 110 riders according to some rumours. Most of them seemed rather shy, though I suspect it was because they weren't that comfortable with English or French.

A fellow rode up next to me and asked me in broken, Japanese accented English if he could take my picture, and I said sure if I could take his. From there, I told him about how I had gone to visit Japan last year, visiting both Kyoto and Tokyo.

"Did you go to Grand Bois?" he asked.
"Hai." I said.

At that he laughed and then shouted something back to his comrades while pointing out the Honjo fenders that I had mounted on my bike, and I heard the mutterings of acceptance as we found our common bond. I wouldn't ride with the Japanese too often after that, but whenever we'd see each, we'd nod and smile. It didn't take much to get that sort of acceptance.



Later, as we approached the first official control at Villaines-La-Juhel, I recognized Glen off in the distance. One of the New England randonneurs, and a friend of Bruce's, I hadn't ridden with him often, but was told that we were probably a fair match for speed, so I called out to him as I passed and asked him how he was doing.

"Not good," he said, "getting sleepy. Feeling tired."

"Get on my wheel, then," I shouted back, "I'll tow you in."

"You sure? Don't want to slow you."

"Don't worry. We got time, and it should help wake you up."

So, with that, I finished the first 200k to Villaines La Juhel -- a century before breakfast -- and for the first time since I got to France, I started to believe that I could actually do this crazy thing.