The Bike

About two years before PBP I realized I had a bit of extra space in my garage so I decided I needed to fill it with a bike built just for PBP. You need a special bike for a special ride, right? Most of the other bikes in my garage were built to be the "Last" bike I would ever need. That is quite different from the "Last" bike I will ever want. I decided this would be the ultimate Brevet/Commuter bike.

FRAME
I had always lusted over the Vanilla's so decided with his 18 month wait I would send in my deposit and wait til my name was called. In the mean time I was able to scour Ebay and Velo Swaps to come up with most of the parts I wanted. Again, being the Ultimate bike for me I was trying to keep with the money is no object mentality. I knew I wanted the bike to be tough looking but beautiful as well. Kind of a Mean Elegance. The way I described it to the builder, Sacha White, was that I was looking for the Bently to the Rolls Royce, the AMG to the Mercedes, the Shelby to the Mustang. I wanted as many of the part as possible to be black and I wanted the bike to be very clean looking. I also discussed with Sacha a cool way to attach the lights and route the wiring for the two E6 lights. I wanted to have the lights and wiring all as one unit that was easy to mount and remove. The "Light Rack" is one unit that attaches to the fork with three screws. On in winter and on long brevets and off in summer. I have a second set of Chris King Mango disc wheels when not using the black Schmitt/King set. Sasha built a cutom stem that is threadless but looks like it is old school threaded and a disc fork with the front disc brake cable going thru the fork leg rather thon along the outside. Also, no Vanilla brevet bike would be complete without the painted to match Honjo fenders and his polished stainless steel "V" dropouts. Being the Ultimate frame, at the last minute I gave the go ahead to add the welded on stainless steel "Vanilla" logo on the down tube instead of a decal. Sacha and I discussed colors by me telling him which bikes on his web site I liked the looks of and which I did not. Then I left it up to him. I did not know what color the bike would be until the first time I laid eye on it and when I finnaly saw it I had a grin from ear to ear. The best way to describe the color is Avacado green with a dark green panel with barely noticeable gold highlights in the lug cutouts. Agian, this keeps with the "Clean" look Sacha and I were shooting for.

PARTS
I ride to work two to three times a week and the ride is 45 miles round trip. I commute year round so in the winter it is dark both ways. So a black disc Schmitt Dynohub was definatly on the list of must haves. If this was going to be the "Ultimate" then it would have to be steel and lugged. Over the last couple of years I have been caught in a few very wet rides. I promised myself if I ever had a bike built for me it would have disc brakes. Not only would this work great in the rain but the rim sidewalls would remain black and clean looking. Other details were,

Campy Carbon Record 10 speed shifters/brake levers to allow for clean looks and a front Berthoud bag.
FSA carbon triple cranks 52/42/32
Chris King Black & Mango disc wheelsets laced to Velocity Aerohead 32 rims
Chris King 1" Mango headset
Dura Ace braze-on front der (again for clean look)
XTR rear der (mostly black)
Ultegra 12-25 9 speed cassette (eventually black)
Sella An-Atomica Watershed saddle (black)
Ritchey WCS seatpost (black)
Ritchey WCS 42cm ergo bars (black)
Michelin Pro Race 25mm tires (black)
Velo Orange brass bell mounted on top of the stem thanks its own braze-on by Sacha

Specialized mango bottle cages

Oh, and Mango anodized valve stem caps. Yes, I actually found some.

RIDE
I only had the bike for about 2 months before PBP but was confident it would be fine since it was being built especially for me and my measurements. I guess the best compliment I can give to Sacha is that for over 1,200k I was NEVER uncomfortable or sore. The bike ran fantastic and never missed a beat. I would also have to give a big "THANK YOU to Tom from Sella An-Atomica for his wonderful saddle. Agian, over 1,200K with no issues. Since my longest ride up to PBP was a 600k my biggest worry was the saddle or rather my butt. I could just about get through a 600k with the Brooks Swift I used but had my doubts about doing a 1,200k on it. But the Sella An Atomica came thru with flying colors and that was on a very wet 1,200k.

2007 PBP

OK, this has taken me quite a while to put down in words. It was such a long ride, not to mention a long vacation, that it may take me as long to write this thing as it took me to ride it.

For the past four years I have been riding long distances on my various bikes. I started out looking to find others to ride 100 mile rides with and has now grown to over 700 miles at a time.

These past four years were training for the granddaddy of all long distance rides Paris-Brest-Paris (PBP). PBP is held every four years so it is kind of the Olympics of long distance cycling. In order to quailfy for PBP you must ride, in the year of PBP, a 200k in 13.5 hours, a 300k in 20 hours, a 400k in 27 hours and a 600k in 40 hours. I have done this entire series each of the past four years and I really enjoy all the rides. I especially enjoy the longer 400k and 600k as you will certainly ride at night. If you have never riden at night it is very peaceful and quite, and with the proper gear it is a blast.

For 2007 I rode the San Francisco 200k, 300k & 400k as well as a 400k out of Santa Rosa the 600k out of Davis and another 300k up in Portland when I picked up my new bike. The 300k in SF was a wet and windy ride and it rained in Portland as well. The Davis 600k had an 8pm start which is similar to the 90 hour start in PBP. These three brevets really came in handy for this years PBP. I have ridden a few times in the rain and other than getting wet it is not so bad. The trick is to stay warm and/or to be able to get warm using a change of clothes or finding a laundry mat. The Davis 600k taught me that if there is a night start I will have a tough time riding thru the second night. Very valuable info for PBP and the rain rides will prove equally helpful.

Fast Forward to August 2007