Weather Woes Wallop PBP
 
Report from RBR correspondent Les Woodland in France . . . .  
 
[NOTE:  Even the French weathermen use fake names.. Les Woodland -- oh yeah, right....   PB]
 
"The weather is simple," said Europe-1, one of France's most authoritative radio stations. "If it's not already raining where you are then it soon will be."  
 
That was 8 a.m. on Tuesday -- late news for the 4,000 randonneurs who'd set off hours earlier on the longest ride of their season. Among that number were 570 Americans. Rain was already torrenting down as they left the western suburbs of Paris, and that was how it stayed for the rest of the night.  
 
This year's Paris-Brest-Paris quickly turned into 1,200 km (745 miles) of misery for riders who had already ridden qualifying events of 200, 300, 400 and 600 km just to be there.  
 
"I watched them leave and you could see that even though the excitement made them cheer and wave, there was a look of real concern on many of their faces," said Jean-Louis Tachlon, who'd crossed the country from Lyons to support his clubmates. "For some there will be a real risk of hypothermia."  
 
PBP, held every four years, has been lashed by rain and buffeted by cold northerly crosswinds in one of the worst summers Europe has known.  
 
Forecasters said the rain was due to end only when the last riders were back to Paris after 90 hours. Northerly winds on a route that runs east-west are almost as difficult as headwinds. Temperatures have been consistently in the 50-60F (10-16C) range. More than the usual number of retirements is expected when the final accounting is done.  
 
The irony is that in the previous PBP, France was hit not by winter-in-summer but a heat wave that killed 15,000 citizen. Then the heat vanished with just days to go. Many will be wishing the rain had done the same this year.