For Women Only |
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For Women Only |
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The 1999 Paris-Brest-Paris statistics listed 234 women riders. Out of a total of 3573 riders, this amounted to a mere 6.4 % of women on the course. The most obvious result of this imbalance was the "hostile take over" of all women’s lavatories and showers by the half-dressed, perspiration-soaked male randonneur population. For an American-born-and-raised female, this was quite a shock. My first restroom scrimmage was in Villaines la Juel, where the back ends of a row of males were the first sight upon entry into a room with what I interpreted as the international symbol for "woman" (the blue circle with the white triangle). After consultation with the "help desk" (staffed by two friendly, apologetic French women), I was guided to the door of the handicapped restroom, where I waited about 10 minutes before the occupant (a male) finished up. At other Controles, I was not as lucky. In Tinteniac, we had to share the women’s room with the males, in spite of the efforts of the female Controle workers to keep them out. Luckily, there were doors on the stalls. However, by 5:30 PM on Tues., the overall condition of the room was completely unhygienic. (We all know what the males do to the bathroom at home, don’t we ladies?) Ludeac had a row of stalls (with doors), but the floors were completely disgusting. Since there were NO showers there, the males had taken over the garden hose area, stripped down, and were hosing each other off in front of us all as if it were "business as usual". Carhaix was by far the worst shock. The toilets were pits in the ground with a couple of foot rests. An arrangement like this may be totally acceptable for male plumbing; however, in my experience, it was a real challenge to accomplish one’s goal with female plumbing. Once the toilet was flushed, you had to be ready to bail out of there (in bike shoes with cleats) before the water and whatever else it took with it arrived to your feet.
Relieving oneself out in Nature posed its own problems for females. To be discrete, one had to walk quite a distance from the road and find "just the right spot". I used my tandem captain as a decoy, making him stand by the road, while I was off behind a tree or bush. Sometimes this worked, but I got the impression the other riders interpreted the arrangement as a "Captain-Stoker Incident", whereby the Stoker was no longer speaking to or willing to be on the same bike as the Captain.
I am not convinced that the male randonneurs intentionally tried to make things difficult for the 6.4% women "randonneuses". It was just that they were so single-minded in their goal of finishing PBP . . . ahead of someone else! Perhaps the elbowing was a little more pronounced for the 80 hr. group, but in general, everyone had their goals and timeline for PBP. Getting food quickly and taking care of the rest of business in the most efficient way possible was the highest priority.
On the return trip from Brest, I noticed a distinct change. Perhaps it was the delirium, fatigue and lack of REM sleep. Perhaps they were starting to miss their nurturing wives. But at the Controle in Carhaix, I was nearly bowled over by a Frenchman who was desperately trying to find out where to get his card stamped. I gently pointed him in the right direction and sent him off with a pat on the back. He stopped, genuinely acknowledged his gratitude, and stumbled off. From that point on, I took it as my charge to be as friendly and helpful as possible.
One of the "perks" that came from being among the few women, was that people cheered us on especially hard. "Courage, Madame!" and "Bravo, Madame!" were commonly heard. They were particularly sympathetic to me as my tandem partner and I dripped sweat on the long climb back over the mountain from Brest. In fact, it looked as though one woman was snarling at Ken for "forcing" me to do such a ride!
Toward the end of the ride, everything had started to hurt. My knees were inflamed, my saddle sores were extremely agonizing, my right shoulder was numb from the accumulative pressure from my CamelBak, my tongue had painful lesions on it, and I was dizzy from low blood sugar, since Ken did not want to stop between Nougent and the finish, and we hadn’t eaten any real food for 4 hours. As we rode around a traffic circle near Guyancourt, a man stuck his head out the window of his car, looked directly at me, and said, "Bravo, Madame !". I instantly burst into tears! At the finish, all women who had completed the course were awarded a long stemmed red rose. We carried them high, as trophies. It seemed to make up for all the inconveniences, lack of hygiene, bad smells and elbows in the face!