I started off near-bonking, and riding hard. I stopped at a cafe selling bagets and Cokes on the sidewalk before the first control, and bought a second sandwich for my pocket. This helped me keep going in spite of my malnutrition to start the ride. I was evidently unable to sustain my pace in the couple of hours before sunrise, and was losing too much time at the controls to maintain my target times all the way to Brest, and I reached there at about 11PM on Monday night. I sat down to eat and to assess whether I was out of the running for the Charlie Miler Society, and decided it was beyond reach, so I resolved to sleep and leave after daylight, which I did. Only there was no place to sleep. By the time I had picked a spot and had set-up a bedroll, I got 3 hours of sleep and then was very inefficient in getting going again. I ended up going back to the cafeteria to eat breakfast, and I believe I had been in the Brest control area for 10 hours by the time I was finally rolling again. The next two segments had a lot of climbing, and the bike was not performing well, squeaking like crazy and driving me to distraction. In fact, I stopped at a control during the wee hours of Monday morning and a mechanic pulled the crank off to check whether the bike seemed to be mechanically sound to him. I don't remember for sure, but I think it had been beforehand that I had consulted with another mechanic. All time lost... I was climbing slow, but picked my speed up on the flats later that day. I stopped in the wee hours at a control at the end of the third night and slept for an hour in the cafeteria, stretched across 4 chairs just before daybreak. I fell to the floor trying to sit up from the chairs. Some guy took my picture laying down across the 4 chairs, with my head in the shade, slightly under the edge of the table. Otherwise, I had three periods of 20 minute naps, I believe. It was a total of either 4 or 5 hours of sleep for the ride. I finished feeling quite strong on the fourth night. I made a friend from Norway, and we actually stopped and helped a few people on the way to the penultimate control and on the last leg of PBP; we finished together. I came across Shai at the second to last control, and he was quite jovial and feeling upbeat; a pleasure to see him as always. I also saw several other riders I knew at one control or another, and along the road, which added to the fun of the adventure. I failed to have the Garmin running during two significant parts of the ride. The first was when leaving the control in or near Fougeres, at mile 191.3; the loss of data covers exactly 1 hr of what was recorded as "stopped time", and a distance traveled of about 10.6 miles (575'/-579'). RWGPS est. time for that section is 0:40:25, suggesting a true stopped time at the control of only 20 minutes. [http://ridewithgps.com/routes/9777901] The second significant loss of data was at mile 717.3, and represents 1 hr 48 min of what was recorded as stopped time leaving the area of Dreux (the penultimate control, for the last stage, #15). Distance covered was about 16.9 mi. (652'/-570'). Est. time per RWGPS = 1:03. [http://ridewithgps.com/routes/9777921] Adding in these two distances brings my total distance covered for PBP to 767 miles.