Am off at 3.00am tomorrow morning for the European in Belgium and then riding to Fleur in Normandy for the French version. I will be at the bar in the permanence (most nights) but particularly on Wednesday between 4.00 and 6.00ish should anyone wish to try to blag a beer from me. I’m challenged in the hair department and will wear a Phill Corley top. Would be great to put faces to names.

off for 30 min sleep. hope to see some body there!

I’ll be there Mr Nuts! What is “the permanence”?

Never been to one of these things before…

Noté !

It’s the bar in the place with all the people selling things, Dave. If you want beer you have to get tickets but I generally get wine from one of the stands.

I’ll wear a leather “Indy” bush hat when I go to the permanance.

beer tickets? wtf?

I’m going to this thing on spec. I REALLY hope they aren’t going to wind me up with a load of **** rules. Non I don’t belong to the French BCF and non I didn’t pre enter in advance in January 2002. And oui I am going to ride my bike.

Well unless you’ve signed up you won’t get into the permanance unless you can get someone to lend you a badge. They’ll accept last minute signing up if you’re cyclo-camping and you stand a good chance of still be able to sign up online if you go to the web page.

Is your bike a VTT or roadie, Dave? We do the VTT version.

f me you need a badge as well now.

ROADIE how fing dare you. I’ll be on me Orange Kona with oo I think my yellow Mavic shoes for the colour combination win.

Also, I tried to book le camping car into le campsite; duly filled in all of my details on the online form, pressed the valider button… and nothing happened. Hence the turning up on spec.

Well print off the form, fill it in and post it then.

Madame will be on the only orange Renault NRS I’ve ever seen.

Printed, scanned and emailed. Get with the 21st Century Ed. BTW – are you female? Just asking as I don’t want to waylay the wrong leather hat wearer. Is a Renault NRS a bike?

How have you paid? Or is it when you arrive? Is this when you get “the badge” What else do I need to know?

Sorry for all the questions, but you seem to have done one of these things before and I’m a virgin.

You can “post it” by courriel if you wish.

I paid with an “e-carte bleu” virtual credit card online (very 21st century eh). Don’t worry about how complete your “dossier” is, so long as you have a dossier they will allocate you a pitch and you can sort the rest out when you turn up. When your dossier is complete you get a bag full of goodies including the badge. You have to pay a bit more for the VTT version for the “ravitos” (feed stations). They have English-speaking people on hand to help you.

I’m male but not very distinctive or than flat pedals and 5:10 on a cross-country steed. The Renault NRS is indeed a mountain bike.

French Semaine? watch out for Dave and Kate. They’re riding there from Halifax on a Cannondale Tandem with everything in a BoB trailer.

This is getting more arcane by the minute.

So let me make sure I’ve got this right:

In order to get a beer I need a beer ticket.
And then in order to get into the beer tent I need a badge.
And in order to get a badge I need a dossier.

WHAT the fing f IS A DOSSIER?

When you get there Dave and can’t do anything, tell them that this place is more like Switzerland or Germany every day.

French people *love* you telling them that.

The suspense is killing me waiting for the next drip feed nugget of information “in order to get a dossier you need to…… be a small furry animal called gaston / recite the complete works of shakespeare from memory / get a genital piercing….”

Well they need some kind of system to deal with the 10 000 to 15 000 people that turn up each year. Letting them know you’re coming is a good idea if you want a pitch on one of the sites. Lots of people from lots of countries do it and it’s easier for them to sign up than the French themselves. “Dossier” means “entry registration file” or something like that.

If the security measures bother you then consider for a minute why they are there. FFCT officials and the police/gendarmes put a lot of energy into making sure that you, your bike and your tent/camper are resonanbly safe from people that see 10 000+ cycletourists as a source of valuables. I had a stand at one SF and really appreciated the security efforts which meant we didn’t have to live/sleep on the stand.

I’d *love* you telling me that, Samuri.

I think you misunderstand me Eduardo. Obviously they have to have an organisation. It’s just that it’s hard for me to work out what I’m supposed to do to take part. As the online booking facility didn’t work, I have emailed them a scan of the camping booking form, so hopefully I’m now expected. Also, who mentioned anything about security? Is it a big problem? Does a lot of stuff get nicked? *adds baseball bat to packing list*

Re. my previous questions: The “inscription” form didn’t mention how to pay for the camp site. Is there a facility to do this arrival? I don’t have a “virtual credit card” but I do have a real one. And money. Lots of money.

Interestingly, parts of the web site are showing less than 2,000 visitors. Are you sure you haven’t added a zero to the number of entrants?

Thank god they don’t run Le Mans bike and car races like that.

If you sent the form off they’ll be expecting you and you can pay in euros when you get there, hopefully they’ll reply to your e-mail in English with instructions. When you get there it’ll be handy if you know what “acceuil” means as that’s what you’ll be looking for. If they get back to you with a “numero de dossier” join the appropriate queue. If not look for an English flag where there will be someone to help. Relax, be patient and they’ll sort you out eventually.

There were over 10 000 cycletourists last year with 6 000 being fed at the pique-nique.

You objected to needing a badge to get in so I explained that it’s to prevent undesirables getting in – security. They don’t want cash sloshing around the bars either so you need beer tickets.

When in Rome eh ! 😉

They don’t want cash sloshing around the bars either so you need beer tickets.

so do you need to try and figure out how many beers you want in advance?

Anything constructive to add, Uplink? Your only interest in the thread appears to be taking the mickey out of the biggest and possibly best organised participative cycling event in Europe. Do it first then knock it if you still feel so inclined.

The VTT trails last year were some of the best riding I’ve done on an MTB anywhere. Every year has a new set of organising clubs but every edition I’ve done has been good. The only one that slightly disappointed was Albertville before the VTT version existed because of the volume of car trafic on the roads.

Anything constructive to add, Uplink?

seriously wondered how you bought beer, do you have to pay in advance and get tokens? if so what do you do if you run out or have some left?

Seemed such a bizarre set up I thought I’d ask

and …… I don’t think I’ve taken the mickey out of anything, as a yearly visitor to Le Mans, I am indeed glad they don’t run it like that

Well if running out of beer is that much of an issue to you… .

Edit: I take it you actually participated in Le Mans. Because I’m damned sure you’d have had more trouble getting into the Le Mans permanance as a spectator than the SF. If if you were ther as a team the paperwork would have been monstrous for someone in your team.

Well if running out of beer is that much of an issue to you… .

I wouldn’t like to run out half way through the evening, no

so is there a process to get more?

Yes. Try these people if running out of beer causes you so much concern.

I take it you actually participated in Le Mans

both really, raced motorcycles in the early 80s and since as a spectator at cars and bikes

In that case you’ll know that you need a competition licence that took some time and many races to get up to full international level to race bikes or cars at Le Mans. You’d have had to apply a long time in advance and that turning up on the day or sending a fax a few days before wouldn’t have got you in. You’d have been given badges corresponding to access areas and you wouldn’t have been allowed to drink at all before races, tickets or not. More stringent than the SF.

wahey, they answered my email. Dossier thingy to follow. Happier now.

Eddy baby, I have no objection to wearing their badge to get in the beer tent, I just didn’t know I needed one. Or beer tokens come to that.

Uplink has a valid point – what if I drink all my beer tokens too quickly? Is it a palaver to get more? And where do you get them from?
BTW you should chill out a bit 😉

also, what about the “energetic security?”

*visualises long queues, cosmetics in plastic bags, pat downs and body scanners…*

Who should chill? The guy that remained polite, helpful and correctly advised you what to do and what the response would be, or the mickey taker?

If you run out of beer tickets look for the guy with an “Indy” hat. He’ll have his pockets full of the things to sell to at black market prices to disorganised Brits with cold turkey.

No seriously, it’s a great week and you’ll be having so much fun that dealing with a few idiosyncrasies will just give you new reasons to smile.

Thanks for the help. Really. But you do seem a bit defensive. Are you one of the organisers?

No, but I’m French (edit: and I rode with this year’s organisers last year).

ah well there you go

There I go. I’ll look out for the friendly guy in a Phil Corley top and a couple on a Cannondale tandem, but I think I’ll take a different hat and paint the wife’s bike.

see, touchy.

Do you invent a silly name for everyone you meet in real life, Dave? I hope not.

Do ou take the mickey out of a perfectly reasonable way of signing up to an event in real life? I suspect not.

Do you mock people using national stereotypes in real life? I hope not.

Do you imply people are lying when they give you statistics and facts about an event in real life? I suspect not.

Do you punctuate your sentences with the “fing” word in real life? I suspect you do.

If your real life persona is the same as your online one we won’t get on at all. Adieu.

Food, drink etc at Permanence and at the road food stops are all paid for by tickets with a varying Euro face value. You buy them in sheets at the Permanence or at the stops. It seems to me like an excellent method of not having to worry about piles of money accumulating for the organisers and speeds things up for the participants as you are not queuing while people fart about counting out small change one way or the other.

They did run out of beer at the Permanence last year right enough.

Thank you Mr Crush. A helpful response that is clear and concise.
Explained that way, yes tickets / tokens do seem like a good idea.

Learning that this method exists in the first place was also useful to know, so thanks for that to the big E.

Do I invent a silly name for everyone I meet in real life? Not people that have already got one, Edukator.

Just switched phone on. At the European Semaine in Ardennes. Did 800 m of climbing in 60km today. Thought Belgium was flat. Start riding to Normandy on Sunday. Looking forward to seeing you. Will have tickets for 1st round only!

At concerts in the Millenium Stadium, you queue up, buy tokens, then go and get your beer. It seems a bit crazy when you do it and see it working, it actually goes much more smoothly than the traditional bar scrums we’re used to.

Enjoy the event and try not to communicate to the locals the way you have here. 🙂

I’ll look out for you wingnut. Follically challenged you say? And sticky out ears? Mine’s a pint of entente cordial.