Paris Brest Paris - 1991 (#12)
Plaquette by Audax Club Parisien
(68 pages - 46 photos)

1991 was the PBP centenary. Naturally this was the focus of the event and a central feature of the plaquette. In the spirit of celebration there was some relaxing of the rules. For starters there was a general amnesty on all the usual penalizable offences. Also, the full finisher's list was published in the plaquette (up to 98 hours), though it's clear that the final 140 names are unofficial finishers. Finally, the time limit was extended by an hour allowing an additional 183 participants to officially finish. And then there's the aerobars... The recently popularized technology made its PBP debut in 1991, but it was to be the one and only time. Aerobars were disallowed at PBP after 1991.

Complementing the 26% increase in participation, was the change in approach to the plaquette. This was the first professional produced publication - full colour photos, designer text formating, etc. The results and stats section in the middle of the booklet is presented as a pullout with it's ownpage numbering. Very confusing. There are some exceptional photos by photographer Thierry Deketelaere, which unfortunately are quite small and so lose a bit of their impact. I find myself missing the more homemade quality of the previous editions produced by the Lepertels. Thanks to Harold Bridge for providing his copy of the 1991 plaquette for this project.
[Eric F - March 2011]

PBP '91 - Vital Statistics:

Participants (Starters): 3275
Finishers: 2614
Women Finishers: 131 (5.0 %)
DNFs: 661
Attrition Rate: 20.2 %
1st Solo Man: Scott Dickson (43:42)
1st Solo Woman: Nicole Chabirand (59:43) 83rd overall
1st Tandem: Richard Fedrigon / Robert Breedlove (48:02) 9th overall
1st Mixed Tandem: David Addison / Antoinette Addison (63:16) 152nd overall