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While no longer a professional road race, PBP continues to attract highly competitive riders who stop at nothing to turn in the fastest times. Despite the event organizer's insistance that it isn't a race, PBP offers huge trophies and a certain degree of prestige to the first finishers in each division. The event's popularity stands at an all-time high, with a cap of 3,500 participants placed for the first time in 1999. It seems likely that the event will continue to draw large numbers of international participants in the future. Whereas once PBP was contested by a few great professional athletes as a demonstration of the bicycle's potential, today the focus is on regular folks like you and me. Riding PBP is a chance to be a part of history, yes -- all finishers names are set down in the great record book -- but also to learn how to use the bike reliably for transportation, a skill just as useful today as it was 108 years ago when Paris-Brest et retour began.