Screen shots of the pre-registration pages are attached below. This page will be revised as new details are provided.
Pre-registration started April 25th (April 26th in France). For the most part, the process seems smooth and easy. Here are some learnings from the first pre-registrations.
The instructions indicate that pre-registrants will need "rider affiliation, rider license number and homologation number of the longest BRM (or RM1200+) ridden".
US riders can find their 'rider affiliation', or ACP club codes listed on their results page: http://www.rusa.org/cgi-bin/resultsearch_GF.pl. It is at the top of the results display at the end of the line showing their name, following the name of their club (see highlight on the 'rusa_results' attachment). Note some riders name RUSA as their ACP club.
The rider license number is not applicable for riders' whose affiliation is "Foreign" (i.e., non-French). You will leave that section blank when you encounter it on the forms later. DO NOT use your RUSA membership #.
Your 'homologaton number' for your longest 2014 brevet will also be found on the RUSA results page. Look in the first ("Cert No.") column in the section for your 2014 results (see yellow highlighted sections of the rusa_results attachment).
There are two main screens you will need to fill out:
On the first screen for pre-registration you will enter two data points:
The homologation number (see above).
For current federation select non-French (see "primary_pbp_pre_reg" attachment).
NB: You may need to drop the initial alpha characters of your Cert. No. when you enter it if your result is listed as RM (ie if you did a 1200km) on your RUSA results display.
On the second screen you will enter your name, address, etc. and you will list your club affiliation, bike type and start group and wave. Note that the selection section for start group and wave may not appear until after you have selected your bike type (likely because there are special start times for 'special' bikes such as tandems, fixed gears, etc)
On the English language version of the form there is a translation error in that the field "complément", meant for apartment, suite, room, or building is displayed as 'State'. Unless you have an apartment or suite, you can leave that section blank. In the section that is translated as zip code and town (a single field) you should enter your city, state and zip code.
This second form is completed by hitting the 'send' button at the bottom of the display, and you'll be given your 'file number' (variously known as dossier number and entry number) and there is an option to pay. It may be a multi-hop journey but you will then land on a PayPal page which may be in French and you can complete your pre-registration via PayPal. Note that you will be shown both the cost in Euro and the converted cost in Dollars.
If all goes well, following payment, registrants should get 2 emails (these may be in French if you filled out the form in French):
PBP acknowledges receipt of preregistration (example subject line: "[US-43] Preregistration to Paris-Brest-Paris 2015")
PBP acknowledges receipt of payment (example subject line: "[US-43] Registration to Paris-Brest-Paris - Payment received")
Receipt of these email should happen pretty quickly. In 2011 pre-registrants would receive one other email, but that other email would be triggered only when the RUSA brevet secretary validated the entry. Pre-registrations in 2015 also need to be validated, and registrants can change their pre-registration details up until the pre-registration has been validated. Eventually pre-registrants will receive a third email:
PBP validates the pre-registration (subject line: "[US-43] Change in the status of your preregistration to Paris-Brest-Paris 2015")
In the first of the above email, you will get a pdf attachment, named with your pre-inscription number (ie: US-43.pdf), plus a 'file-number' and password. This pdf file will contain information you entered about you. In the last section at the bottom of the attached file will be information about your 2014 qualifying brevet. Note that in the 'Name of club' section, it will list the name of the club that hosted the longest brevet that you rode in 2014: NB: don't confuse this with the display you get when you log back into your account to check your status. In that display, you will see a line that looks just like the last box in the pdf sent to you, but in that case in the 3rd box from the top the 'name of club' refers to the ACP club code you entered when first pre-registering. For some riders, those two 'name of club' sections may differ.
Any comments or problems? Send mail to rba@sfrandonneurs.org and your questions will be directed to the best source for answers.
One other thing to note: In 2011, when a rider received, for example, a "file number" (which may elsewhere be referred to as 'dossier number' or 'entry number') of US-258, it meant that he was the 258th PBP rider to register, not the 258th US PBP rider to register. In the 2011 case of #258, he was actually only the 72nd US rider to register. We had country quotas in 2011, but only an overall event limit in 2015, though the numbering may actually be working in the same way.