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Old 03-07-08, 02:02 PM
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mattm
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Excellent thread!

I could afford a much nicer bike than what I'll be riding Brevets on - for me, the main issues are time & space (4 bikes take up lots of space in an apartment!). And lucky for me, my significant other is OK with me riding lots on the weekends!

But even though I could afford to buy a "good" rando bike, and (sometimes) afford to fly all over the world for brevets, I like to (mostly) scrounge & save anyway. Meaning that I do my own repairs/buildups for the most part, as I'd like to be "off the grid" when it comes to me depending on the LBS for help.

As for big events like the PBP:

a) the cost of flying to europe is huge, especially from the west coast of the US
b) the environmental cost of flying to europe is huge! I think the emissions are in line with driving a car for one year (source).

In fact, I might not even do the PBP considering its far-off location, and go for a more local 1200 like the Cascade 1200 (even that starts about 50 miles north of seattle).

The main thing that i don't like about the "local" brevet scene is that it's not local at all. The "seattle" intl ranonneurs start their rides in every spot surrounding seattle you can imagine, up to100 miles away. I don't mind riding 20-30 miles to get to a (shorter) brevet, but since i don't own a car (by choice) i'm either limited to local brevets or carpooling.. and I don't like attaching my transportation vehicle to another one to get somewhere! I'm trying to avoid bad emissions in case you can't tell. =]

I think that at least a few of the SF rando rides start at the Golden Gate bridge, and I wish Seattle's rando scene could do something similar. As it is, the ride organizers choose their own backyard (literally sometimes). (To be fair, I live in Seattle, but it's at least a central location, not to mention the friggin namesake of our group!).

Also, one can definitely argue that the randonneur "style" (boutique bikes, honjo fenders, wool stuff, schmidt dynohub/lights, carradice bags, you know what i mean) certainly favors those in higher tax brackets. (Of course you don't need any of that to be a rando, but tell that to 90% of the randonneurs I ride with). So newcomers see all the french boutique or rivendell bikes, and probably get turned off because they think they don't have the "right" gear.

Cycling is already a prohibitive sport (compared to something like soccer), and all the gear required for randonneurring doesn't help. Kudos to those that still do it, even on limited budgets!
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