Long Distance Competition/Ultracycling, Randonneuring and Endurance Cycling - Cyclos Montagnards

dunno if anyone saw Jan Heine's post to the Randon list on Google Groups about this, but it's basically a new challenge for randos (in the NW for now, but supposedly other areas will be added as well).


The Cyclos Montagnards promote unsupported long distance cycling inspired by the French pioneers of randonneuring. These early riders demonstrated accomplished cycling ability and self-sufficiency. They would dream up serious cycling challenges and then strive to achieve them.

The Cyclos Montagnards seek to emulate this spirit by providing a series of challenges worthy of these early randonneurs. Becoming a Cyclo Montagnard is a matter of completing these challenges.

500-530km, a few mtn passes, in 24 hours or less.... sounds roughly doable to this rando.

the other way to join is doing Jan's Fall 600k (four mtn passes? i forget) in less than 28 hours.. that one is way out of my league, for now anyway.

so... anyone going for it?

dunno if anyone saw Jan Heine's post to the Randon list on Google Groups about this, but it's basically a new challenge for randos (in the NW for now, but supposedly other areas will be added as well). heh ... 'new challenge' ... and how. new flamefest as well. (http://groups.google.com/group/randon/browse_thread/thread/db1bb646f2542690)

just as a btw, I think this was already posted earlier to BF by BengeBoy (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=522655), but overall I'm not in Jan's target market even if I have a generator light and will thus not be assessed the 1.5% speed penalty (though I do have a battery powered taillight, so maybe that'd be .75% penalty)

but given the speed with which that entire randon thread got derailed by talk about what it means to the 'true spirit' of randonneuring or prejudices one may have about bike build aesthetics, I think the initiative would be better served if they left the medal ideas out of it and just basically turned it into a movement for year round fleche rides.

heh ... 'new challenge' ... and how. new flamefest as well. (http://groups.google.com/group/randon/browse_thread/thread/db1bb646f2542690)

yeah some interesting comments in there. i'm not sure why this would offend anyone, but hey i guess randonneuring takes all types.

i was kind of hoping this thread could turn into a tamer discussion of the pros & cons of awarding people based on how fast they are in brevets (or outside of them).

personally, i don't see how it will change anything. the ones that like to go fast (or try, like me) will continue to do so, and those that can't or don't want to will continue to do what they do as well. so how could it make things worse?

as for the "racers" not stopping to help others (b/c they're concerned with time was the argument i saw) - i say hogwash! unless you're on an out-n-back route, they'd be ahead of us anyway, so what's the difference?


just as a btw, I think this was already posted earlier to BF by BengeBoy (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=522655), but overall I'm not in Jan's target market even if I have a generator light and will thus not be assessed the 1.5% speed penalty (though I do have a battery powered taillight, so maybe that'd be .75% penalty)

oops! i saw he posted this in the PNW forum, didn't see it here. sorry benge!


but given the speed with which that entire randon thread got derailed by talk about what it means to the 'true spirit' of randonneuring or prejudices one may have about bike build aesthetics, I think the initiative would be better served if they left the medal ideas out of it and just basically turned it into a movement for year round fleche rides.

but just because he got flamed over it - is that his fault or someone else's? i mean if rando is really "big tent" thing, then there's room for people like Jan too, i would hope.

If this motivates some riders to challenge themselves and enjoy randonneuring more, that is great. It is not something that interests me much, though. I am more of a card-carrying Cyclos Escargot, and would rather like to spend as much time on the road and at controls as the rules allow. My favorite ride each year is the fleche, and my team does the absolute minimum distance, riding at a decent speed and spending lots of time eating, drinking, taking pictures...

In the USA, the RUSA R-12 award has motivated many riders (me included) to get out end ride long distances all year, and helped transform the sport in many parts of the country from a once a year 4-ride season to a year-round activities. New ideas that have the potential to grow the sport are always good, even if they are not appealing to me personally.

I'm brand new to the Randonneuring tent having riden my first brevet just last Saturday, so my opinion isn't worth much. But here you go anyway...

Personally I like the idea of introducing new ways to challenge and recognize the riders who want to ride fast. I started randonneuring because I wanted to physically challenge myself. I understand that people come out for the sport for different reasons; some to meet new like-minded folks, some to get exercise, some to show off their cool bike. There are probably as many reasons for randonneuring as there are Randonneurs and Randonneuses. And they are all valid reasons to participate in the sport.

But it's not surprising to see folks getting their chamois in a bunch over this. Change is always threatening to some, especially when they really like the way things are. I'm sure many of the people who have no interest in riding fast are concerned about the culture of the events changing, i.e. less cooperation, more competition, more cheating on the rules, etc. But honestly, I don't think the Cyclos Montagnards will change the sport much at all. It provides an opportunity for those who are interested without taking anything away from those who aren't interested.

One final note. I saw some video on YouTube last night from a PBP filmed back in the 80s. Bad haircuts, bad outfits, cool old bikes, no helmets... And people were riding their *****es off! Not sure how representative the video was, but almost all of the riders shown were riding at a blistering pace. It definitely looked more like a race than a casual tour.

One final note. I saw some video on YouTube last night from a PBP filmed back in the 80s. Bad haircuts, bad outfits, cool old bikes, no helmets... And people were riding their *****es off! Not sure how representative the video was, but almost all of the riders shown were riding at a blistering pace. It definitely looked more like a race than a casual tour.

some people definitely treat it like a race - see Jan's "view from the front" article (http://www.rusa.org/newsletter/10-04-19.html) from PBP 07 - not that he treats it like a race, but he goes pretty darn fast.

all that talk of lead groups, getting dropped, etc.. sounds like a whole different ballgame.

the unfortunate side of that is people apparently start using support (at the controls that is, but in some cases not) - which doesn't sound like randonneuring to me.

having support out on the course just gives you a constant chance to quit! that's the last thing i need out there..

i guess it tampers with the whole idea of 'complete the ride'.
its about the distance - that is how you are categorized now.
any medal i've received just has the distance on it, not how long divided by how far.
all the current RUSA awards are distance based. SR, R5000, R12... complete the ride in the accepted times, and you count. the exception is the charely miller thing - that is about the time - but its only 1 award, and its pretty elite, and it happens only once every 4 years.

i like this aspect of things, making it about the ride more than the time.

and with all respect to jan - the guys just not 'normal'.
re-read that pbp story. read some of his other stories in BQ.
the guy is a fast. he's racing the events either against the clock or against himself as it is. thats what makes him tick. drilling holes in tools and figuring out just how little he needs to get it done. what works for jan, works for jan - but some of his choices work because he's off the course and in the massage tent on a 1200k almost two full days before most other riders.

i like the idea of mountain rides. of teamwork. of making good time.
what i don't particularly like about the concept is the whole R80,R70,R60 thing. it starts to reek of Cat5-Cat1 of the racer set - something i'm not at all interested in. and it also sounds like a blend of fuel oil.

i also think the way it has been presented is problematic. jan has a tendency to speak 'from on high'. especially in one of his last few responses where he pulls in the name dropping and his incredibly low RUSA number. good for you - you were racing in europe before i was born... but a reason i came to this part of the cycling world was to get away from that crap - as most rando's i know (hi spokenword!) are pretty friendly folks. even the fast guys and gals.

i say, if you want accolades and trophies or medals - race. he'd do very well at the mt. washington hill climb. and even 'supported' he'd place high at a UMCA event.


and, don't get me started on the lighting thing.
i appreciate the 'self generated power' thing. the philosophy behind it.


but the environmental argument against batteries is a joke.
should all CMs be vegetarian or better still - vegan? that would have an impact.
and you shouldn't be able to drive to the start of the event - so that means if you want to ride the mountain route in washington state - i need to leave tomorrow so i can travel by bike, self supported, to the start, eating grass and foraging for food along the way.

That Randon thread reminds me of why I'm drifting away from organized randonneuring: people suck, even people who ostensibly share an interest. Having a separate little deal for folks who want to pursue it isn't going to make a difference in the world to the "average" randonneur. Some people just need something to complain about, I guess.

I've personally been pursuing a separate idea that Jan introduced in BQ a few years back: the cyclo muletisme, where you put 42 mm tires on your bike and go climb goat paths in the mountains. That I am aware of, there is no medal awarded for this (yet) and it has the added bonus of getting you away from all the sucky people. Although the occasional mountain biker will look at you as though you've utterly lost your mind...

and with all respect to jan - the guys just not 'normal'.
re-read that pbp story. read some of his other stories in BQ.
the guy is a fast. he's racing the events either against the clock or against himself as it is. thats what makes him tick. drilling holes in tools and figuring out just how little he needs to get it done. what works for jan, works for jan - but some of his choices work because he's off the course and in the massage tent on a 1200k almost two full days before most other riders.

not normal? you're throwing stones in a glass house, mr. randonneur!

i don't know jan personally, but i've ridden with him a few times. seems plenty nice to me. and btw he's not always superman, he had a bad day on our 200 last saturday, which was probably why i got to ride with him!

the first time i actually met him was on the way to a 600k. here i am thinking i'm all badass riding 13 miles to the ride, then he and another rider caught up to me, and we rode together to the brevet. i knew who jan was, and of course showered him with quesitons/advice. he didn't ask me what my finishing times were, or even admonish my squeaky fenders or light that was pointed too far down.

if he's so elitist as everyone makes him out to be, surely he would have just ridden past me and never said hello. he was as nice as any other rando i've met out there, fwiw.

i think people see him as a superstar of sorts - and therefore think it's ok to bash him like one, as if he somehow deserves the insults in the thread, and the mockery ("cyclos montaliban" was one of the more notable ones)


i like the idea of mountain rides. of teamwork. of making good time.
what i don't particularly like about the concept is the whole R80,R70,R60 thing. it starts to reek of Cat5-Cat1 of the racer set - something i'm not at all interested in. and it also sounds like a blend of fuel oil.

i also think the way it has been presented is problematic. jan has a tendency to speak 'from on high'. especially in one of his last few responses where he pulls in the name dropping and his incredibly low RUSA number. good for you - you were racing in europe before i was born... but a reason i came to this part of the cycling world was to get away from that crap - as most rando's i know (hi spokenword!) are pretty friendly folks. even the fast guys and gals.

i'm guessing his point with posting his rusa # was to show that he's in the rando thing for the long haul, not just some racer stopping through on the way to RAAM. (the post just before that basically accused him of this, and then said he should quit rusa and join ucma)

<rant>
i just read the whole clusterf*ck of a thread over on the Randon list.. and i really can't believe so many people are attacking him over this. he's just trying to find people similarly interested in the things he is...

if you don't like the idea, then go back to what you were doing before! simple as that.
</rant>

I wouldn't have thought of the battery issue. I have a big pile of lipoly batterys downstairs for my model airplane use. No lights using them. On a 600,1000,1200k, the generator probably does have a measurable effect. OTOH, batteries probably slow you down too. I think a helmet light is a good thing for safety, and I will use one. It would be a little silly to have a penalty if I was also using a generator.

As far as the times go, I really don't see what the fuss is. If someone doesn't like it, they can ignore it. On the two brevets I've been on, the fastest people dropped me. That doesn't really bother me. I'm still in survival mode after about 40 miles.

I've personally been pursuing a separate idea that Jan introduced in BQ a few years back: the cyclo muletisme, where you put 42 mm tires on your bike and go climb goat paths in the mountains. That I am aware of, there is no medal awarded for this (yet) and it has the added bonus of getting you away from all the sucky people. Although the occasional mountain biker will look at you as though you've utterly lost your mind...That sounds pretty awesome. My best friend in high school introduced me to the dirt roads in the mountains around where we lived. This was back when they were just converting old cruisers to mountain bikes out in California, so we were riding our road bikes. My friend even built a mountain bike frame, it didn't really look like what we call mountain bikes now, just had big clearances.

Chris Kostman of Adventurecorps is promoting essentially the same thing with his Rough Riders (http://www.xo-1.org/2007/09/mountain-bikes-who-needs-them.html) deal.

I don't know him and he comes off -- IMO -- as kind of a jerk on the above site, but he does outline my general feelings about riding my "road bike" in the dirt.

not normal? you're throwing stones in a glass house, mr. randonneur!

i don't know jan personally, but i've ridden with him a few times. seems plenty nice to me. and btw he's not always superman, he had a bad day on our 200 last saturday, which was probably why i got to ride with him!

the first time i actually met him was on the way to a 600k. here i am thinking i'm all badass riding 13 miles to the ride, then he and another rider caught up to me, and we rode together to the brevet. i knew who jan was, and of course showered him with quesitons/advice. he didn't ask me what my finishing times were, or even admonish my squeaky fenders or light that was pointed too far down.

if he's so elitist as everyone makes him out to be, surely he would have just ridden past me and never said hello. he was as nice as any other rando i've met out there, fwiw.

i think people see him as a superstar of sorts - and therefore think it's ok to bash him like one, as if he somehow deserves the insults in the thread, and the mockery ("cyclos montaliban" was one of the more notable ones)



i'm guessing his point with posting his rusa # was to show that he's in the rando thing for the long haul, not just some racer stopping through on the way to RAAM. (the post just before that basically accused him of this, and then said he should quit rusa and join ucma)

<rant>
i just read the whole clusterf*ck of a thread over on the Randon list.. and i really can't believe so many people are attacking him over this. he's just trying to find people similarly interested in the things he is...

if you don't like the idea, then go back to what you were doing before! simple as that.
</rant>


hey ho!

i'm sure he's a nice guy.
i'm sure he says hello to everyone and i've heard he's a great ride host / volunteer and i like his magazine. (when i feel like paying for a subscription)

i don't think he's elitist... but riding a 50 hour pbp with last years weather... thats a glass house i'd need a boulder to start cracking.

i have a lot of respect for the fast boys and girls... but... i'll leave it at that and say peace.

personally, i don't see how it will change anything. the ones that like to go fast (or try, like me) will continue to do so, and those that can't or don't want to will continue to do what they do as well. so how could it make things worse?

as for the "racers" not stopping to help others (b/c they're concerned with time was the argument i saw) - i say hogwash! unless you're on an out-n-back route, they'd be ahead of us anyway, so what's the difference? yeah, I won't get into the 'true spirit' type discussions here, just linking to it so that folks here can go vent about there if they really need to.

However, I think it's probably a little misleading to compare this to a standard brevet as the structure of Jan's proposal are closer to a fleche. And personally, having been on a couple of fleche teams, part of what I really appreciated was it can help build teams with riders of varying speed and ability because the time award is explicitly left out. You have to finish in 24 hours, no more no less, so it doesn't particularly matter if your long steady distance is 12 mph or 20 mph, you all wind up beating yourselves up equally in the end; and there are bragging rights and personal glory for riding a particularly long fleche, but it's not specifically recognized.

I got to do both of my fleches with guys who I normally would only know in the most peripheral sense in the randonneuring scene because our speeds are just different enough that we'd never wind up riding together, and that's always been a net win in my book. Long after the medals and brevet cards are filed in a little shoebox to be looked at later, the unlikely friendships formed from a few riders coming together to have a good time is the finest reward from these activities.

If you make time an explicit goal in the event then you are basically discouraging this practice and encouraging riders to form teams within a narrower band of activity. I don't find that particularly appealing, so that's why I am not as interested, but I was intrigued with the rest of the proposal until I got to that. I think that the idea is a little more suitable for big clubs like Lone Star or SiR, that have dozens of riders in various speed categories, but I do wonder about how it will fragment smaller clubs who might now have yet another calendar of rides that they would have to plan around.

Still, if it brings more interesting touring stories to Bike Quarterly, then I'm curious to see how it turns out, and if a bunch of guys whom I like invite me onto their team and present an interesting route then I might have some stories of my own.

yeah, I won't get into the 'true spirit' type discussions here, just linking to it so that folks here can go vent about there if they really need to.

However, I think it's probably a little misleading to compare this to a standard brevet as the structure of Jan's proposal are closer to a fleche. And personally, having been on a couple of fleche teams, part of what I really appreciated was it can help build teams with riders of varying speed and ability because the time award is explicitly left out. You have to finish in 24 hours, no more no less, so it doesn't particularly matter if your long steady distance is 12 mph or 20 mph, you all wind up beating yourselves up equally in the end; and there are bragging rights and personal glory for riding a particularly long fleche, but it's not specifically recognized.

I got to do both of my fleches with guys who I normally would only know in the most peripheral sense in the randonneuring scene because our speeds are just different enough that we'd never wind up riding together, and that's always been a net win in my book. Long after the medals and brevet cards are filed in a little shoebox to be looked at later, the unlikely friendships formed from a few riders coming together to have a good time is the finest reward from these activities.

If you make time an explicit goal in the event then you are basically discouraging this practice and encouraging riders to form teams within a narrower band of activity. I don't find that particularly appealing, so that's why I am not as interested, but I was intrigued with the rest of the proposal until I got to that. I think that the idea is a little more suitable for big clubs like Lone Star or SiR, that have dozens of riders in various speed categories, but I do wonder about how it will fragment smaller clubs who might now have yet another calendar of rides that they would have to plan around.

Still, if it brings more interesting touring stories to Bike Quarterly, then I'm curious to see how it turns out, and if a bunch of guys whom I like invite me onto their team and present an interesting route then I might have some stories of my own.

great summary. i feel quite the same, with all respect for jan and how this came about.
its hard enough planning to get in 4-5 official brevets here in the NE, much less plan a series around a 'team' effort. i think some of the rules are odd, but i didn't write them, nor is it my club.

our fleche team this year has a range of speeds in it - from 2 racers (cross and adventure) to a fast cyclotourist ex racer (who is just discovering rando) to myself - a 9 hour 200k guy on a good day, who doesn't mind putting his head down... but i'm more about the journey than the time.

spokenword - i've been dallying on them forever - but i have a 200k dirt permanent (http://littlecircles.blogspot.com/2008/10/dirt-road-permanent.html) (60-70% dirt, gravel, carriage road) nearly complete (need the mud to go away so i can verifiy the last bit of the route) and another 2 in the works. i've talked to the NERds about registering them... just need the time to finalize. we rode the top half of the 200 last fall - as a group, working together (and sometimes getting strung out). was great fun.

Chris Kostman of Adventurecorps is promoting essentially the same thing with his Rough Riders (http://www.xo-1.org/2007/09/mountain-bikes-who-needs-them.html) deal.

I don't know him and he comes off -- IMO -- as kind of a jerk on the above site, but he does outline my general feelings about riding my "road bike" in the dirt.

I agree, while I share some of the same general feelings, there's no need to get dogmatic about the whole thing. Seems silly, if you ask me.

I like the R80/70/60 idea as it helps set some training goals in getting ready for Endless Mountains 1240 as well as for PBP in 2011. In the context of randonneuring in the DC area, I don't see it as being any more "offensive" than the Century-A-Month threads here and at Bicycling Magazine forums. If I "qualify" for an R80 and feel like going to the bother, then I might send the info to Jan. Otherwise, it's just a personal goal, just like my current personal goal of riding an "R-120" -- ten years of consecutive R-12 rides (with a fallback to R-12^2, a dozen R-12's, in case the R-120 string gets broken).

We have a pretty big club (DC Randonneurs) and there are plenty of very fast riders, some of whom I don't even know because they line up at the front and I line up at the back so that they won't have to pass me in the first 97 feet of the brevet :-) There has always been informal recognition of who finished fast, and possibly some informal rivalry along these lines, too. But there are also plenty of slower randonneurs to ride with, as well. And some of the randonneurs who have been most encouraging to me are among the fast finishers. I've never had any sense of divisiveness over who's fast and who isn't.

So I think that for our club, the R80/70/60 will not make any difference at all to who is riding fast and who is trying to qualify for the CE (Cycles Escargot, to use someone's wonderful phrase).

But I can see some potential for divisiveness with a smaller club. If the've been riding collegially despite the fact that some riders can potentially ride much faster than others, then if some of those riders get the R80/70/60 bug then they might start going out harder and dropping the slower riders. The slower ones might feel bad and lonely.

If this actually happens anywhere, my counsel to them would be that they are in a sport where there are time limits that really start to bite at the 1200K distance. So even though they can finish an SR series, if they are struggling to finish at the time limits, then they are going to find a 1200K to be a very significant challenge. That's about where I was in 2006 when I rode BMB, which was monumentally challenging. For 2007, I made a very conscious decision to not ride with slower friends, and instead to train as hard as I could on every brevet, and to get used to riding alone a lot (since I wasn't fast enough to keep up with the fast crowd). (Unfortunately, I had a bad crash while commuting in mid-May that took two months to recover from, and then caught a bad cold before flying to France for PBP, which made it a challenge to even keep up with my slower friends. DNF. Oh, well.)

I think that the bottom line is that if people don't like to ride in a timed sport, then that's just fine, but it isn't "randonneuring." I like to ride on informal centuries, too, and the lack of time limits, silly cards, etc. can be nice. But I also like very much the challenge of riding in a timed event and sometimes dawdling and riding with friends but sometimes riding at the limit the whole day. Having the idea of R80/70/60 around gives a very structured way to think about training goals that I had not thought of before.

actually, on re-reading both this thread and the randon thread, I'll apologize to mattm for conflating two topics. Matt's topic is about the Montagnard format ride, which has a strenuous route and time requirement, but doesn't have the time divisions, if I undertand Jan's explanations correctly. The randon thread has devolved into the 'rightful' place of the R80/R70/R60 awards, which are intended to be awarded for brevets, and do have some controversy in how they would change the nature of brevet riding.

thebulls -- we have a similar division amongst New England, where there are fast pack riders who are clearly R60 contenders and then everyone else strung out behind them in threes and fours. It's easy enough to find someone to ride with, but there is a nice sense of camaraderie in the Boston 400 and 600 where most of the riders stay together to the first control and break up aftewards.

I don't think the r80/r70/r60 distinctions will be enough to shatter that nice little custom, but I do see Pamela's point in that having explicit time goals can tempt people towards being less likely to stop for their fellow riders. And, yes, the name of the game is about self-sufficiency and completing a ride within a time window, but despite that, the unofficial collaboration and camarderie is nice side effect, and it would be a pity to see that diminished.

...Endless Mountains 1240...


probably the most foreboding name for a 1240k yet.
hope to see you there, if all goes as planned with qualifiers...
i registered back in october or so.

the jump for me will be 600k to 1240k. gulp.

i'm an r80 on a good day, an r90 on most days, though i have to see how this plays out beyond 600k.
and thebulls - i'm there, alone, most often, even when off riding with friends.

I'm working towards the RCP (Randonneur Café Pâtisserie) Award. (http://littlecirclesvt.com/?p=246)

http://littlecirclesvt.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/photo_032909_010-400x320.jpg