unterhausen

I used to ride 20 miles to get to the start of century rides, but I've always driven to the start of brevets. There seems to be a number of people that ride to the start of brevets, what is the farthest you've ridden? I am thinking about riding 150 miles to the start of a 200k, talk about doing things backwards.

spokenword

I live about 13 miles from the start of the Boston brevets and have generally ridden to most of them. I used to drive to the start in my first couple of years but invariably found that whenever I drove, I'd realize that I forgot something at home, and it was too late to turn around and go back. If I ride from my house, my mind's a little more focused on checking everything is on the bike before I leave.

Also, a 13 mile ride is a nice little warm-up ... and for a ride with an early morning/midnight start, it's a great way to get rid of some sleepyness.

The next closest brevet series for me is in Westfield, which about 100 miles west. I normally drive to those, unless I'm willing to take the day off to take the train out to Springfield then ride 15 miles to the start.

unterhausen

that's a nice distance. It takes me 10 miles to warm up, and when I want to stay with the fast guys I need to warm up ahead of time.

Homeyba

One year (2002 I think) I rode 208 miles with some friends to the start of the Grand Tour in Malabu, CA, did the double Century then rode home.

unterhausen

that's impressive, did you do 3 doubles in consecutive days?

Homeyba

Yep, We rode down on Friday, did the double on saturday and rode home on Sunday. What would have been really impressive is if we had done the triple or quad on Saturday!

mattm

155 miles & a pass to a 400k - didn't ride home though. Fun weekend!

Rode 40k miles to a 600k, then 40k miles back home. Another fun one.

For me the key was to start the ride-to-the-ride early enough that I could take it easy or account for a flat.

Just think of it like "studying ahead," e.g. practicing for a bigger brevet.

Are you riding 150 and staying overnight, or doing the ride as soon as you get there?

All I can say is: do it!

unterhausen

Mattm, I remembered your ride, it got me started thinking about doing this. That and talking to a batch of NC randos that rode 200k to NAHBS. There is a Raleigh to Richmond permanent, and they rode overnight to get there.

I haven't figured out my exact schedule. I still have to ride myself into shape. It's just that sitting in my car for 6 hours round trip for a 200k leads to lots of crazy ideas

Dan The Man

40k miles is 40 000 miles. Did you in fact ride 5 times around the equator to get to a 600 km ride?

mattm

yeah, I was training for a really fast 200k!

actually that's a typo, I meant 40k.

Homeyba

I rode to the start of a 600k once (about 35 miles) and got to the 4:00am start about 5 minutes late and ended up chasing everyone. I caught the slower riders pretty quick but never did catch the guys out front. I finished that ride in less than 23hrs riding solo the whole way. It wasn't a lot of fun out there by myself the whole way but it was my fastest 600k! I had my wife come pick me up after that one because I was toast after the effort and didn't want to ride back over the coastal mtn range to get home...

If I was to do that again I'd just chase to a group going a comfortable pace and ride with them. I've become much more of a social butterfly in my old age.

DanteB

I've found I have a lot more fun doing that. At times I speed but it's fun visiting with riders and enjoy the scenery along the routes.

Rowan

About 340km overnight with a friend to start a fleche of some 340km back to my home city. And around 160km to the start of a 200 randonnee, again overnight (I had to stop for a nap about half way through the eventy).

Other more normal distances when I was car-free were between 10 and 25km.

Oh, and some indeterminate distance from Dunquerque to St Quentin for the start of PBP in both 2003 and 2007.

NoRacer

69 miles to the ride start of a 34 mile club ride, then about 69 miles back home:

https://bimactive.com/ba/journal/archives/10783/20100327

StephenH

I thought I was hardcore because I rode 10 miles to the 100k charity ride. Now I feel like such a wuss.

Richard Cranium

Yeah I've ridden to rides - I rode on to a "tri- course" and was passing several competitors - after riding out of Chicago up near Kenosho. Hey it was open road racing - sorry about that.....

Machka 

Initially, I thought that the longest I've ridden to the start of a randonnee was about 12 km to the start of the 600K in Manitoba.

But then I remembered that I rode 50 km to the start of the annual century ... the Muddy Waters ... in August in Manitoba at least one year if not two. And of course 50 km back home again after. I also rode that distance to join up with the local cycletouring club on a 75 km group ride . I wanted to do a long ride that weekend and joining a group for the middle 75 of a 175 km ride made for some variety. And I rode that distance for a Time Trial as well ... 50 km to the Time Trial ... 22 km Time Trial ... and 50 km back home. I saw a brown bear on the way home!! As it happened the large park where everyone seemed to meet for these rides was about 50 km away, so riding to and from events that started there was fairly common for me.

And then I got thinking about some of my longer rides. On the way to the PBP in 2003, I rode from Chatham to some little town where I ended catching a train to Dover. I think I covered about 30 km. Two days after the PBP I rode about 10 km to catch the ferry across to Portsmouth and when I dismbarked, my cycling partner and I rode 135 km to the Midlands of England.

And the Great Southern Randonnee took place right in the middle of a 3-month tour of Australia. I rode about 1000 km from Sydney to Melbourne in order to start that ride.

Rowan and I did a fair amount of riding on our way down to the 2007 PBP as well.