skiffrun

Sometime in the next couple or few weeks, a thread asking "what are your goals for 2015?" will appear.

Well, for those among you that are RUSA members, and have "had K-Hound envy for a number of years," consider committing to the goal of attaining K-Hound in 2015.

From the RUSA website: "K-Hound Award: Accumulate 10,000 km in RUSA events and permanents, Paris-Brest-Paris, or RM-sanctioned 1200k or longer events during a calendar year." (For more details, click here.)


If you like collecting baubles, there is a K-Hound bauble that can be gotten. I can't guarantee it, but your K-Hound bauble might end up with verbiage personalized just for you.

However, I can and will guarantee (if I'm alive and kicking) that you can and will be personally highlighted if/when you become a first-time-K-Hound.

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Yes, I'm proselytizing.

[Eric, you could be the first K-Hound from Pennsylvania. (Bill O., though he collects his SR brevets in Pennsylvania, lives in New Jersey.)]

unterhausen

yeah, it's a goal. I have a number of 100k rides in the queue to get approved, I figure that's pretty much a requirement

StephenH

The 100k may be helpful for your particular goals, but the main idea is just go ride a 200k every Saturday. if you also ride on Sundays and/or throw the occasional 300/400/600 in there, then it lets you skip a few Saturdays.

unterhausen

An R12, a 1200k, and SR series gets you to around 4000k, so you are right, I need to do 200k's to get to 10000. I recently plotted out a 300k that is actually flatter than most of my 200k's, so that is in the queue as well. Plus, I have the "Happier Tour of Happy Valley" that Steamer dreamed up based on my "Tour of Happy Valley" route. However, my thought process is that it's easier to get out and ride two 65 mile rides than it is to ride 130. Might even be possible to do it after work.

StephenH

One of our local riders was planning a lot of time off in December, so we rode a 112k route a number of times on weeknights earlier in the year, and that worked out pretty well. We'd start at 4:45, ride like mad, and finish before 10, get home by 11:00 or so.

The major challenge, for us here in the DFW area, is finding a route that's close enough to drive to, but still doesn't have traffic problems at rush-hour if you start right after work. I'd like a route right from my house, but haven't been able to work out anything worthwhile on that. The good cycling routes all meander around neighborhoods, and can be easily shortcut by riding on roads you don't really want to ride on at rush hour.

Steamer

My wife agrees. A 200K around here is, essentially, a whole day consuming affair and that requires SWMBO pre-approval, whereas a 100K is merely a longer than average weeknight ride in the summer. I am usually doing something like 35-40 miles on those after-work rides anyways. So what if I get home another one and a half or two hours later than usual?

LWaB

I think it might be easier to reach 10,000+km of brevets if you target the longer events. This year, 2 x 1200, a 1000, 3 x 600s, 3 x 400s and the Fleche Velocio took me over 2/3s of the way and meant that I could do non-brevet stuff on lots of weekends through the year. Wearing grooves into familiar roads with my bicycle would do my head in pretty quickly.

unterhausen

That's one way to do it

skiffrun

There are quite a few approaches to getting to and/or beyond 10-thousand kms:

Grover Everett would only do one or two 200k brevets a year, rode enough 200+k permanents to keep his R-streak intact, but the majority of his rides and kms were gotten riding 100+k perm-pops, usually solo. Grover was 70 years old or a bit more, and once he was introduced to RUSA, rode 100k perm-pops almost every day (when the weather in southern Illinois permitted). Grover accumulated 23640 km in 2011 and 24616 km in 2012 (before being struck and killed by a car in mid-November).

My friend DeanF, now a 5-time-consecutive K-Hound, has physiological issues that can become life threatening in North Carolina heat and/or if he tries to ride too far. He rides to keep his weight in check and to have fun. He definitely prefers riding WITH others, but has collected many solo rides; the solo rides are more likely to be 100+k perm-pops. The last couple years, he has usually ridden only one 200+k ride a month, but will ride 100+k perm-pops three or four times a week. He has ridden one of his perm-pops, "Get 'er Dunn," over 250 times in the last five years; he still finds new things and points them out to friends that do not ride that route quite so often.

Current RUSA prez Mike Dayton has ridden at least 19 different permanent / perm-populaires this year, all but one started/finished in North Carolina, and has K-Hounded for the second time. My recollection is that he did two or three different 600k brevets this year -- the most recent one was earlier this month in Texas. I know he rode a foreign 1200 this year, but I forget where. Last I checked, Mike had completed 20 rides on perm-pop course this year, 17 rides on 200+k perm courses, one of those S-600's, approx 10 brevets (plus the December ride mentioned above) and a Fleche. (Regarding 200's, Mike commented, circa 2010, "it's not the distance, it's the time.")

Leader of the K-Hound pack, Dan Driscoll, rides a lot. A lot of 200+k perms and a lot of ACP and RUSA brevets, too. StephenH rides many of the Texas brevets with Dan, or at least starts them with Dan. I know that Dan will tell a prospective Hound that the key to getting to 10-thousand kms is a convenient 100k that one can ride after or before work.

In 2013, Bill O. did all seven 1200's that were offered in the United States, and also the Granite Anville in Ontario, CA. That made 9600 kms. He also did a series and some spare brevets and probably a few permanents. Bill told me, during the 2013 Taste of Carolina, that the problem he found doing all those 1200's was that he slowly got out of shape during the latter part of the campaign; all he was doing between 1200's was recovering.

There is also 29-year-old Ian -- #1A in the Society Adrian Hands -- I'm confident that you can find the website on-line. This year, Ian got to 10-thousand RUSA kms in only 18 rides. 17 of those rides started & finished in North Carolina. Those 18 rides included three 1000's, a 1200, the Natchez Trace 1500, two S-600's, and ... you can probably figure out Ian's last name and look up his results on the RUSA website. There will be no 1000's in North Carolina in 2015; there will be fewer 600 brevets in 2015 than in 2014; I doubt he can repeat the 18-ride feat in 2015 unless he does a lot more traveling.

What is the lesson one might learn from the above (other than I did a bit of name-dropping)? There are a myriad of ways to get to K-Hound status. How one gets there is dependent upon your available time, financial resources, work / leisure schedule, and perhaps health issues. Also weather.

skiffrun

Oh, meant to include this:

2014 first-time K-Hound Phil M. got to Hound status doing only brevets. He did six SR series. He also commented that he won't be doing six series again any time soon.

unterhausen

Yeah, six series would be a lot. A decent 400k would be good, the only ones I have dreamed up so far are brutal