oytie

Anyone want to trade flying 200s for a 200km brevet this weekend? This Saturday (4/29) is the first brevet in a series offered by the Great Lakes Randonneurs. Completion of the series allows for qualification for a 1200km brevet like the Boston-Montreal-Boston. It starts at the Super 8 Motel in Delavan, WI at 8 am.

Consider it a valley cat (sorry) (there are the checkpoints). I'm wearing a mess. bag, will ride 49x17, I have a bruised butt check from recently getting hit by a ford taurus, and all the people I know are vets at this (including RAAM qualifiers) so it should be ridiculous.

I'm posting this here for people who recently did a double metric (gorn, efarrar...) or anyone else who might be interested.

More info at: https://www.iit.edu/~csbole/

gregg

Sounds awesome. Go oytie go! Will you be riding the Kalavinka?

marcelinyc

I'll be doing 200m in 200s flying times but would like to do 200k some other time. Please, let us know of future 130 milers, good luck, have tons of stories to tell afterwards and you must post pictures too!
edit. "Fred abonded(the race) at 440mile mark..." - https://www.iit.edu/~csbole/GLRNov2005A.pdf

Matthew A Brown

Sweeeeeeeeet

dmg

I did a 200k brevet last weekend in Columbus. I was the only person without gears and still did decently. The day after, I thought I wasn't going to ever do one again, now I'm thinking about the 300km one at the end of May. Have fun!

chzman

where did you ride at last weekend? and where do you find info on these type of events? i did a century (in miles) last weekend on my fixed, out by pataskala, and i was feeling the burn by the end, both pedal and sun...

oytie

Tanabe san did not have NJS water bottle mounts.

salome

oytie this sounds like an insane amount of fun. i wouldn't be able to complete the series but would possibly be able to start with the June 3rd brevet.

i'm being serious. i would definitely consider doing these with you.

absntr

If I wasn't moving this weekend, I do this weekend's... so this is a series? Possibly another one then.

pitboss

Whoa. Oytie, we need to dedicate a section of track log JUST to you...nice!

Luck, if needed. However, I do not think it will be.

chimblysweep

i love distance. love love love it. count me in for future events! (though i'm not committing to doing it all fixed... i have gears for a reason.)

gorn

It's tempting, but I think I'm going to have to skip it.

Good luck, let us know how it goes.

chicagoamdream

So how do brevets work? How is a randonneuring race different from a road race?

Sounds like fun...I stayed in that Super 8 once.

dmg

Ohio Randonneurs has a series, all leaving from Grove City, OH, ranging from 200km to 1000km. The next one is in late May. https://www.ohiorand.org/

Randonneuring is more of self-directed thing than a normal race - you are given maps and cue sheets telling you where to turn and such. There's not really any support during the race, and the checkpoints are convenience stores where you have to get your card stamped. It's kind of like a very, very, very long alleycat, except that you have a set course.

Most of the people who do them are in their 40s and up; it definitely gives you hope for your body's future ability when a 60 year old finishes an hour ahead of you, gears or no.

deeps eno

This sounds like so much fun.
Oytie - awesome that you are still going after being injured.

chimpo

Good luck!

Any plans on doing the upcoming Paris-Brest-Paris brevet in 2007?

oytie

So here are some observations from today. As dmg noted, the crowd is generally middle and late middle aged--I saw four or five Rivendells, cop moustaches, unironic wearing of sweatpants after the race. And it was indeed like a really long and sober alleycat, except for the older dudes (I counted four women), day-glo jackets and ubiquitous cycling tights. Some people said I was crazy for doing this on a single speed, and when I said it was fixed, they said, "even worse." And it wasn't until the last quarter of the ride that I thought they might have a point.

The course was 200km, was out and back with three checkpoints (not including start/finish), with hostile hills and a malicious wind (between 20-32 mph), and rain at the end. Going out I averaged 21 mph with the wind at my back. And coming back I couldn't get over 15 mph. Over the last 10 miles I couldn't sustain over 11 mph and had to stop ever 3 miles to stretch my legs. Wind never sucked so much or took such a toll. And I was really wanting to coast and have something lower than 49x17. But now, 5 hours after I finished, my legs feel fine, and I wonder if I could have given more. After doing the first half in 3 hours, I set a goal of 7, but it took me 8 to finish. So the tally is 8 hours (not including breaks at checkpoints), 127 miles and some change.

Other highlights--hitting 38 mph on a descent and thinking that my legs were going to fly off at the hips. All the things you think about when you're alone for long stretches of time on a bike--I made catalogues, such as: different types of cows; different varieties of old men from rural wisconsin; different ways my ass hurts; different smells of manure; different riding lawn mowers; and different road kill, including, cat with rigor mortis that caused one paw to stand erect as if it was playing with an invisible ball of yarn.

PBP--a friend is trying to talk me into this, but he's a maniac with these matters--RAAM wannabe, Furnace Creek 500, gold rush etc. The plan is to do the PBP and then go to Belgium and drink beer for an indeterminate amount of time, so I might start training.

oytie

CAD: randonneuring isn't a race in the sense that you are not racing against other riders. Rather, the goal is to finish the distance within a set time period. So you don't get a lot of strategy common to road racing.

12XU

Haha..."four or five rivendells" So predictable.

Aeroplane

Way to go! You give the rest of us hope.

calculator

Mr. Endurance strikes again. Nicely done oytie.