Originally Posted by
SandLizrd
But I'm hung up on something Machka said a few years ago. "Cemetaries are a great place to sleep, no one bothers you." I believe it! I'm not doubting the accuracy of the statement, but wondering: Just how strange does it really get out there?
as others have said -- it gets stranger the longer you're out there and the more sleep is deprived from you.
I've never slept in a cemetary, but have napped on my fair share of town greens and unfenced meadows. On PBP, I've also slept in the empty clock tower of a church.
Crashing out on a bench outside a convenience store sounds a bit funny - anyone get harassed for vagrancy?
I came down with a pretty bad cold during a fleche last year and had to abandon. Sacked out in the vestibule of a gas station for 30 minutes while waiting for a friend to pick me up. Most of the staff, treaded around me, but none of them gave me any issues. When you're in a state where you are
consciously choosing to sleep in a convenience store rather than your own bed , it's not the most ideal of circumstances and most folks recognize that and will give you some leeway, unless you're being an active nuisance to them and theirs.
One of the nice things about randonneuring is that it exposes one to many reminders that people are not jerks.
All the riders know the good roads, probably with wide shoulders and little traffic. The randonneur seems to ride ANYTHING. The routes I've seen include everything but freeways, because that's what it takes to connect the dots on these long routes! Just how often do you find yourself saying, "this route sucks, I wish I was back on the good roads and not trying to get 200k out there"? In other words, when would you prefer a friendly loop? Hell, I've seen big organized rides with crazy-stupid routing, I can just imagine how hard it is to get a 1200k with no death-roads.
I've been bored with a loop course. For me, the appeal of randonneuring is the exploration, and getting gritty, tiny roads is part of the deal. In New England, our route organizers place a pretty high priority on low traffic, safe routes, but unless the road is under construction and utterly unnavigable, there is no heed paid to road quality. It's assumed that in New England that smooth pavement is more precious than saffron. So we definitely get low traffic, if not wide shoulders or good surface, and I'm fine with that and wouldn't define too many of our routes as "crazy stupid" ... but considering the amount of climbing we have to do, just "crazy" comes to mind frequently
oh, and, skinny, I was a pointless thrillseeker
long before I became a 9-5 cubicle jockey
if anything, I commute to work through Boston traffic, and that adds a perfectly reasonable amount of adrenaline to the 8am and 6pm shoulders of my corporate veal pen existence.