rhm

I'm not car-free. I drive pretty regularly. But I try to avoid it. I don't own a car; my rule, for what it's worth, is that I don't drive for my own purposes, but only when wife or my kids need me to drive.

But what are rules for, if not to be broken every now and then? Last Saturday I borrowed my wife's car and drove 35 miles to Milford NJ to do a brevet with the Eastern PA Randonneurs. Really nice guys; they know all the roads, and they organize some great rides. I'd really like to join. Or the NJ Randonneurs; their rides sometimes start closer to home... but not so close that I could realistically ride to and from the start point.

The sad irony is: to take organized randonneuring seriously, I'd need to buy a car.

So, my question: are any of you randonneurs car-free, or nearly so? How do you do it?

unterhausen

there are some car-free randos in NYC, I think. If there was anywhere you could get away with it, New Jersey is the place since you can usually get within striking distance on public transport. There have been some randos on the Eastern PA rides that rode to the start, last one I remember lived in Allentown.

If you would be willing to stay over, riding the day before makes things a lot easier. There have been a couple of people that rode to/from the hostel from LI and NYC. This works ok on the 300k, and maybe the 400k depending on how fast you are. The 600k would probably require a 4 day weekend.

I'm thinking you must have passed me when I was putting on my reflective gear at the top of the Sweet Hollow descent. Were you riding a brown bike? I'm sorry we didn't meet. I'm always late to the Milford starts, the last 20 miles are always confusing coming in from the west.

RR3

You can take the train to many of the NJ Brevets but then you would have to come in the night before and stay in a local hotel prehaps negating the cost and impact savings. I believe their website even lists directions from the train station.....Princeton or maybe Hamilton....not sure but it would be manageable if the hotel costs were acceptable.

There are also a couple Brevets out of Long Island that probably have some degree of public transport. There used to be Brevets out of NYC years ago leaving from a Hostel in Harlem if I remember. I suspect there are still other Randos from NYC with whom you could possibly commute to Brevets in a car (or truck). Trains to Boston are good and I think there is a stop not too far from the air base where the rides start and there is a good hotel close to the air base, too. The Boston rides are awesome just like the PA ones.

lga

I live in NYC and ride or take transit to brevets and permanents. I wouldn't rule out renting a car if necessary, but there are enough rides that are close to transit or within riding distance of my home. For most 200k rides in NJ or LI I can take an early train out and get to the start. For longer rides that start before 6 am, it's usually necessary to head out the afternoon or evening before and get a hotel or hostel. I guess part of my strategy is doing permanents, especially those that are convenient to me, instead of trying to do brevets that are far away.

How many brevets or permanents do you really need a car for? It seems like you could rent a car and/or a hotel room 12+ times a year before the costs surpassed buying/owning another car.

rhm

I agree, my location is about as good as it gets; if anyone could do car-free randonneuring, you'd think I could. I take a NJ Transit train to NYC every day of the week. But on the weekends, the trains often don't start running early enough to do me any good. The NJ Randonneur rides sometimes start only 10 - 15 miles from my house. This thread is not me complaining I can't do it, but wondering just how crazy it would be to try.

No, that was @TimmyT (red Nigel Dean; colors hard to distinguish in the twilight). I must have passed you on an ascent about a quarter mile before that. I was on the orange Fuji "the Ace" and when you stopped on Sweet Hollow I was stopped about 100 feet down the hill from you. Man, was that ever a good time for an extra layer of wool! I'd been getting colder over the last hour or so. Finally warmed up again by the last climb, I was able to take off my shell, put on the sweater, and put the shell on again, all before I got cold. Otherwise that last descent would have been murderous cold.

unterhausen

yeah, I was singing my new hit song, "my face is cold" all the way down Sweet Hollow Road. I think 10-15 miles ride to a start is doable, I suppose it would put extra stress on calorie requirements. I have thought about riding from State College, but the shortest distance is about 160 miles or so.

ThermionicScott 

I'm not car-free (or even in the running), but now is the time of year that I start trying to make all my trips by bike if possible, so the irony of driving ~100 miles to the nearest brevets isn't lost on me. Especially when the brevet is long enough that I could just ride home directly.

Jan Heine talks about riding "transport stages" to and from the start of a brevet. Even if the "cool kid" points aren't of interest, doing that would really help prep a person for the longer rides.

StephenH

Most of us that do a lot of randonneuring actually do more driving than the average person, due to needing to be at different places each week.

We have one car-free guy locally that's done a few rides, and he'll ride 20 or 30 miles to the ride start, do the ride, then ride home. That makes for a long day for him.

There's one car-free guy in Austin that gets around quite a bit. I'm not sure exactly how he works things locally, but if he's got friends coming up here or elsewhere, he'll ride with them. I think he just recently got a route approved near his home, so it makes it easier for him to do a rando ride every weekend if he wants to.

Anyway, it's just some extra challenge. Kind of like if you DO own a car, but the nearest rando club is 150 miles away, what do you do?

At 36 miles or so, I'd probably try to ride over the evening before the ride and stay in a motel, do the ride. Then if it's a 200k, maybe ride back afterwards, if it's a 300k, spend another night and ride back. That assumes you have a reasonable route from one place to the other.

Also look into creating some good routes closer to your area.

TimmyT 

I got on Turkey Hill Road with @rhm ahead of me, and he stood up on a 39-30. At that point, I was like, "Naaah, time to drop to the granny."

I recently got a synthetic Santini jacket from Nashbar, and that's really good for the intermediate temps. When I got back to the car, I changed into jeans and a sweatshirt. I pulled out the jacket and leggings when I got home, and everything was damp in a, "I'm glad I didn't freeze in that" sort of way.

clasher

I would guess transit + hotel/airbnb/warmshowers/couchsurfing/etc. might be cheaper than buying another car for this purpose. Depending on the car and your insurance rates it could easily cost 5-10K to own another car every year. That's a lot of hotel and train/bus rides.

skiffrun

While not entirely car-free (I have had periods of being car-free), I have ridden 9-miles, 15-miles, 20-miles, 22-miles to and again after Permanents, Perm-Populaires, and Brevets -- most of the perms and at least some of the brevets have included bicycle commutes before and after.

The energy expenditure to get to the rides has never been an issue; I have never considered that there might be an energy expenditure -- not even when I had to virtually race to get to the start in time. Getting back home after the ride, I mentally go into slow-homebound-commute mode and just keep the pedals turning, albeit often at a slow rate / pace.

One interesting thing I found was that the 300-km brevets became easier, feeling more like a slightly long 200. Of course, if you're riding an extra 18-miles (30-kms) or even an extra 40-miles (66-kms) when you do a 200, then your brain and muscles will think that they are only doing a slightly longer 200.

This year, or at least the next couple months, could be more interesting / difficult as I am completely out of bicycling shape --> extra miles might not feel as nothing.

On the other hand, it hasn't always been beer and skittles (Irregular Velo Adventures: 300) -- and I was in good shape before that ride.

antimonysarah

There's quite a few car-free or car-light folks in the Boston randonneuring contingent; the start point for the Boston rides is a fairly-flat 10-15 mile cruise out to the suburbs for city dwellers.

(I'm car-light -- my husband has a car, I don't, so I can borrow it for far-away brevets but I ride the 11 miles to the Boston ones.)

I find it's a nice way to warm up -- when the clock starts, I'm all ready to roll and can cruise with a faster group for a bit while I'm warmed up and they're not. Plus, I can eat snack 1 at the start.

The 11 miles home at the end is sometimes less pleasant, although it's almost entirely downhill for me, which makes it easier, because I'm DONE and I want to be DONE.