Way to Go NR, most impressive. I think my mileage could be 2k as well but I'm taking deductions as follows.

Working at home with no need to commute -500
Having to watch the kids -250
My wife would divorce me if I did centuries each weekend, both days -500
Home improvement which now includes expanding my garage studio to include a bathroom and more space. One corner will be devoted to bike care. -250

So, I'm right were I should be, around 500, mostly inside, which are quality hours nonetheless.

I did get out yesterday. I find that the more time I spend off the road the more skittish I become. Drove up to Loch Raven and did some hills, no simulating a climb up Morgan Mill indoors. IT was great fun. Long Green Rd off of Dulaney Valley has some climbing too.

I'll catch up to you guys this summer---yah right.

"You know what I'm after."

10k??

This we can trim. First you don't need the corner for bike care since you aren't riding +125, forget the bathroom use a bottle, +125. You are now up +250 miles.

I took off the studs before my morning commute. I felt soooo fast. I guess we will get the snow forecast tonight because I took them off.

:thumb:

Ha hah. Well, I spend upwards to 12 hours a day in this room so a bathroom will be a nice addition. I can't share a space with a piss bottle, unless it's a tent. I'll be doing some more road miles soon. Maybe today if I can meet my deadlines and beat the snow.

Suggestions and opinions wanted.
I've been mulling over starting a "bike club" focused on long distance riding in Baltimore. The BBC is fine, but I think that there may be other long distance riders in Baltimore and environs who are either turned off by the BBC style or who don't even know about it. I'm hoping to promote my monthly centuries through other means (facebook, webpage, flyers, etc.) as well as in the BBC. Also hoping to collaborate with others who might have their own rides. Perhaps even weekend overnighters.

My main concern is: am I just splitting up the same small slice of pie? ie: should I admit to myself that there just aren't many people into this type of riding and be satisfied when 3 or more show up?

Name?: the "Baltimore Long Riders" It's got a thuggish motorcycle gang kinda ring to it that I like. Any other suggestions?

-GB

I think there are very few people who can do the long rides on a regular basis. Take the DCRand, pretty much a core group of riders that during the winter months becomes very small, and DC is a bigger city. My guess, and I may be wrong, is that you can expect a few hardcore folks without kids, or older people who's kids are grown and who have more free time.

Take me as an example. I love the "idea" of your rides but just cannot do whole day rides very often due to other responsibilities. I can't even hook up with many of the BBC rides as they have late starts. The Stoneleigh guys are always trying to squeeze in 2.5 hour rides. People like that, with kids, couldn't do your rides.

Personally I would do it under the umbrella of the BBC, you can still set up your own web page or whatever to attract riders.

As far as names I get a laugh from the Facebook group "Order of the Iron Crotch" (still thuggish motorcycle gang kinda feel) or if you want to deemphasize endurance cycling something along the lines of "Just out for the day." Just some thoughts.

If I could ever get my act together, I could help in holding some long rides or weekend overnighters, but I never can decide until, like, 6 hours before I leave as to where I'm going. Even then, it's not a positive. :rolleyes: Errr... I'm heading, ummm.... northeast, then maybe south... west for a while... then, ummm, northwest until I get home. Whoops, there's an interstate or a lake in the way... northeast... west... Am I there yet?

Random Rambling Randonneurs Club?

Sorry Harry, I just don't see it. There are huge randonneuring clubs in other cities. Seattle International Randonneurs have hundreds showing up to rides twice as long as mine. Are they all single and independently wealthy? No. They just make time to do what they like. Even the DCRand Civil War tour 200k had more than 100 show up. I talked to many of them and they live busy lives like the rest of us. They just save a day per month for a ride. You've got a day a month to ride somewhere in your schedule, I'm sure.

Sorry Harry, I just don't see it.

Well, you don't have to, my opinion.

Can you call my wife and explain this whole idea of making time to do what you like? "Honey, mind watching the kids, I'll be back in eight hours or so" My wife is actually very accommodating, way more than most but there is a limit.

Doable once in a while but even once a month is pushing it. Only way I will ever get consistent long rides in is to do them during the week, in which case I need to turn work down.

BTW-Seattle does have a big rando club but from the pics that I see from DCRand rides they seem to number a dozen at a time on those training rides, usually less, more for brevets I'm sure as people come from neighboring states.

I sincerely hope you can get a club together, Baltimore doesn't have a rando club so just do it. What do you have to lose. If you want some design work just holler, but I know your a sans jersey guy.

If it were me, I would keep the name simple like Baltimore Randonneurs.

I'm not pointing out anything personal. (Sorry, if it sounded that way :o)
I'm just wondering about where the enthusiasm for randonneuring comes from in other cities and other clubs. Is it something about Baltimore? Is it something inherent in the length of the ride? Is it that I don't wash my shorts enough? :innocent:

I think there so many biking web pages that you will divide, not conquer. I was just thinking(yesterday) how I would like to write some stuff on the N. Balto Bike Brigade but then realized that it will be one more forum/blog etc to follow. I follow enough so I didn't write anything. I agree w/ Barry to keep it under BBC. You can also post to long distance cycling forums and the N/E forum here @ BFN. I think you'll get the most bang for the buck. Doesn't BBC have a new forum?? Would it be easy to post there? Their yahoo page might be more difficult since it is 1 post after another and posts get lost. If you post where other non-LD cyclist post some will wonder over to check out the "crazy LD riders". This will slowly lure them over to your web of high mileage insanity.

Another thought: Make a new page/ blog whatever but advertise(the page AND the rides) through the various groups already established. Do this until it catches on. Have you advertised a ride on the M.O.R.E. board? Some of those guys can really crank and they don't mind the cold. They also have a group of hardened commuters. NR always talks about the Annapolis riders. You gotta learn to spread the WORD Brother Bob.
PS I just went over to the new BBC page. They have it set up like a real forum, so ask(no demand!!) an LD section. It says not open to the public( I think I'm public so can't talk) and this might hinder some folks. I did see that NR is turning Pro;-)

There may be long distance riders in the area that don't even know of your rides. I don't know much about BBC, but it may be that they are pretty set in their ways and long distance people may not even look at their ride schedule. Do you announce them on a separate thread on BF? Isn't there a sight called Daily Randonneur? Maybe do a wider announcement. When is the next ramble?

This is what I needed to hear. I guess I don't need to be inventing another wheel- just work more with what I've got. Probably good to shake up the BBC a bit too.

Here's a funny one.
A friend of mine sent me this pic of the Hand Made Bike show this weekend down in Richmond from the MTB review site.
It is a shot of the Vanilla Bikes booth. Great bikes, but they also had an espresso counter. Very strange. The "fellow" in the pic looks like he's considering a portable machine for his rando bike.

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c2...0/DSCF0059.jpg

Hey! That guy looks familiar. No, not the one with his arms crossed in front of him... the one in the yellow hat! :lol:

See anything that you liked?

Wish I had seen that show, need to start scheduling those things, though Saturday I had one of those "obligations"

GB-I think that your past few rides have shown, including the monument ride, that you may get one or two BBC people to join but no more. Actually surprised that Janet hasn't joined any of your Rando rides as she's done pick up 100 milers with NR and others. I think, as many have stated, you just need to advertise, get the word out.

Shorts, you wear shorts, aren't those sweat pants or something?

Reading between the lines (and based on snippets of other conversations/posts I've had occasion to be party to) I think that what Bob has in mind is sort of a "rando club without all those nitpicky Randonneurs USA rules" deal. :) I think it might be possible to get something like that moving in the Baltimore area. I would bet that there are folks up here who would be inclined to participate more often in something like those informal, no-rules century rides that Crista and Chuck of DC Randonneurs put on every weekend -- if they didn't have to schlep down to DC/Virginia for the ride starts.

I agree with the thought that in considering recreational roadies who consistently ride long distances (as opposed to the more typical go-fast guys who do one or two "special occasion" century rides a year), you're talking about a real skinny slice of an already-not-too-big pie. It might not be able to support its own weight as a separate organization. I think it would be better to at least start off under the umbrella of an existing club, and the BBC is (nominally, at least) the biggest in the area. And I think the BBC does (or did once) have some sort of semi-official, semi-subsidiary-clubs -- there was a group out in Howard County, I think.

And here's another thing, Bob: the editor of the BBC newsletter is a Personal Friend of Yours. ; :D If you write up some promotional propaganda, I'll get it published. Dedicated sections on the BBC Web site (on the forums, and maybe elsewhere) might be useful, too, although the club management may decide to hold off on some of that until some interest has been demonstrated.

I would think about other avenues of reaching people, though. I agree with Harry that a lot of your target riders may not even be BBC members, or may not be particularly active ones, because they may not be into what they might perceive as the typical "bike club vibe."

Check your Shimano 10-speed chains (CN-6700 and possibly CN-7900)

http://bimactive.com/ba/journal/post/10783/30590

I've gotten reports from another club that this has been found after causing a fall.

Harry that's a box, not shorts!! You need a better screen or glasses;-)

1st Toyota, now Shimano, what's going on in Japan? Those chains look bad. Are they yours?

The handmade bike show: Bob I saw some pictures on bikelist.org the other day(from Charles Nighbor??). Wild looking stuff. Really like the bamboo/CF bikes. Did you buy anything?

I was referring to GB's choice in cycling attire, baggy stuff. He's too modest to show off those quads of steel.

Another thought on the long distance cycling. Your rides are not brevets and even though you and NR find the structured brevet not to your liking, many long distance cyclists fall into the structured randonneuring group, brevet riders.

didn't buy any frames, but there's a lot of eye candy there. the bamboo bikes made by Calfee look very cool. and they def. know how to build a bomb-proof frame. yes, they are very light.
Two builders I hadn't known were Yipsan from Boulder, CO. Beautiful, smartly built bikes with light-hearted little details. He won the peoples choice award at the show for a townie bike. (http://urbanvelo.org/congratulations-yipsan/) My favorite bike of his was a rando bike (natch') not pictured on his site.

Also, a standout was Jeff Bishop who has been building right under my nose here in Baltimore. (http://www.bishopbikes.com/)
Bishop, along with Tom Palermo and the builders at Baltimore Bike works is really creating a B'more framebuilders presence. Hooyah!

Charles Lathe/COHO bicycles brought a surprise. It was a very elegant expedition bike- fully fendered, with handbuilt integrated racks and 26" wheels. Quite beautiful.