The Flèche is Strong...

Easter is only two weeks away and as all good Christians know, that means it’s time for the most befuddling and beguiling of randonneuring events, the Flèche. For those of you who followed that link and read the rules of the Flèche, please explain it to me sometime because I still haven’t quite gotten my head completely around how this thing works.

Well, I suppose I understand the important parts well enough... Basically it’s all about riding around for 24 hours straight with a team of 3 – 5 riders. The team needs to cover at least 360 kilometers and needs to arrive at the same place where all the other teams are due to arrive (Olympia in this case). All of the Flèche teams that managed to survive the ordeal have Sunday brunch together and then they all go on about thier business. There are a lot of other rules that seem aimed at trying to keep everyone from getting too comfortable anywhere during the 24 hours of the Flèche.

This is my fourth year of hanging out in the Randonneuring “tent,” yet somehow I have managed to avoid this curious event. It’s not completely intentional. In my first year of randonneuring (2009), I was still too intimidated by even a 200k brevet to consider joining a Flèche team, but by 2010 I was eager to give it a go so I got on a team but had to drop out at the last minute due to a work conflict. Then in 2011, my FOOSH in early March mucked up any hopes I had of joining a team.

Finally my Flèche stars seem to have aligned. Captained by Gary Prince, the team includes Dave Harper, Joe Llona and myself. Our mission so far has been to come up with a route that has as few kilometers over the 360km minimum as possible while still taking us through Port Townsend (I’m not sure what we’ll be doing in Port Townsend but Gary really wanted to go there and he’s the captain of the team so there you have it). I think we’ve achieved our goal as we have an interesting looking route a hair under 370 kilometers. We’ll start at the ferry dock in Winslow at noon on April 6th and head north through Port Townsend, then over to Sequim for dinner, and then south on highway 101 for miles and miles all the way to Elma where hopefully we’ll be able to find a good breakfast. From Elma we’ll take a victory lap around the Capital State Forest before continuing on to the finish in Olympia.




I'm looking forward to this event as it's really the only randonneuring event that I haven't tried yet, and many randonneurs count it as their favorite event. In the meantime I have a 300k brevet to ride down in Tacoma that will keep me busy for at least part of next weekend. So, please carry an umbrella with you wherever you go over the next two weekends to ensure we have sunny skies for our complicated rando shenanigans.

What a Difference a Week Can Make

Yesterday the Seattle Randonneurs Spring 300k brevet was held on what turned out to be a beautiful spring day. There were some clouds here and there, but there was also a fair amount of sunshine, and the temperatures were warm enough to entice a few riders to show off their blindingly pale arms and legs.

I wasn't riding in this event. No, I was one of the martyrs who made the sacrifice to the velo weather gods (their names are Campagnolo and Shimano) last weekend by attempting to preride the route in a blizzard. But I was glad to do it to assure perfect weather for yesterday's ride.

Just so I could get a little riding in this weekend, I rode my bike up to Machias where I was helping to man the penultimate control on the 300k. I have to admit I was startled when I looked over and saw this stranger next to me as I was approaching Snohomish.

I had a great time hanging out at Machias and seeing a lot of my fellow Seattle randonneurs as they came through the control. The perspective you get hanging out in a control and watching everyone flow through is so different than what you experience from the saddle of your bike in the midst of the pack of a long brevet. Often when I ride a brevet, I'll see everyone at the start for a few minutes, but we quickly scatter ourselves across the field and then it's not unusual for me to see only a handful of other riders for the rest of the ride. Hanging out at a control is sort of like seeing that MRI slice through the brain of the entire rando club. You can clearly see the similarities and differences between the "fast boys" (apologies for being sexist, but they were all boys) who come blazing through on their carbon fiber race bikes (except Jan of course), and the mid-pack crowd, all smiles and getting their money's worth out of the ride. Unfortunately I had to leave before the lantern rouge crowd came through, but I bet most of them were smiling too since they were getting the most ride for their money.

Even though I hadn't ridden nearly as far as the brevet riders, my ride home felt like the end of an epic journey. I was alone on mostly empty roads.

As the sun set and I rode on into the night, it was cool but I was comfortable without having to put on every piece of clothing I had with me. It reminded me of so many other nights riding brevets as I rode on lonesome roads alone from daytime into night. That experience has always been one of my favorites of randonneuring. Ah, what a difference a week can make.

SIR Spring 300k Pre-ride: Riding in a Winter Wonderland

My 2012 Randonneuring season is off to an ignominious start. Yesterday morning I set out bright and early to meet Gary and Dave, the organizers of the Seattle Randonneurs spring 300k, and Tom and Bill who will be helping to run the event. We were planning to pre-ride the route before next Saturday's official event.

With a steady rain falling and a temperature of about 35 degrees we sat around for a few minutes talking about whether it might be prudent to wait until Sunday to do the pre-ride. But the forecast for Sunday wasn't any better, so we rode off into dark wet streets at 5:30am. As we rolled through Lake City, Bothell and Woodinville the rain never let up an iota. Then near Cottage Lake we came upon a road closed sign due to a flooded roadway ahead. Had we been normal intelligent people rather than randonneurs, we might have taken the flooded road along with the mixed rain and snow falling from the sky as an omen or maybe even just a good excuse to go home and go back to bed. But we were convinced that the clouds would part at any minute and the temperature would rise, so we detoured around the flood and pressed on.

By the time we got to Monroe, Gary had come to his senses and decided he was going to grab a cup of coffee and then catch a bus for home. The rest of us didn't share Gary's good judgement (possibly due to hypothermia) so we decided to keep riding.

From Monroe to Granite Falls the route leaves civilization and gets into the Cascade foothills. The route never got much higher than 500' above sea level, but that was enough elevation to turn the mixed rain and snow into just plain snow. And then heavy snow. Then the snow started to accumulate on the road. By the time we were five miles away from Granite Falls it had become obvious to me that continuing the ride was not just plain stupid, but it was "rando stupid." My feet were soaked and aching cold, my hands were like lifeless stumps of numbness. As long as I kept peddling my core temperature stayed warm enough, but I didn't want to think about what might have happened if one of us got a flat tire and had to try to fix it with numb frozen hands. The last five miles to Granite Falls rank up there with some of my all time most miserable randonneuring experiences, and that's saying something.

Of course once safely in a coffee shop in Granite Falls, the misery quickly melted away into a puddle on the floor. I spent a few minutes thinking about whether I would try to ride home or call Sarah for a ride, but I didn't for a second consider riding the rest of the 300k. Luckily Sarah was happy to come get me, otherwise I might still be in that coffee shop in Granite Falls.

Hopefully we'll have better weather next weekend for the actual event. It's hard to imagine how it could be worse. I'll probably be working at one of the controls and I'll make sure we have hot drinks ready for everyone who comes by.

I successfully rode the pre-ride for the SIR 200k a couple of weeks ago so I'm now batting .500 for the 2012 rando season. Not a great start. I blame climate change.

A Darn Fine Day

Don't you just love those days where you get to run from one fun event to another? Like there's so much great in the day that you barely fit it in?

Here's what my idea of a darn fine day looks like:

The alarm went off at 6:00 am. Not just any 6:00 am, but the Sunday morning of the first day of daylight savings time 6:00 am, which if not for Benjamin Franklin's clever idea would be 5:00 am. Yes, it's a little painful when the alarm goes off, but on a darn fine day it pays to get an early start.

7:30 am and it's time to meet Mark Thomas, Bob Brudvik, Vinny Muoneke and John Pearch at Starbucks for a 100 km permanent from Clearview up to Arlington and back. After a cup of coffee and the usual pre-ride smack talk we rolled out for a beautiful ramble up through the Snohomish valley, past Lake Stevens and on to the Centennial Trail for the last bit to Arlington. The return route stayed on the Centennial Trail all the way to Snohomish and then followed quiet rural roads back to Clearview. The sky was ugly, but against all odds we managed to make the round trip without seeing a single raindrop. One flat tire came between us and randonneuring perfection. When I pointed out that the flat tire came at the right time, after a long climb when we all needed a bit of a breather any way, Vinny quoted Benjamin the Donkey in Animal Farm. "God gave me a tail to keep off the flies," said Vinny quoting Benjamin, "but I'd rather have had no tail and no flies." Touché. Everyone was riding strong but Mark was pulling us uphill and into the wind like a locomotive. Someone should test that guy. There's no way he's doing that without performance enhancing drugs. Just sayin'.

I would have loved to hang out after the ride but I was supposed to meet Sarah, her parents and friends at Benroya Hall to see Emanuel Ax so off I raced. Now, I'm not a big classical music guy. To be honest I couldn't remember whether Mr. Ax played the piano or the cello until I arrived at the concert hall (it's piano in case you haven't already clicked the link above and you're a hick like me). But whenever I'm dragged along to the symphony or to see an amazing artist like Emanuel Ax I'm surprised by how much I enjoy it. The man's talent on the piano is astounding. Anyway, breaking speed limits and forgoing a shower, I was still 20 minutes late for the concert. Luckily I only missed the first piece which was really okay because Mr. Ax had decided to open the concert with a Copeland composition. I've never been too fond of Arron Copeland (I may not be much of a classical music guy but at least I know enough to be able to throw out a comment like that convincingly).

The perfect end to a darn fine day for me is an evening at home with my family and my dog, the dog watching my every move adoringly, the family asking when dinner will be ready.