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.

PBP: Rain or Shine

As with all Randonneuring events, Paris-Brest-Paris is a rain or shine proposition. Past PBPs have experienced a wide range of weather. The last PBP in 2007 was probably one of the coldest and wettest on record with near constant rain and night time temperatures in the 40s. The 2003 event on the other hand was warm and dry with temperatures in the 60s to 80s.

Since the weather can be such a huge factor in randonneuring, I've started keeping an eye on what it's doing along the route. Of course, when it comes to weather you never really know what you're going to get until you're in the middle of it, but if Brittany is experiencing a particularly warmer/dryer or cooler/wetter weather pattern than usual over the next month, it may be a somewhat reliable predictor of what we'll encounter during PBP.

To that end, thanks to Weather Underground (www.wunderground.com), below you'll find "Weather Stickers" for each of the PBP contrôle towns. Click on one to go to a more detailed weather report and forecast. But don't blame me if you get rained on in France.