This year’s opening brevet started as many of the spring brevets go…rainy and cold weather! The temperature was in the mid 40s with steady drizzle that morning. Oddly enough, everyone that registered came, despite the lousy weather. True randonneurs! This year, we offered two distances…a 106km populaire or a 200km brevet. There were nine starters and all finished (although some finished outside the allotted time).
Everyone but Ray & Solomon left at 9:00 a.m. (they had a mechanical issue to deal with). Conor also had a minor mechanical problem on his newly rebuilt bike, but he quickly overcame that and caught up to the front group.
The majority of the cyclists stayed together as a group, keeping their distance between each other because of the tire spray from the wet roads. Most of riders arrived at the first checkpoint at 11:05 a.m., some 33 miles in. The Populaire riders turned around at that point, while Dan, Volodymyr and Richard continued on. Kim would arrive later at that checkpoint. Just after leaving the checkpoint the rain and head wind picked up and then later subsided, as it did for most of the afternoon. The three got to the turnaround point at 1:30 in the afternoon and took some time off the bike before returning. Those three finished at about 5:40 in the afternoon. Volodymyr was most grateful that Dan and Richard hung with him as his bike computer was in kilometers (he is from the Ukraine) and he was not keen on following a cue sheet and the many turns found on this route.
Ray & Solomon were on their flat bar “bad weather rough and tough” bikes and because they started late, they were not able to finish within the given time frame.
Meanwhile, Kim was moving along and made it to the turnaround checkpoint. He then made the return trip, but due to a typo on the cue sheet (which I take full responsibility), he was not able to find a critical turn and after much backtracking, just gave up, taking the “known” inbound route home. That cost him a bunch of time and he did finally get back to start point, but it was well after dark. His knee was also bothering him, causing him to spin at a high RPM, but moving slowly. But he did not give up and did finally finish…my hat’s off to him for hanging tough through route problems, crappy weather and physical issues.
There were three flats and a broken chain that were reported.
Thank you Dan and Richard very much!
You helped me a lot! I would have been lost in 200K Labyrinth without your support.
Good luck on the next brevet!