Brevets
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Future Me: DC Randonneurs Shenandoah 600K
As part of the MBA program I finished last month, I took a course called Operations Management. I didn’t know much about this discipline until a few weeks ago. Operations management techniques attempt to optimize resources to efficiently produce goods and plan for the future. During one of our classes I commented that many of… Continue reading
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Pittsburgh Randonneurs 400K Allegheny Mountains Cruel and Unusual Punishment: Rebrand Campaign
The Pittsburgh Randonneurs Allegheny Mountains Cruel and Unusual Punishment (AMCUP) 400K – a scenic tour of the Alleghenies boasting around 18,000 feet of climbing over 262 miles (full description here) – has a branding problem. Let’s agree that a brevet with such a title probably does not entice a lot of participation. Cruel and unusual… Continue reading
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Stretching Rituals: Pittsburgh Randonneurs 300K
I was going to write you a story of our Pittsburgh Randonneurs 300K, but it’s an amalgamation of spent feelings punctuated with mental snapshots brought about by a beautiful course on a perfect weather day that began with a full Flower Moon that set as rays of spring sunshine came up into a brilliant blue… Continue reading
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Meeting Myself: DC Randonneurs Ye Olde Frederick 300K
We are always meeting ourselves. Every moment is fresh, a chance for us to stand in a new place. A different self than the one we were just a second before. A unique package of commitments, health, emotions, and experience. That is, we can meet ourselves if we are open to it. The mind is… Continue reading
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A House Cat Rides the DC Randonneurs Both Sides (Not Now) 200K
There’s nothing like peak bloom of the DC cherry blossoms to motivate a person to leave the city for an all-day bike ride. It also helps when the ride start happens to be 7 miles from your house. Add that to an urge to put off homework as long as possible, and it’s a perfect… Continue reading
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DC Randonneurs Super Randonneur Series 2022: Full Heart Appreciation Edition
Hi friends. Before time gets away from me I wanted to put together a wrap-up post about Felkerino’s and my Super Randonneur Series on tandem this year. For those who don’t randonneur but follow along, a super randonneur is someone who successfully completes a set of four organized brevet distances: 200K; 300K; 400K; and 600K. … Continue reading
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Full Moon Fairy Tale: DC Randonneurs Many Rivers and Trails 600K
Someone cut a hole in the night sky, popped in the moon, and turned it up to the brightest setting. It’s a full moon like a flashlight and I am here for it. After more than 200 miles in the saddle, it feels like we’ve pedaled into surreality – a faraway fairy tale despite being… Continue reading
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Quiet the Mind: DC Randonneurs Northern Exposure 400K
The restless mind. The shiftless mind. An unsettled mind. Worries, classes, work. The world. I cannot shut it off, this mind. The only way to pause the mental cartwheels, it seems, is to apply some pedal strokes to the matter. Go for a bike ride, and try to forcefully divert the energy from my mind… Continue reading
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Cracking the Perfect Ride Code
This is an article I wrote for the March 2021 edition of American Randonneur. It evolved from a piece about our club’s fall 200K that I wrote here. Enjoy, and hope you all are well. My home club, the D.C. Randonneurs, has quite a few good courses in its brevet library, thanks to the expert… Continue reading
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Old Rag 200K Fall Edition: Time Sandwich
My. Feet. Are. So. Cold. Even though Felkerino and I waited to start the Old Rag 200K with the sun, it’s one of the first chilly mornings of fall. I had booties in hand, but left them home at the last minute, thinking they would just take up space for the majority of the day. … Continue reading
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Escape into Fall: Northern Virginia Randonneurs 400K
Over the last couple of weeks, Fall has been trying to catch my eye. The tumble of a golden leaf, a surprise wave of red from a tree. These gestures reach out to me as I briefly interrupt my stay-at-home life with an errand or workout. Can’t talk now, Fall, don’t you know what’s going… Continue reading
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D.C. Randonneurs Shenandoah 600K: Out of My Comfort Zone
After last year’s 600K, where I showed up physically ready but mentally underprepared, I spent much of this year’s series of brevets assembling my 600K face. As I said in 2018, you can’t shove your 400K and 200K faces together and expect a 600K to go well. Every distance needs its own face. I burned… Continue reading
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The Answer to All My Questions: D.C. Randonneurs Northern Exposure 400K
The past couple of years have been oversaturated with persistent questions. What am I doing with my life? Where do we go when we die? Am I doing the “right” things? What should I have done differently? What can or should I still do? These questions pester and burden more than they used to do,… Continue reading
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D.C. Randonneurs Warrenton 300K Pre-Ride
Today features a guest post from D.C. Randonneur and brevet organizer Bob C., who we accompanied this past Saturday on the Warrenton 300K checkout ride. Bob’s summary encapsulates our day on the bike and also provides helpful information to those who will be riding the event, starting at 5 a.m. on May 11. (All photos… Continue reading
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Frederick 300K: Sway Under Sun
For our recent D.C. Randonneurs 300K, I had imagined a ride that also served as a sort of bike therapy. Based on previous outings on this course, I conjured up a head-clearing tour through the hills of orchard country, tempered with peaceful farm roads in the middle, and a nice glide into the ride finish.… Continue reading
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Go Time With the D.C. Randonneurs: Nokesville Nomad 200K
Like many randonneurs, Felkerino and I have decided to throw our hat in the ring for this year’s edition of Paris-Brest-Paris (PBP). (We plan to be part of the 84-hour starting group.) This great ride, which kicks off in August, requires that riders complete a full brevet series – that is, a 200K, 300K, 400K,… Continue reading
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The Secret Society of Randonneuring: Kit ‘n Kish 600K Permanent
3:30 a.m. Felkerino and I quietly maneuver our eight-foot tandem out of the hotel room, and Felkerino muscles it into the elevator, hoisting the front half of the bike into an upper corner, since it is too long to naturally fit the space. Our cycling cleats tap purposefully on the floor as we exit through… Continue reading
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Shenandoah 600K: Ride With What You Have Inside
While in the midst of final preparations for the weekend’s Shenandoah 600K in Virginia, a friend asked me how I was feeling about the ride. I raised my eyebrows and said, “I’m ready for it to be over.” “You need your face!” she responded. Ah yes, I was so proud of dialing in my 400K… Continue reading
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D.C. Randonneurs 4 States 400K: Bring Your 400K Face
Want a successful 400K ride experience? Bring your 400K face to the ride and no other. After over a decade of randonneuring, some lessons have begun to sink in, and I’m finally figuring out what a good 400K face looks like. My 400K face is one that begins a ride full of a week of… Continue reading
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Mother of All 300Ks and the Passage of Time
Fourteen years ago I rode my first 300K brevet with the D.C. Randonneurs, and this weekend Felkerino and I were back on that very same course, now fondly titled the Mother of All 300Ks given the gnarly 13,600 feet of climbing in 189 miles. One of the first weekends to give a clear indicator that… Continue reading
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Made-Up Me: D.C. Randonneurs 600K
The uncertain arc of a ride as long as a 600K draws me to it. So many factors define the ultimate experience: fitness, weather, terrain, traffic, and the bike itself. Moments where I wonder why the heck I’m doing this are almost a given over such distance. Frustrating as these times are, it intrigues me… Continue reading
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Enjoying Every Mile on the D.C. Randonneurs 400K
Stopped at mile 110 of our 252-mile ride, someone asks us where we started.”Frederick, Maryland,” we respond. When asked where we’re going we again say, “Frederick,” and then pepper in a few additional details about our day’s route. “Will you camp along the way?” our dining neighbors inquire. “No,” we answer. “We’re doing the whole… Continue reading
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Beyond Fun: D.C. Randonneurs Frederick, Maryland 300K
As I set out my gear for Saturday’s 300K, I noticed the 2015 cue sheet for the same ride still in my bag. One year later, back again. For a while Friday evening and into the next day, I wondered yet again why I thought of randonneuring as a worthy pursuit. Early ups, questionable weather… Continue reading
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Out of My Gordonsville: D.C. Randonneurs 300K
For the second year in a row, Felkerino and I couldn’t get our acts together to fit in a 200K, so we began our brevet season with this weekend’s D.C. Randonneurs 300K out of Warrenton, Virginia. Continue reading
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Living On In Memories
This past weekend I had one of the best rides of my life on the D.C. Randonneurs 600K brevet, and that’s not the randonnesia talking. The course layout, weather, and randonneur fellowship combined to set up a practically perfect 375 miles. Continue reading
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Randonneuring Beneath the Stars
The sun flares orange and pink, drops behind the mountains, and leaves us. Felkerino and I pause to don night gear, assess our 600K progress, and estimate the hours of night riding ahead. Continue reading
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Randonneuring: Making the Ordinary Extraordinary
Randonneuring events allow ordinary people like me to participate in extraordinary bike rides. Brevets changed my definition of a long day ride, from a century to more than double that– distances I previously could not even conceptualize pedaling. The randonneuring community helped me feel okay as a rider who does not move particularly fast, but has a body that has proven… Continue reading
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The Mind’s Journey
I began this year feeling quite uncertain, almost ambivalent, about the brevets. The past year has included some serious and unexpected health issues in my family. These scrambled up my head, and prompted a reassessment of that big question “What am I doing with my life?” Continue reading
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Randonnesia Strikes on the Mother of All 300Ks
“We’re too blessed to be depressed,” a church sign at mile 70 read. Our riding group of three shared a chuckle. We had just climbed Wolf Gap, Mill Gap, and were en route to more gaps and roads with words like “church” and “mountain” in their names. The path ahead gave us pause. Continue reading
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Experience: a Randonneur’s Frenemy
This weekend, Felkerino and I rode our first official brevet of 2015, the D.C. Randonneurs 300K out of Frederick, Maryland. I was feeling pretty lackluster about the whole thing, but the forecast indicated spectacular conditions, leaving us no excuses to skip out on a ride in the countryside with rando buddies. Continue reading
Chasing MailBoxes 