Bridging the gap

Winter

In the winter of 2017, I stepped away from long bike rides to get stronger. Following a consistent routine of ever heavier squats, deadlifts, overhead presses, bench pressing, and chin-ups required time to recover. So I set aside long rides in the cold for shorter, intense sessions under the unforgiving steel bar. Each session was a simple pass/fail test of will and growing strength: either I lifted or I failed.

February

By February 2018, the sessions had paid off. I found myself stronger than I had been in decades. Truth be told, physically, I am far more suited to strength training than Randonneuring. This kind of training may be the polar opposite of the endurance needed for Randonneuring, but I knew that when I took the step back to rebuild and rebalance. Yet, in the process, I had let months pass without my riding a 200K or even a 100K,

But as the days grew longer, I found myself questioning the wisdom of taking that much time off the bike. Before this break, for eight years I had maintained a streak of monthly 200K rides in part because the prospect of starting over to regain that necessary endurance intimidated me. The first go around to build it, to put it mildly, challenged me. Now, I found myself older, stronger, more experienced, but basically having to start again. 

{"I found myself" - what a strange expression. When you think about it, it becomes complex, hard to explain. Who is the  "I"? What is the "myself" that was found?  How did "I" lose "myself" and what is it about that moment of the discovery that leads to the expression "finding yourself? But I digress, let's return to Spring 2018 ...}

Living the dream. One account of Paris-Brest-Paris.

I thought I was prepared. I was wrong.

After five years of randonneuring over different distances, through a vast assortment of weather, after climbing hundreds of thousands of feet, after earning a shelf full of rando trinket awards, after a full season of training specifically for this ride, I thought I was ready for the 1230 Kilometer Paris Brest-Paris (PBP) bike ride that starts in the town of St. Quentin (pronounced Can-tan) located in the outskirts of Paris, goes to Brest, a port city located deep in the Bretagne (Brittany) region on the western edge of northern France, and then returns to St. Quentin. After all, according to my friend JB, who completed PBP twice before and would attempt it this time on a tandem, PBP was "just a bike ride." JB has been right about many things, but about this, he was just wrong.

One cannot simply ride this route whenever one chooses and then claim to have ridden PBP.

PBP is more than a bike ride.

PBP is an entire region of France coming out to welcome and support a diverse collection of worldwide adventurers.

PBP is a rolling Tower of Babel speaking the common language of cycling for three plus days.

PBP is an arduous personal challenge, testing body and spirit, that reaches back into history to the very birth of the cycling.

PBP is a moment in time.

PBP takes place outside of time.

PBP is its own reality.

PBP is a dream made real. 

This brief account cannot capture the experience of 6000 participants from 48 countries - no one account can. Add to that the fact that I spent the days that followed the ride in a narcoleptic fugue state, sleeping deeply, often and unexpectedly, as my mind and body swam up from the murky depths of exhaustion and sleep deprivation and the challenge of writing an accurate ride report grows greater. But, most of all, telling the story of PBP is like recalling the details of a dream - some are strong and clear, others linger at the edge of recall, slipping away from easy description and some may be lost in the haze of time. But this remarkable event remains a story worth telling, so, with those shortcomings in mind, I shall try to share a sense of living the dream that is PBP.

First Friday Writings for Randos - The celestial bodies of Paris Brest Paris

{First Friday Writings for Randos - A monthly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This month it's an excerpt from Jeff Tilden's account of his PBP Ride in 2007* . . .

I love the swoosh and the sway and the zoom of bicycling. I love to fly, to corner, to tilt like a gyroscope. It’s primitive and it’s simple and it’s elegant and it’s graceful and it’s powerful. The abject skilllessness of bicycling is its greatest virtue. It requires nothing. A four-year old can master it. A little balance, not much, far less than, say, being a spider. We know this as children, but we forget. We already have everything we need. The PBP is not the NFL. It is, instead, an incandescent union of form and function. Of past and present. Uniting us not with our grandparents as much as some animal 400 million years ago. Bicycling is primordial. We come from an unbroken line of winners, stretching back to the first day we crawled up out of the mud. Every one of our ancestors, all the way back, kept going long enough to beat predators, disease, starvation. Long enough to have a child. With really only the skill it takes to ride a bike. Like the rest of my species, I hale from Africa, and I was born to run through the woods. Or bike, if the woods are paved. A brevet is a race, after all. The human race.

 . . . We reek, but are unaware of it, like fish that don’t know they are wet.  We have been marinated in our own sweat.  Paul saw a café on the way into Fougeres 370 miles ago and has had his mind’s eye on it for two days.  He leads us there and we sit down to an outdoor picnic table feast of sausage crepes, heavy on the mustard, and frittes, heavy on the ketchup.  As we finish, Paul launches into what may be the second greatest pep talk ever.  I cannot do it justice, but the gist was . . .

First Friday Writing for Randos - 2013 London - Edinburgh - London 1418km Randonnee

{First Friday Writings for Randos - A monthly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly. This month it's an excerpt from Susan Otcenas's account of her 1418km (881 mi) ride from London, England to Edinburgh, Scotland and back to London (LEL).}

 

2013 London - Edinburgh - London 1418km Randonnee

by Susan Otcenas

I am not a natural athlete. Not even close. In high school, I played trombone in the orchestra. The only trophies I won were in thespian competitions. In college I gained the typical Freshman Fifteen, studied economics, and smoked a pack a day. In my 20s and 30s, I gained more weight, started a business, bought a house and “settled down”. But as I approached my 40th birthday, I knew I needed to make some changes. And my bicycle, which I’d always ridden for pleasure and exercise, became the vehicle for those changes.

Four years ago I found randonneuring, and it changed my life. 

 

First Friday Writing for Randos - The Rando Way

{First Friday Writings for Randos - A monthly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This month it's an excerpt from Jennifer Chang's account of her Cascade 1200 Ride in 2010.*

Randonneuring is hard. It stretches you to your limits. And in a way, it’s a lot like life.

Riding Grand Randonees The Olsen Brothers' Way - an in depth interview.

“The quality of any advice anybody has to offer has to be judged against the quality of life they actually lead.”  Douglas Adams 

While someone can properly call themselves a Randonneur by completing a 200K brevet, successfully completing a Grand Randonnee - a 1200 kilometer (750 miles) brevet - can be considered the crowning achievement of the sport. The quadrennially held 1200k Paris-Brest-Paris may be the original and ultimate Grand Randonnee but there are now Grand Randonnees across the United States and around the world. 

Of the small percentage of cyclists who are Randonneurs, an even smaller number complete a Grand Randonnee. Of that small number, even fewer complete two in a year. Of that tiny number a select few complete more than two.

Mark and Bill Olsen are two of the select few in the country who have ridden more than two Grand Randonnees in one year. In fact, between them, the Olsen brothers have successfully completed over 60 randonneuring distance rides.

In 2013 alone, they rode 12 Grand Randonnees, with Mark riding four and Bill completing all eight of the grand randonnees offered in North America.

Even more impressive (to me), the Olsen brothers complete these epic rides at a pace that allows them to eat, sleep and enjoy the ride. Bill has described his trips as vacations and bike tours.

I want to have that kind of experience on Grand Randonnee. So, having struggled to complete one 1200K, I was eager to learn how they are able to complete so many. Mark and BIll graciously agreed to answer my questions. What follows are their detailed and informative responses.  

First Friday Writing for Randos: PBP 2007 by Jeff Tilden

{First Friday Writings for Randos - A monthly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This month it's an excerpt from Jeff Tilden's account of his PBP Ride in 2007* . . .

I love the swoosh and the sway and the zoom of bicycling. I love to fly, to corner, to tilt like a gyroscope. It’s primitive and it’s simple and it’s elegant and it’s graceful and it’s powerful. The abject skilllessness of bicycling is its greatest virtue. It requires nothing. A four-year old can master it. A little balance, not much, far less than, say, being a spider. We know this as children, but we forget. We already have everything we need. The PBP is not the NFL. It is, instead, an incandescent union of form and function. Of past and present. Uniting us not with our grandparents as much as some animal 400 million years ago. Bicycling is primordial. We come from an unbroken line of winners, stretching back to the first day we crawled up out of the mud. Every one of our ancestors, all the way back, kept going long enough to beat predators, disease, starvation. Long enough to have a child. With really only the skill it takes to ride a bike. Like the rest of my species, I hale from Africa, and I was born to run through the woods. Or bike, if the woods are paved. A brevet is a race, after all. The human race.

 . . . We reek, but are unaware of it, like fish that don’t know they are wet.  We have been marinated in our own sweat.  Paul saw a café on the way into Fougeres 370 miles ago and has had his mind’s eye on it for two days.  He leads us there and we sit down to an outdoor picnic table feast of sausage crepes, heavy on the mustard, and frittes, heavy on the ketchup.  As we finish, Paul launches into what may be the second greatest pep talk ever.  I cannot do it justice, but the gist was . . .

My Taste of Carolina 1200K

I text a message to Facebook - 

29 August - Soon it begins.

If this is Randonneuring then there must be an early start. Since the ride started at 4:00, I set multiples alarms for 3:00 and arranged for a wake up call at the same time. Then I woke up at 2:00 and, after staring at the ceiling for a while, turned off the alarms and canceled the call before they woke up my wife and kids.

They came with me for the trip. We planned to meet up at a couple of the sleep controls. The risk was that their being at the sleep controls would mean that I had a ride in place if for some reason I couldn't continue. Having an easy way out of a tough situation is not always a good thing.