Randonnduring is often referred to as a big tent activity because there is room for cycle and cyclist expression within the group.  The bicycle in the picture above is sometimes referred to as a classic randonneuse; or randonneuring style bicycle.  Even though I built that bicycle, and others like it, I can’t call it classic because I’m kind of growing in acceptance of the idea that there is no such thing as a classic randonneuring style of cycle or cyclist.  I’m even wondering where I’m supposed to fit into the picture.

    The rest of my riding consisted of commuting, rambling through the countryside, and riding with our local club on Saturdays, enjoying 35 to 65 mile rides where we rode pretty fast between long stops.  During that time, I read John Forester’s book about cycling and began to wonder if I could ride much longer distances.  I started surfing the web to see if others felt the same way.  

    I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  In fact at the end of that ride, I considered riding up the road another five miles and coming back to make it a 200 mile day, but I settled for 190 and sat on the hotel porch with the other riders, eating pizza while we watched the few riders behind me come in.

    Then I got spooked.  I heard talk about how hard such and such a brevet would be and this and that, and I worried that I was getting into something a little too competitive for me so I didn’t ride any more brevets that year.  Why should I commit myself further before I saw where this was going?  

    But, at the end of the year, I renewed my RUSA and SIR memberships and the next season I decided I would try a 400K brevet.  I rode the 200K, missed the 300K, and rode the 400K.  The 400K went well for me and I ended up trying and finishing a 600K late in the season.  I missed qualifying as a Super Randonneur because of the missed 300K brevet even though I had now ridden all the distances.  Last season, I rectified that and rode the whole series and became a Super Randonneur in June.

    Through all this, I continued my rambling, commuting, and local club rides, but I learned that I could go too hard on a long ride, wear myself out, and then recover on the bike.  That opened new vistas for me.  Maybe I could not only finish the brevets with time to spare, but perhaps I could go pretty fast.  I began to think about training and I bought some books and listened to conversations in person and on the web about training.

    Then we moved here to North Carolina, and I lost my way again.  Randonneuring is not yet as big a sport here as it is in the Northwest.  That means that there are fewer riders and less variety amongst them.  The go fast guys are dominant around here.  Peg Winczewski told me that when she began randonneuring with SIR, there were only five or so riders at the start of the longer brevets and that she often rode alone.  Last weekend, I found that only five of us signed up for the 300K brevet and in one fifty mile stretch, I saw one rider up ahead of me and passed one who was  coming back on the out and back part of the brevet.

    There were more than a dozen riders signed up for the 200K event.  I’ve already ridden with most of them and count them as rando buddies.  I rode the first 55 miles with two of them until our courses went their separate ways, but some of the others are much, much faster than I am and I have a hard time sticking with them.  I get dropped.

    Hear that, “Dropped?”  That’s a racing term and that’s where I get confused about where to put the emphasis in randonneuring.  Nina and I like to walk.  She does more walking than I do and exercise is an important aspect of it for her.  I’m a stroller, and when I walk with her, she has to either walk off and leave me behind -- drop me -- or stroll at a non-exercise pace.

    For now, I have been going hard for thirty or more miles and then letting the fast guys go.  After that, I try to keep my stops short -- easy for me since I’m not good at loafing -- and take it easier while seeing the sights along the road.  They’re all new sights since this is a new part of the world for me.

    I often think of Jon.  I have ridden with him a little bit and talked with him about as much, but I’ve seen him on several brevets.  This is what I’ve noticed about Jon.  He always has a big grin on his face.  (Even, as I found out later, when he was considering packing it in because he didn’t feel well.)  He always rides with someone, but not always the same someone.  I assume this is because he is the kind of guy other riders will change their pace to ride with; or perhaps because he is willing to change his.  One day, he was coming down the road on the coming back portion of an out and back while I was on the out portion.  He had a big wave and grin for me.  On another day, I passed him when I was on the coming back portion and he was on the out.  He showed the same big grin and wave.  

    Some time after that brevet, he referred to it by saying that he and Coby had fallen off the back.  That’s a lot different than saying they’d been dropped, isn’t it?

    Well, I still haven’t figured anything out and that’s all right because it will give me something to think about when I’m by myself on a long brevet and my concerns are torn between looking at my freewheel and wondering what I’m doing on that cog when I could drop down one and go faster; or whether I should turn around and try to figure out what the name of the river I just crossed is.