By some mysterious path I found while wandering through the ether we call the Internet, I came upon the bicycle cult called Randonneuring.  “This looks interesting,” I thought.

    Little did I know, but long will I remember, how profound a thought that was.  Through starts and stops, and with much trepidation that I may go into in another blog on another day, I joined the cult and found myself at the start of a 200K brevet that started, conveniently, near my home.  

    Off we went, over hill and dale, along rivers and through woods.  We even rode down a road I had not been on before, and we rode right through the now defunct Centrailia coal mine.  Like Suzy DeSoto in Canery Row, who watched everything Doc did at dinner and did just the same a moment later, I watched the Randonneurs and did just what they did.  I stopped where they stopped.  I got someone to sign my brevet card just like they did.  I bought junk food and ate it just like they did.  And after a while, I rode across the finish just like they did.  Then I sat on the grass in the shade with them and clapped for the few who came in behind me.  Just like they did.  When they began to load up and make plans for the trip back to Seattle, I got on my bicycle, said, “So long, see you later, I had a blast,” and rode a mile and a half home.  

    My helmet felt a little tight because my head was swelled.  I was a randonneur.

    A few weeks later, I was at the start of another brevet.  This one would be 300K and all of it in the mountains with three passes to climb.  It was hard for me, but just beautiful riding and almost no traffic.  Again, I had a blast and since many of us were spending the night in that mountain town, the brevet didn’t end so abruptly.

    By now, I knew there was more to randonneuring.  There are sub cults.  The first, after becoming a randonneur, is to join the ranks of the super randonneur.  Those are the randonneurs who have ridden 200K, 300K, 400K, and 600K brevets in one season.

    I wondered if I could do that.  Oh, I was pretty sure I could some day, but I wondered if I could do it that first summer as a randonneur.  I began to make plans for the 400K brevet.  Then something happened.  I read some things on the Internet, and heard some things after the first two brevets, and then I read something in American Randonneur, and I wondered how deeply I wanted to invest myself in this organization.  So I put my randonneuring on hold.

    I thought about it and when it came time to renew my RUSA and SIR membership in the winter, I did.  The next summer, when another 200K brevet started three miles from my home, I was there.  It was one of the worst rides of my life.  I arrived with a sleep deficit and then I let myself get seriously hungry and dehydrated.  As it turned out we had temperatures above 100° and I missed an informational control because I didn’t know what one of those was and I had to go back, but I finished within the time limit.

    Because of some serious family turmoil and my confusion about when B.B. King was going to play at the Little Creek Casino, I missed both my shots at a 300K and the B.B. King concert.  Not to worry, my goal for the summer was to do a 400K and see how I felt about trying a 600K in 2007.

    As it turned out, I felt very good on the 400K and finished with a solid mid pack finish.  I tried the 600K in September, and after a tough first 200K, I got in gear and enjoyed the rest of the ride, but I finished dead last with five other riders.  They all became super randonneurs, but, even though I’d ridden all the brevets, I hadn’t done them in one season, so I was still a simple randonneur.

    I did all these rides on a Rivendell custom, but I’d started building bikes and I was working on a randonneuse.  That bike worked out pretty well and I rode it all fall and winter, but an opportunity to get a table at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show came up and I decided to build a brand new Randonneuse and show it at the show.    

    Now, it’s 2007, my third season as a randonneur, and I have a very nice randonneuse, The Red Randonneuse.  My goal is simple: ride the super randonneur series on The Red Randonneuse.  

    Easier said then done.  Most of my training comes on my 35 mile commute.  But in the winter, I work at night and drive a car to work.  I’m not really in very good shape when the first March brevet comes around, but I did my best to join in local club rides when work permitted and I was at the start for the March 17 SIR brevet.  I finished too.  Navigating was challenging because there were lots of turns, but, though sometimes in doubt, I never got lost.  There were some hills to go up and some to come down; enough to test The Red Randonneuse, but not too many for my legs or my lungs.   The last three hours were in the rain, and I finished with a tremendous respect for the Randonneuse.  She was superb!

    The next brevet, the 300K would be in Oregon for me because the SIR brevet happened on Easter weekend and I did not want to miss Easter Vigil on Saturday night.  This was exciting.  I would be in a whole new area and all the roads and hills would be new.  It was a great brevet.  I stupidly broke my headlight while changing a flat and put the whole thing in peril.  If it was now, I would have just fixed the flat and ridden hard enough to finish before dark.  But on April 7, the days are shorter and my legs were weaker.  I bought some electrical tape later in the day and repaired the light so that it worked without any apparent degradation in output or focus.  By now, I was very happy with The Red Randonnuse.  As far as I could tell, she was perfect for me.

    The 400K was also an Oregon ride for me because my oldest son had the temerity to graduate from college on the same day as the SIR 400K.  This was also a great ride and The Red Randonneuse was beginning to acquire some notoriety so it was fun to ride a bike that was somewhat famous.  The only sore spot on that ride was that I lubed the chain just before the start and I must have dripped some on the rim.  The rear brake made a horrible squeal and neither brake had so much as squeaked heretofore.  As the day wore on, the squeak wore out, but I felt ashamed that I had caused such a perfect bicycle some embarrassment by my sloppy application of chain lube.  This was a perfect ride with some great people.  The picture at the top of the blog was take on this brevet.

    Finally, it was time for the 600K brevet.  The pre-ride report came out just before the brevet and it was very discouraging for me.  I began with serious doubts about whether or not I could finish within the time limit.  Again, not to worry,  I comfortably put over a thousand into my legs in May and most of those were on The Red Randonneuse.  We were in shape, I was healthy, and the weather was fabulous.  With fear of failing the Randonneuse, I worked at staying ahead of the clock and left each control further ahead of the cutoff times than I’d left the control before.  I squandered some time at the overnight control, but still left it 2 1/2 hours before it closed.  Then, on Sunday, we just rolled.  It was one of my best ever days on a bicycle.  Oh bones, it probably was my best day on a bicycle.  Oddly enough, this was the day of the only malfunction on the part of the Red Randonneuse.  The allen screw that holds the fender to the seat stay bridge loosened.  It didn’t come out or anything like that.  It just loosened so that on some of the chip seal roads my rear fender buzzed.  I figured out what it was pretty easily, but we were going so well, I didn’t want to stop and pull the rear wheel off just to tighten the screw.  It wouldn’t have taken three minutes, but I just didn’t want to stop.  

    At the finish, I became a super randonneur and, more importantly to me, The Red Randonneuse became The Red Super Randonneuse.  In the end, I am glad for missing the 300K last summer.  Becoming a super randonneur was important to me, but accomplishing that goal on and with my wonderful Coho Randonneuse is worlds better and more fulfilling than accomplishing the same thing on a boring bicycle designed and built by someone else.