Beer too......
don't miss it!
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
I'm back from a long sleep. Awakened by the siren of the Oregon Handmade bicycle Show this coming weekend 20-21 October, 2012.
image from url here...
http://ohbs.oregonframebuilders.org/
I'll be attending, I'll have a few sport touring frames (55-58 range) along for trade or sale. Tsakanikas, Keith Lippy, Jim Redcay, TS Isaac and maybe my Mariposa randonneuring bike... see you there.
Jon
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Covered Bridges 400k Ride Report
Covered Bridges 400k Ride Report
5/21/2007
Eric Ahlvin
A crew of dedicated Corvallis based Randonneurs has coalesced this year. Jon Beilby, Dan Youngberg, Dave Kamp, Bill Boggess and I put the Covered Bridges 400k (250 miles) on our ride schedules. For Dave, Bill, Jon and I it was a PBP qualifier. Dave and Bill are the PBP anciens (veterans) of the group and Jon is the animating spirit. For Dan, randonneuring is a new form of cycling adventure, and the 250 miles would be the longest one day ride of his life. Assuming we could finish in one day…
I drove to Dan’s house in North Albany on Friday after dinner, to carpool up to Newberg. Dan’s house is only a half mile off the route, so we decided to scout the route from that point up to Newberg. According to my projections, this would be the portion of the route we’d be doing after dark. As we rolled north, the rain started falling. It started out as a drizzle, then increased to actual rain. The weather was projected to be dry Friday and Sunday with 30% chance of showers on Saturday. Dan commented that the rain showing up early was a good sign, perhaps the weather was “getting it out of its’ system”. 250 miles in the rain wasn’t very appealing.
When we arrived in Newberg, we found our motel and then gave Jon a call. He was in Fred Meyer’s, acquiring supplies to make a mudflap for his fenders. It was a friendly gesture towards his fellow riders. On a rainy ride, the people without mudflaps kick up a rooster tail of spray and road grime. They’re relegated to the back of the pack, and aren’t allowed to do their fair share of work at the front of the line. Peer pressure is pretty effective with bicyclists, and everyone wants to do their fair share.
We were looking for a place to get a beer before bedtime, and Jon advised us there wasn’t a convenient smoke-free venue in Newberg. We’re from Corvallis and the strict smoking ordnance makes the smoke-free bars and taverns in that town enjoyable to non-smokers. We settled for a quart of Arrogant Bastard Ale that we consumed in our room to help us sleep. To be safe from oversleeping we set double redundant (3) alarm clocks.
All three alarms worked, and Dan and I quickly got up and ready. We were pleased to see that the rain had stopped during the night and that the roads were dry. We signed in and met Jon at the start. Soon Bill Boggess arrived from Corvallis. We met Case from Corvallis who was planning to do the 200k. Dave Kamp was also planning on driving up from Corvallis the morning of the ride, but he was cutting it close. As the departure time got close, we kept wondering “where’s Dave?” At 6:00 AM the group departed, and we called Dave on his cell phone. No answer, leave a message on voice mail. We waited about 10 minutes and were just heading out when Dave called back. He had overslept and was still a half hour south. We told him “bonne route” and kept rolling.
Everyone else was 10 minutes ahead of our group, so we got to see and chat with many people we don’t often see on a ride as we caught up and passed them. We were planning a long day so we kept an expeditious but not too strenuous pace. The first 20 miles we had plenty of time to chat and take pictures as we worked our way up through the stream of Randonneurs. Eventually we caught Dave “ready to ride” Rowe. Dave has ridden the last few Brevets with the Corvallis crowd and fits our group and pace. The route to our first stop in Silverton was flat to rolling. In Silverton we stopped at the farmer’s market in the park to use the restrooms. Dan was disappointed there was no food available at the market, just plants. From Silverton to Cole School Road it was a high plateau, with occasional rollers.
Cole School Road is one of my favorites because it has two rollers in close succession, just like a roller coaster. We were approaching it from the south, so we’d have a net elevation gain, which takes some of the fun out of the rollers. The series starts with a short uphill to a false flat to the edge of a steep valley. On the downhill into the valley I hit 41mph at the bottom, then there was a flat section that bled off some speed. I ended up in one of my lowest gears, standing, by the top of the other side of the valley. Looking down at the next valley, I could see another rider disappearing below the horizon. The downhill gets steeper so that it is actually a convex curve and you can’t see the bottom from the top. The rider reappeared and started climbing up the other side and I resolved to try to catch him before he got to the top. I set a new maximum speed pedaling down the hill and then pushed the momentum up the hill. I was gaining on the other rider, as he bogged down and stood up. The uphill was very steep, and as my momentum bled off I downshifted as rapidly as I could while keeping pedaling, not applying too much force to the pedals. My randonneuring bike has bar-end shifters, so I had to stop shifting when I needed to stand up, shift my grip on the handlebars and apply maximum force. Unfortunately, I hadn’t yet reached my lowest cog (a 34) and was still in the 25. I was standing on the pedals and gradually caught the other rider just before the top of the hill. He’d gotten off and was walking, but he had a great excuse, he was on a fixed gear with about a 15 tooth cog.
A few miles after Cole School road we came to our first covered bridge, Shimanek. There wasn’t a secret control on the route, but we had to write down when each covered bridge was built. At this point we were in familiar territory because the Mid Valley Bicycle Club puts on a Covered Bridge Century that many of the Corvallians have ridden or helped in. This helped quite a bit because there were a couple of spots in this section where even the locals had to work to figure out the directions.
The Covered Bridge Café in Scio at 58 miles into the ride was the first official control. The town was starting to get crowded as people came to town for the parade associated with the Lamb Festival. There was a queue in the Café that slowed our progress so much we decided not to test their food. It looked good, but we went to the grocery next door and got typical bicycle food. After a long stop we rolled out just as other riders were starting to show up. We had some animated discussions about the next few turns on the route sheet, but followed Dan’s interpretation and made it to the Gilkey, Hoffman and Larwood covered bridges. We’ve ridden in the area many times, but were on some roads we never ride. It’s easy to get in a rut once you know the “best” way between two points, but the alternatives on the official route were just as nice as the ways we “usually” go.
At Lacomb I was running out of food and quickly grabbed three mini pecan pies at the store. They work great as bike food for me, 400 quick calories each for $.79. They’re not packaged as nicely as a Clif Bar, but with a little dexterity they can be consumed while riding. They’re only found at convenience stores, and I only eat them while riding.
Heading south on Bellinger scale road we encountered a couple of rollers. They split the group a little bit and Beilby saw Nate in front of us and chased after him. We were coming downhill, building for the next uphill. I was a hundred yards behind Jon and fifty yards ahead of Dave, Bill and Dan. At the bottom of the hill, I looked back in my mirror and saw that a considerable gap had opened up and some riders were standing by the side of the road. I decided to go back instead of chasing Jon and Nate, and after I turned I could see that Dave and Dan were standing and Bill was lying in the gravel by the side of the road. When I rolled up, Dan was standing over Bill, talking to him. We told him not to move and Dan checked for feeling in his extremities and that his eyes were tracking. He was OK, and didn’t really want to move. He seemed to be just taking stock of the situation from his spot in the gravel. Dan explained that Bill was second in a paceline of three and had hit a large piece of bark in the road. He’d swerved once, and then lost control and went head over heels when he went into the gravel shoulder. He’d fallen at about 20 to 25 mph onto the gravel shoulder and his helmet had taken the impact. Dave reassembled Bill’s bike as we tried to assess whether he would be able to go on, or we should call for a ride. Dan asked Bill what his wife’s name was, and Bill couldn’t remember. We asked if he knew our names and he knew one of the three. At that point, the decision about continuing became very clear and I called 911. Luckily there was at least marginal cell coverage and we were able to get a paramedic and an ambulance within about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, we searched Bill’s bike bag for ID and found the brevet card, some money, a credit card, but no driver’s license. We did find plenty of food, which we reluctantly left in his bag. A nice older man in a pickup had stopped to help, and we gave him Bill’s bike to keep until he could come back for it, and exchanged addresses and phone numbers. When the paramedics arrived, they pretty much repeated what Dan had done and then packed Bill into the ambulance for a ride to the Lebanon hospital.
It was a pretty quiet group of three riders that remounted and resumed the ride. We chatted somberly about what had happened as we rolled south. The mood finally brightened when somebody said “we should have taken his fig newtons, he won’t need them for a while”. I figured Jon would just ride on to the next control, assuming we were just behind him. Then he’d give a little time for a mechanical or a flat tire, and then he’d get worried and give us a call. As we rolled along I calculated distances, speeds and times and estimated when he would call. Sure enough, he called about when I estimated and we gave him the news about Bill. We’d lost forty five minutes, but Jon agreed to wait at the control in Sweet Home for us.
Sweet Home was the 100 mile point. Not even half way. We had a quick bite and got our brevet cards signed and continued south. We got the construction date off the Crawfordsville bridge and headed into the first (and only) sustained climb of the day on Brush Creek Road. After the summit, we headed down into the Mohawk valley and found the Earnest Covered Bridge at the half way point of the ride, 125 miles. Continuing down the Mohawk valley we refueled at the control at the Mohawk Post Store. The very friendly proprietor directed us to all the items we wanted and quickly got us on our way. We followed the Mackenzie River downstream and back to the Willamette Valley at Coburg. We felt like we were really half way home and back on familiar roads but the head-cross wind wasn’t very welcoming. We just had to put our heads down and fight the wind across and up the valley to the next control at Harrisburg.
From Harrisburg, we were truly on our home territory and we rode the 30 miles up to Albany without even putting a foot down. A real spirit lifter was the words of encouragement my wife and sons had chalked on Peoria Road. As we rolled toward Albany we discussed fast dining options and finally settled on the Subway in North Albany. It would be an efficient stop because we would also put on our night riding gear. We got sandwiches and inhaled them. Dan’s wife showed up to say hi and take some pictures and then it was time to get back on the road. The cross headwind decreased as we headed north, but we naturally slowed down in the dark. The familiar roads and our scouting trip the previous day made it easy to stay on course all the way up to Independence. In Independence the convenience store had just closed but the tavern on Main Street was really jumping. Rather than join the crowd in our lycra and reflective clothing we settled for ATM receipts to prove we were there and got back on the bikes. We’d passed the 200 mile point and were on the home stretch. We rolled through Salem about midnight and continued on toward Newberg. The stretch north of Salem was very quiet, with not many cars out at 1 am. We rolled into the finish at 1:45. Some pizza and food at the finish was very welcome.
The next morning the rain was back. We’d ridden in the only dry window of the weekend. We met Dave Kamp for breakfast and heard about his long, mostly solo ride. I called Bill and found that he was back home and up and around, so we made arrangements to return his truck and let him know where his bike could be found.
Except for the excitement with Bill, it was a good ride. 400 km is “the real deal” as Dave says, and definitely tested our endurance.
5/21/2007
Eric Ahlvin
A crew of dedicated Corvallis based Randonneurs has coalesced this year. Jon Beilby, Dan Youngberg, Dave Kamp, Bill Boggess and I put the Covered Bridges 400k (250 miles) on our ride schedules. For Dave, Bill, Jon and I it was a PBP qualifier. Dave and Bill are the PBP anciens (veterans) of the group and Jon is the animating spirit. For Dan, randonneuring is a new form of cycling adventure, and the 250 miles would be the longest one day ride of his life. Assuming we could finish in one day…
I drove to Dan’s house in North Albany on Friday after dinner, to carpool up to Newberg. Dan’s house is only a half mile off the route, so we decided to scout the route from that point up to Newberg. According to my projections, this would be the portion of the route we’d be doing after dark. As we rolled north, the rain started falling. It started out as a drizzle, then increased to actual rain. The weather was projected to be dry Friday and Sunday with 30% chance of showers on Saturday. Dan commented that the rain showing up early was a good sign, perhaps the weather was “getting it out of its’ system”. 250 miles in the rain wasn’t very appealing.
When we arrived in Newberg, we found our motel and then gave Jon a call. He was in Fred Meyer’s, acquiring supplies to make a mudflap for his fenders. It was a friendly gesture towards his fellow riders. On a rainy ride, the people without mudflaps kick up a rooster tail of spray and road grime. They’re relegated to the back of the pack, and aren’t allowed to do their fair share of work at the front of the line. Peer pressure is pretty effective with bicyclists, and everyone wants to do their fair share.
We were looking for a place to get a beer before bedtime, and Jon advised us there wasn’t a convenient smoke-free venue in Newberg. We’re from Corvallis and the strict smoking ordnance makes the smoke-free bars and taverns in that town enjoyable to non-smokers. We settled for a quart of Arrogant Bastard Ale that we consumed in our room to help us sleep. To be safe from oversleeping we set double redundant (3) alarm clocks.
All three alarms worked, and Dan and I quickly got up and ready. We were pleased to see that the rain had stopped during the night and that the roads were dry. We signed in and met Jon at the start. Soon Bill Boggess arrived from Corvallis. We met Case from Corvallis who was planning to do the 200k. Dave Kamp was also planning on driving up from Corvallis the morning of the ride, but he was cutting it close. As the departure time got close, we kept wondering “where’s Dave?” At 6:00 AM the group departed, and we called Dave on his cell phone. No answer, leave a message on voice mail. We waited about 10 minutes and were just heading out when Dave called back. He had overslept and was still a half hour south. We told him “bonne route” and kept rolling.
Everyone else was 10 minutes ahead of our group, so we got to see and chat with many people we don’t often see on a ride as we caught up and passed them. We were planning a long day so we kept an expeditious but not too strenuous pace. The first 20 miles we had plenty of time to chat and take pictures as we worked our way up through the stream of Randonneurs. Eventually we caught Dave “ready to ride” Rowe. Dave has ridden the last few Brevets with the Corvallis crowd and fits our group and pace. The route to our first stop in Silverton was flat to rolling. In Silverton we stopped at the farmer’s market in the park to use the restrooms. Dan was disappointed there was no food available at the market, just plants. From Silverton to Cole School Road it was a high plateau, with occasional rollers.
Cole School Road is one of my favorites because it has two rollers in close succession, just like a roller coaster. We were approaching it from the south, so we’d have a net elevation gain, which takes some of the fun out of the rollers. The series starts with a short uphill to a false flat to the edge of a steep valley. On the downhill into the valley I hit 41mph at the bottom, then there was a flat section that bled off some speed. I ended up in one of my lowest gears, standing, by the top of the other side of the valley. Looking down at the next valley, I could see another rider disappearing below the horizon. The downhill gets steeper so that it is actually a convex curve and you can’t see the bottom from the top. The rider reappeared and started climbing up the other side and I resolved to try to catch him before he got to the top. I set a new maximum speed pedaling down the hill and then pushed the momentum up the hill. I was gaining on the other rider, as he bogged down and stood up. The uphill was very steep, and as my momentum bled off I downshifted as rapidly as I could while keeping pedaling, not applying too much force to the pedals. My randonneuring bike has bar-end shifters, so I had to stop shifting when I needed to stand up, shift my grip on the handlebars and apply maximum force. Unfortunately, I hadn’t yet reached my lowest cog (a 34) and was still in the 25. I was standing on the pedals and gradually caught the other rider just before the top of the hill. He’d gotten off and was walking, but he had a great excuse, he was on a fixed gear with about a 15 tooth cog.
A few miles after Cole School road we came to our first covered bridge, Shimanek. There wasn’t a secret control on the route, but we had to write down when each covered bridge was built. At this point we were in familiar territory because the Mid Valley Bicycle Club puts on a Covered Bridge Century that many of the Corvallians have ridden or helped in. This helped quite a bit because there were a couple of spots in this section where even the locals had to work to figure out the directions.
The Covered Bridge Café in Scio at 58 miles into the ride was the first official control. The town was starting to get crowded as people came to town for the parade associated with the Lamb Festival. There was a queue in the Café that slowed our progress so much we decided not to test their food. It looked good, but we went to the grocery next door and got typical bicycle food. After a long stop we rolled out just as other riders were starting to show up. We had some animated discussions about the next few turns on the route sheet, but followed Dan’s interpretation and made it to the Gilkey, Hoffman and Larwood covered bridges. We’ve ridden in the area many times, but were on some roads we never ride. It’s easy to get in a rut once you know the “best” way between two points, but the alternatives on the official route were just as nice as the ways we “usually” go.
At Lacomb I was running out of food and quickly grabbed three mini pecan pies at the store. They work great as bike food for me, 400 quick calories each for $.79. They’re not packaged as nicely as a Clif Bar, but with a little dexterity they can be consumed while riding. They’re only found at convenience stores, and I only eat them while riding.
Heading south on Bellinger scale road we encountered a couple of rollers. They split the group a little bit and Beilby saw Nate in front of us and chased after him. We were coming downhill, building for the next uphill. I was a hundred yards behind Jon and fifty yards ahead of Dave, Bill and Dan. At the bottom of the hill, I looked back in my mirror and saw that a considerable gap had opened up and some riders were standing by the side of the road. I decided to go back instead of chasing Jon and Nate, and after I turned I could see that Dave and Dan were standing and Bill was lying in the gravel by the side of the road. When I rolled up, Dan was standing over Bill, talking to him. We told him not to move and Dan checked for feeling in his extremities and that his eyes were tracking. He was OK, and didn’t really want to move. He seemed to be just taking stock of the situation from his spot in the gravel. Dan explained that Bill was second in a paceline of three and had hit a large piece of bark in the road. He’d swerved once, and then lost control and went head over heels when he went into the gravel shoulder. He’d fallen at about 20 to 25 mph onto the gravel shoulder and his helmet had taken the impact. Dave reassembled Bill’s bike as we tried to assess whether he would be able to go on, or we should call for a ride. Dan asked Bill what his wife’s name was, and Bill couldn’t remember. We asked if he knew our names and he knew one of the three. At that point, the decision about continuing became very clear and I called 911. Luckily there was at least marginal cell coverage and we were able to get a paramedic and an ambulance within about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, we searched Bill’s bike bag for ID and found the brevet card, some money, a credit card, but no driver’s license. We did find plenty of food, which we reluctantly left in his bag. A nice older man in a pickup had stopped to help, and we gave him Bill’s bike to keep until he could come back for it, and exchanged addresses and phone numbers. When the paramedics arrived, they pretty much repeated what Dan had done and then packed Bill into the ambulance for a ride to the Lebanon hospital.
It was a pretty quiet group of three riders that remounted and resumed the ride. We chatted somberly about what had happened as we rolled south. The mood finally brightened when somebody said “we should have taken his fig newtons, he won’t need them for a while”. I figured Jon would just ride on to the next control, assuming we were just behind him. Then he’d give a little time for a mechanical or a flat tire, and then he’d get worried and give us a call. As we rolled along I calculated distances, speeds and times and estimated when he would call. Sure enough, he called about when I estimated and we gave him the news about Bill. We’d lost forty five minutes, but Jon agreed to wait at the control in Sweet Home for us.
Sweet Home was the 100 mile point. Not even half way. We had a quick bite and got our brevet cards signed and continued south. We got the construction date off the Crawfordsville bridge and headed into the first (and only) sustained climb of the day on Brush Creek Road. After the summit, we headed down into the Mohawk valley and found the Earnest Covered Bridge at the half way point of the ride, 125 miles. Continuing down the Mohawk valley we refueled at the control at the Mohawk Post Store. The very friendly proprietor directed us to all the items we wanted and quickly got us on our way. We followed the Mackenzie River downstream and back to the Willamette Valley at Coburg. We felt like we were really half way home and back on familiar roads but the head-cross wind wasn’t very welcoming. We just had to put our heads down and fight the wind across and up the valley to the next control at Harrisburg.
From Harrisburg, we were truly on our home territory and we rode the 30 miles up to Albany without even putting a foot down. A real spirit lifter was the words of encouragement my wife and sons had chalked on Peoria Road. As we rolled toward Albany we discussed fast dining options and finally settled on the Subway in North Albany. It would be an efficient stop because we would also put on our night riding gear. We got sandwiches and inhaled them. Dan’s wife showed up to say hi and take some pictures and then it was time to get back on the road. The cross headwind decreased as we headed north, but we naturally slowed down in the dark. The familiar roads and our scouting trip the previous day made it easy to stay on course all the way up to Independence. In Independence the convenience store had just closed but the tavern on Main Street was really jumping. Rather than join the crowd in our lycra and reflective clothing we settled for ATM receipts to prove we were there and got back on the bikes. We’d passed the 200 mile point and were on the home stretch. We rolled through Salem about midnight and continued on toward Newberg. The stretch north of Salem was very quiet, with not many cars out at 1 am. We rolled into the finish at 1:45. Some pizza and food at the finish was very welcome.
The next morning the rain was back. We’d ridden in the only dry window of the weekend. We met Dave Kamp for breakfast and heard about his long, mostly solo ride. I called Bill and found that he was back home and up and around, so we made arrangements to return his truck and let him know where his bike could be found.
Except for the excitement with Bill, it was a good ride. 400 km is “the real deal” as Dave says, and definitely tested our endurance.
Birkie Brevet Ride Report
Birkie Brevet Ride Report
4/8/2007
Eric Ahlvin
The Birkie is the first Paris-Brest-Paris (PBP) qualifier on the Oregon Randonneurs calendar. PBP is the most famous randonneuring event in the world. Randonneuring is a style of long distance bicycling that’s practiced by riders who procure their own support during the ride, follow a specified route through various controls, and complete the distance within a time window. PBP is a 1200 km ride that’s held every four years. Riders who want to participate must prove they are likely to finish the ride by completing a Series of Brevets in the calendar year of PBP before the end of June. The Series consists of 200 km, 300 km, 400 km and 600 km Brevets. The Oregon club hosts a local series to allow riders to complete the series, although substitution of approved Brevets in other areas is allowed. One of the advantages of completing the rides in Oregon is the limited amount of travel required to get to the rides. The key disadvantage is the spring weather in Oregon. The weather doesn’t get dependably sunny in Oregon until July, so there are good odds that large portions of the series will be ridden in the rain.
Jon Beilby, Dan Youngberg, Dave Kamp, Bill Bogess and I are a group of Randonneurs from Corvallis with varying degrees of commitment to the goal of attending PBP. We also have varying degrees of experience. Dave and Bill complete PBP four years ago, so they know what it’s all about and want to go back. Jon started randonneuring last spring and got me to come along on several of the Brevets last summer. We completed the 200, 300, and 400km Brevets together and Jon also completed the Big Lebowski 600km. Dan is new to randonneuring and had completed a Populaire 100km ride with his wife on their tandem and a 180km Dart with Jon and I the previous weekend.
The Dart (see previous ride report) was characterized by a forecast 100% chance of rain that was very accurate. The forecast for the Birkie Brevet was a 40% chance of rain, with no more than a .1” accumulation. It sounded a lot better than the weather of the previous weekend. Dan and Jon drove up to the start at the McMenamins Grand Lodge in Forest Grove in the afternoon and I had dinner at home before heading north. After checking in to the hotel and registering in the lobby for the Brevet, I met them at the parking lot of the Grand Lodge. I helped Dan finish off a bottle of red wine while Jon finished changing his tube, still flat from the previous week’s ride. The cause of the flat was revealed as a tire that was completely worn down to the threads. He got his money’s worth. Jon finished changing the tire and then cleaned his hands on a pair of briefs. I commented on his selection of rag, and he said that he’d forgotten a spare rag and had to improvise. His undershorts were the only spare clothing he had, so he was going commando, er, Rando style. After the bike repairs we repaired to the bar for some liquid calories. We went to bed early, Dan and I in rooms in the Lodge and Jon in the van in the parking lot. We slept with varying degrees of success. Jon’s night was disturbed by a call from his sweetheart at midnight; she missed him.
The next morning we assembled at the same spot in the Grand Lodge parking lot, this time with a wide variety of randonneurs and bicycles. The departure time was 7:00 am, but we were all milling around admiring our bikes, comparing lights, racks, fenders etc., We met Bill Boggess on his wife’s old Puch and Jon loaned him a spare 27” tire, just in case. The official stats for the ride will tell the truth, but it seemed like more than fifty of us strained to hear the route instructions from Marcello Napolitano, the organizer. By the time we left it was light enough to reveal an overcast sky threatening rain, and light enough to make the lights and night time gear redundant. We quickly rolled out through town, separating and regrouping at the red lights. Eventually the four from Corvallis were all together as we headed out of town on Gales Creek Road. As a light but steady rain started to fall, Dan and I stopped to put on raingear and a whole bunch of riders swept by us. After a couple of minutes we were back on our bikes and steadily passed riders on the slight uphill of SR6 until we had rejoined Bill and Jon. Then the rain stopped. It was one of those days of intermittent rain that makes it tough to pick the right clothes. Riding with a vest and long sleeve jersey is just right when it’s barely raining, but when it starts raining hard you want the rain jacket so the jersey doesn’t get soaked. On the uphills or when we’re riding hard, the raingear will cause overheating and sweating. On the downhills a damp jersey will chill you so it’s zip up the rain gear or vest. Every time you put gear on or off you lose a couple of minutes and the rest of the group disappears up the road. The chase to catch the group almost always results in overheating and sweating. In the end we usually have to decide whether we prefer wet and cool (jersey and vest) or damp and hot (jersey and raingear), and only change mode when the weather looks like it’s going to stick around for a while.
As we rolled along Dan commented that the pace was much faster than the Dart the previous week. In the Dart, the objective was to use all the time, but in the Brevet the objective is to finish within the time and have fun. Having fun for many bicyclists often means riding hard. Going hard on the shorter rides is also a good way to build fitness for the subsequent longer brevets. The net result is that we were rolling along pretty well, 15 to 20 mph on the gentle uphill. I told Dan that I was planning on racing the Piece of Cake road race the next day. Randonneuring and racing are completely different activities that happen to both involve bicycles. I race in Category 4 or Masters 50+, so most of the road races I do are about 40-50 miles. They often involve hills or rollers, sharp attacks and sprints. Training for road races involves some endurance training, but more intervals and maximum efforts. Randonneuring is mostly about endurance; mental and physical with occasional hard efforts on the hills or in sustained headwinds. It involves long hours in the saddle. My main cycling objective for the year is PBP, so I’m definitely compromising my racing objectives in favor of randonneuring. An example of the compromise is riding a 200 km Brevet the day before a road race. At this point, 15 miles into the Brevet and spinning up an easy slope, compromise between the disciplines seemed possible.
Then we turned onto Timber road and the slope got steeper. I was using a heart rate monitor, but didn’t need to see the numbers to know we were going harder. The rain had stopped and I still had my rain shell on, so I was quickly overheating. All the racing instincts triggered by other cyclists ahead of me on a hill kicked in. Instead of controlling my efforts and saving myself for the race next day, I pushed harder and harder. It was the first steep hill of the ride and I’d already forgotten all about the race the next day. At the top, our small group of Corvallis riders regrouped and we started down the other side. It was a great downhill with a couple of little switchbacks into the town of Timber. I was ahead at the bottom and stopped to switch from rain shell to vest. Jon swept by and kept on going. He caught Dick Weber and rode with him, so that was the last we saw of Jon for a while. We hooked up with a couple of compatible riders, Scott Peterson from Bend and Dave “ready to ride” Rowe. We rolled along as the rain came and went. We eventually settled on rain jackets as the rain became steady. When the roads got saturated, the cyclists without fender extenders were relegated to the back of the group and the rest of us did the work at the front. The stretch from Timber to Vernonia was downhill river grade with rollers. It was relatively easy going, except we kept a pretty high steady pace and pushed over the rollers.
The first stop was a staffed control at Anderson Park in Vernonia. We saw Jon at the stop while we grabbed a quick bite, got our cards signed and got ready to roll. Jon had disappeared down the road and we waited for Bill to fill his bottle. He’d learned at PBP to always fill both bottles at every stop, and remembered that lesson a block away from the control. A little ways out of town we turned onto a four mile out and back up Keasey Road. The purpose of the spur was to add enough miles (or rather km) to get to exactly 200 km. It had the advantage that we got to see the fastest riders and how far ahead of us they were at this point. They passed us going the other way and a quick calculation showed the leaders were about 6 miles ahead after 36, or they were going 17% faster. We passed several other riders going the other way, both on the out and back legs. After the spur we turned back onto highway 47 toward the coast. Once again it was downhill river grade with rollers and intermittent rain. We picked up SR 202 and the traffic and rain diminished. By the time we got to Birkenfeld the rain had completely stopped and we caught Jon and Dick. We were more than half way into the ride and the roads were actually beginning to dry up. We had about a 16mph average at this point and I was pretty sure the Piece of Cake was out of the question. I resolved to not hold back on the way back. We refueled and remounted for the ride home, the four Corvallians plus Scott and Dave.
The weather gradually improved as we headed back up the river grade we’d come down. We passed plenty of lush greenery and climbed back into the forests. Eventually we were convinced we weren’t vampires when we actually saw our shadows. We stopped at the Black Bear Café in Vernonia, familiar from our Dart the previous week and refueled again and got our brevet cards signed to prove we’d been there. Raingear finally got put away permanently as the weather continued to improve. Going through Timber and the switchbacks uphill was a short grunt, but both Dan and I commented that the uphill seemed too short going this way. From the top it was a nice downhill and rollers all the way to the last control at Glenwood. The last 12 miles on Gales Creek and SR 8 into Vernonia we could smell the barn. The six of us took turns at the front and we pushed the pace up between 20 and 30 on the slight downhill and rollers leading into town. We were blowing out the last little bit of energy left in the last few miles of the 200 km.
We rolled into town and cruised to the Grand Lodge and the finish. After filling out the Brevet cards we headed for the showers and then the bar. A Terminator Stout milkshake was the perfect recovery food after a pretty fast 200km. My wife, Linda, met me in the bar and I told her and Jon that the POC race the next day was very unlikely. He just laughed.
Postscript: Sunday morning I woke up in the Grand Lodge in Forest Grove to sunny blue skies. I’d used the soaking pool, had a great meal with a large piece of meat and slept soundly. After a large breakfast, I decided I’d drive up to Woodland, WA and see how the weather was for the race. I told Linda that I didn’t want to ride in the rain, so I might just come home. I put on my race uniform and filled up my sun shower with hot water just-in-case. When I got to the race venue, it was partly cloudy, but it was warm and there was a sunbreak. I set up my bike on the trainer and told myself I’d spin a little, but if my legs didn’t feel good I’d pack up and go home. As I spun on the trainer and heard the stories from my teammates who’d done the morning race, I decided I’d pay the entry fee and start the race, but if I couldn’t hang on I’d just roll back to the start. It’s only $20, and it’s a nice day for a bike ride. I lined up near the front and told myself I’d ride smart, find a spot near the front and just stay out of the wind. As we rolled through the neutral portion and then got established on the course I grabbed the wheel of the leader. He was from Finnegan’s and pulled most of the race. I stayed in the front of the race, riding about half of the distance as the second wheel after the leader. It was a flat windy race and I was able to stay out of the wind for the whole first lap, and avoid the surging further back in the peloton. After one lap, I thought I’d try another. Coming into the final lap I figured I might as well finish the race and maybe I’d have some legs at the end. I lost my position near the front on the final turns in the last quarter lap and wasn’t in a position to sprint all out. I finished mid pack (27th out of 36) on a race that really was a “Piece of Cake”. Maybe riding a Brevet isn’t such bad preparation for a road race.
4/8/2007
Eric Ahlvin
The Birkie is the first Paris-Brest-Paris (PBP) qualifier on the Oregon Randonneurs calendar. PBP is the most famous randonneuring event in the world. Randonneuring is a style of long distance bicycling that’s practiced by riders who procure their own support during the ride, follow a specified route through various controls, and complete the distance within a time window. PBP is a 1200 km ride that’s held every four years. Riders who want to participate must prove they are likely to finish the ride by completing a Series of Brevets in the calendar year of PBP before the end of June. The Series consists of 200 km, 300 km, 400 km and 600 km Brevets. The Oregon club hosts a local series to allow riders to complete the series, although substitution of approved Brevets in other areas is allowed. One of the advantages of completing the rides in Oregon is the limited amount of travel required to get to the rides. The key disadvantage is the spring weather in Oregon. The weather doesn’t get dependably sunny in Oregon until July, so there are good odds that large portions of the series will be ridden in the rain.
Jon Beilby, Dan Youngberg, Dave Kamp, Bill Bogess and I are a group of Randonneurs from Corvallis with varying degrees of commitment to the goal of attending PBP. We also have varying degrees of experience. Dave and Bill complete PBP four years ago, so they know what it’s all about and want to go back. Jon started randonneuring last spring and got me to come along on several of the Brevets last summer. We completed the 200, 300, and 400km Brevets together and Jon also completed the Big Lebowski 600km. Dan is new to randonneuring and had completed a Populaire 100km ride with his wife on their tandem and a 180km Dart with Jon and I the previous weekend.
The Dart (see previous ride report) was characterized by a forecast 100% chance of rain that was very accurate. The forecast for the Birkie Brevet was a 40% chance of rain, with no more than a .1” accumulation. It sounded a lot better than the weather of the previous weekend. Dan and Jon drove up to the start at the McMenamins Grand Lodge in Forest Grove in the afternoon and I had dinner at home before heading north. After checking in to the hotel and registering in the lobby for the Brevet, I met them at the parking lot of the Grand Lodge. I helped Dan finish off a bottle of red wine while Jon finished changing his tube, still flat from the previous week’s ride. The cause of the flat was revealed as a tire that was completely worn down to the threads. He got his money’s worth. Jon finished changing the tire and then cleaned his hands on a pair of briefs. I commented on his selection of rag, and he said that he’d forgotten a spare rag and had to improvise. His undershorts were the only spare clothing he had, so he was going commando, er, Rando style. After the bike repairs we repaired to the bar for some liquid calories. We went to bed early, Dan and I in rooms in the Lodge and Jon in the van in the parking lot. We slept with varying degrees of success. Jon’s night was disturbed by a call from his sweetheart at midnight; she missed him.
The next morning we assembled at the same spot in the Grand Lodge parking lot, this time with a wide variety of randonneurs and bicycles. The departure time was 7:00 am, but we were all milling around admiring our bikes, comparing lights, racks, fenders etc., We met Bill Boggess on his wife’s old Puch and Jon loaned him a spare 27” tire, just in case. The official stats for the ride will tell the truth, but it seemed like more than fifty of us strained to hear the route instructions from Marcello Napolitano, the organizer. By the time we left it was light enough to reveal an overcast sky threatening rain, and light enough to make the lights and night time gear redundant. We quickly rolled out through town, separating and regrouping at the red lights. Eventually the four from Corvallis were all together as we headed out of town on Gales Creek Road. As a light but steady rain started to fall, Dan and I stopped to put on raingear and a whole bunch of riders swept by us. After a couple of minutes we were back on our bikes and steadily passed riders on the slight uphill of SR6 until we had rejoined Bill and Jon. Then the rain stopped. It was one of those days of intermittent rain that makes it tough to pick the right clothes. Riding with a vest and long sleeve jersey is just right when it’s barely raining, but when it starts raining hard you want the rain jacket so the jersey doesn’t get soaked. On the uphills or when we’re riding hard, the raingear will cause overheating and sweating. On the downhills a damp jersey will chill you so it’s zip up the rain gear or vest. Every time you put gear on or off you lose a couple of minutes and the rest of the group disappears up the road. The chase to catch the group almost always results in overheating and sweating. In the end we usually have to decide whether we prefer wet and cool (jersey and vest) or damp and hot (jersey and raingear), and only change mode when the weather looks like it’s going to stick around for a while.
As we rolled along Dan commented that the pace was much faster than the Dart the previous week. In the Dart, the objective was to use all the time, but in the Brevet the objective is to finish within the time and have fun. Having fun for many bicyclists often means riding hard. Going hard on the shorter rides is also a good way to build fitness for the subsequent longer brevets. The net result is that we were rolling along pretty well, 15 to 20 mph on the gentle uphill. I told Dan that I was planning on racing the Piece of Cake road race the next day. Randonneuring and racing are completely different activities that happen to both involve bicycles. I race in Category 4 or Masters 50+, so most of the road races I do are about 40-50 miles. They often involve hills or rollers, sharp attacks and sprints. Training for road races involves some endurance training, but more intervals and maximum efforts. Randonneuring is mostly about endurance; mental and physical with occasional hard efforts on the hills or in sustained headwinds. It involves long hours in the saddle. My main cycling objective for the year is PBP, so I’m definitely compromising my racing objectives in favor of randonneuring. An example of the compromise is riding a 200 km Brevet the day before a road race. At this point, 15 miles into the Brevet and spinning up an easy slope, compromise between the disciplines seemed possible.
Then we turned onto Timber road and the slope got steeper. I was using a heart rate monitor, but didn’t need to see the numbers to know we were going harder. The rain had stopped and I still had my rain shell on, so I was quickly overheating. All the racing instincts triggered by other cyclists ahead of me on a hill kicked in. Instead of controlling my efforts and saving myself for the race next day, I pushed harder and harder. It was the first steep hill of the ride and I’d already forgotten all about the race the next day. At the top, our small group of Corvallis riders regrouped and we started down the other side. It was a great downhill with a couple of little switchbacks into the town of Timber. I was ahead at the bottom and stopped to switch from rain shell to vest. Jon swept by and kept on going. He caught Dick Weber and rode with him, so that was the last we saw of Jon for a while. We hooked up with a couple of compatible riders, Scott Peterson from Bend and Dave “ready to ride” Rowe. We rolled along as the rain came and went. We eventually settled on rain jackets as the rain became steady. When the roads got saturated, the cyclists without fender extenders were relegated to the back of the group and the rest of us did the work at the front. The stretch from Timber to Vernonia was downhill river grade with rollers. It was relatively easy going, except we kept a pretty high steady pace and pushed over the rollers.
The first stop was a staffed control at Anderson Park in Vernonia. We saw Jon at the stop while we grabbed a quick bite, got our cards signed and got ready to roll. Jon had disappeared down the road and we waited for Bill to fill his bottle. He’d learned at PBP to always fill both bottles at every stop, and remembered that lesson a block away from the control. A little ways out of town we turned onto a four mile out and back up Keasey Road. The purpose of the spur was to add enough miles (or rather km) to get to exactly 200 km. It had the advantage that we got to see the fastest riders and how far ahead of us they were at this point. They passed us going the other way and a quick calculation showed the leaders were about 6 miles ahead after 36, or they were going 17% faster. We passed several other riders going the other way, both on the out and back legs. After the spur we turned back onto highway 47 toward the coast. Once again it was downhill river grade with rollers and intermittent rain. We picked up SR 202 and the traffic and rain diminished. By the time we got to Birkenfeld the rain had completely stopped and we caught Jon and Dick. We were more than half way into the ride and the roads were actually beginning to dry up. We had about a 16mph average at this point and I was pretty sure the Piece of Cake was out of the question. I resolved to not hold back on the way back. We refueled and remounted for the ride home, the four Corvallians plus Scott and Dave.
The weather gradually improved as we headed back up the river grade we’d come down. We passed plenty of lush greenery and climbed back into the forests. Eventually we were convinced we weren’t vampires when we actually saw our shadows. We stopped at the Black Bear Café in Vernonia, familiar from our Dart the previous week and refueled again and got our brevet cards signed to prove we’d been there. Raingear finally got put away permanently as the weather continued to improve. Going through Timber and the switchbacks uphill was a short grunt, but both Dan and I commented that the uphill seemed too short going this way. From the top it was a nice downhill and rollers all the way to the last control at Glenwood. The last 12 miles on Gales Creek and SR 8 into Vernonia we could smell the barn. The six of us took turns at the front and we pushed the pace up between 20 and 30 on the slight downhill and rollers leading into town. We were blowing out the last little bit of energy left in the last few miles of the 200 km.
We rolled into town and cruised to the Grand Lodge and the finish. After filling out the Brevet cards we headed for the showers and then the bar. A Terminator Stout milkshake was the perfect recovery food after a pretty fast 200km. My wife, Linda, met me in the bar and I told her and Jon that the POC race the next day was very unlikely. He just laughed.
Postscript: Sunday morning I woke up in the Grand Lodge in Forest Grove to sunny blue skies. I’d used the soaking pool, had a great meal with a large piece of meat and slept soundly. After a large breakfast, I decided I’d drive up to Woodland, WA and see how the weather was for the race. I told Linda that I didn’t want to ride in the rain, so I might just come home. I put on my race uniform and filled up my sun shower with hot water just-in-case. When I got to the race venue, it was partly cloudy, but it was warm and there was a sunbreak. I set up my bike on the trainer and told myself I’d spin a little, but if my legs didn’t feel good I’d pack up and go home. As I spun on the trainer and heard the stories from my teammates who’d done the morning race, I decided I’d pay the entry fee and start the race, but if I couldn’t hang on I’d just roll back to the start. It’s only $20, and it’s a nice day for a bike ride. I lined up near the front and told myself I’d ride smart, find a spot near the front and just stay out of the wind. As we rolled through the neutral portion and then got established on the course I grabbed the wheel of the leader. He was from Finnegan’s and pulled most of the race. I stayed in the front of the race, riding about half of the distance as the second wheel after the leader. It was a flat windy race and I was able to stay out of the wind for the whole first lap, and avoid the surging further back in the peloton. After one lap, I thought I’d try another. Coming into the final lap I figured I might as well finish the race and maybe I’d have some legs at the end. I lost my position near the front on the final turns in the last quarter lap and wasn’t in a position to sprint all out. I finished mid pack (27th out of 36) on a race that really was a “Piece of Cake”. Maybe riding a Brevet isn’t such bad preparation for a road race.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)