Randonneuring is long-distance unsupported endurance cycling. Events are timed but non-competitive. The goofy name stems from the sport's French origins. I first tried it in 2003, and immediately become addicted to the sleepless nights and wonderful companionship. If you enjoy fast touring or long distance travel on a bicycle, you should give this type of cycling a shot. In the USA, the sport's organizing body is, logically enough, Randonneurs USA.

Below you can find some ride reports, photos, and other trivia, organized loosely by date and location.

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2003 |  2004 |  2005 |  2006 |  2007 |  2008 |  2009 |  2010

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2003

In my first year I rode three Boston brevets. My friend Chip Coldwell and I rode the 200K event in a snowstorm, after the organizers had canceled it. We never did write a report of that day, which remains our lifetime distance-divided-by-temperature maximum. But I wrote reports of the 300K and the gastrically challenged 400K.

2004

Reports from most of the Boston brevets: the 200K, my solo 300K, and the asthmatic 400K. Chip and I also completed the 600K—and what a hilly 600K it was, out over the Berkshires and back!—but never wrote up those memories of pain.

Chip and I cycled out to Westfield, MA to ride some of the Berkshire brevets. My reports of the 200K and 300K.

The highlight of the season was the 1200K Boston-Montreal-Boston. Here is my report of BMB 2004. (Il mio racconto del BMB 2004 è disponibile anche in italiano.)

2005

The randonneuring season started early, thanks to John and Pamela "Blayley." You can read the report of the Fleche New England that we rode together with Chip, and take a look at a lame hand-drawn overview map of our route. If you're willing to wait, here are high-resolution PDFs of our route, generated by Chip with his GPS software: stage 1 (3.6MB), stage 2 (3.1MB), stage 3 (3.2MB), stages 4-6 (3.5MB).

I again rode all the Boston brevets. Here are reports from the 200K, the 300K, and the 400K. As usual I have failed to write anything about the 600K. One of these days...

I liked the shorter Westfield brevets so much that I rode them again. Here are my stories from the 200K and 300K.

London-Edinburgh-London is a 1400Km event that only happens every four years, so I flew to England to give it a try. Here is my LEL report. You can take a look at my LEL photo album, though please keep in mind that it's hard to pay attention to photography during a non-stop 1400Km event. Included in the album is my "official" LEL portrait, taken by photograher Dennis Sackett. You can find many other good photos at the official LEL web site. Best of all, Damon Peacock has produced an LEL video clip. If that site gives you trouble, here is a local copy (5.5MB, Windows Media).

Sandy Whittlesey, the two-time BMB champion and course record holder, spent eleven years designing the course for D2R2, the Deerfield Dirt-Road Randonnee. Here are my photos and impressions from the inaugural edition.

2006

In 2006 I rode more brevets than ever, but, due in part to a busy schedule and a cross-country move from Boston to Davis, CA, I wrote no real ride reports.

I rode the full series of Boston and Westfield brevets, plus a 100K populaire and an extra 300K for good measure, and the Boston-Montreal-Boston 1200K. It was a good season for me, and my times on some of the longer events—the Boston 400K, Westfield 600K, and BMB—were personal bests.

For the record, I have put together a table of ride results, complete with notes and links to cue sheets for each event. I also wrote a little blurb after the Westfield 100K (notable for its cold weather) and the Westfield 200K (notable for a spectacular wheel failure).

Late May and June was a time of tremendously wet weather in New England. My memories of the Westfield 300K are a stormy night-time start, branches littered across the road, cold rain and wind. Three weeks later, the 400K was the wettest ride of my life, 18 hours of unremitting rain and cold that, unlike some other "epic" adventures, doesn't feel good even in retrospect. Better not to have a ride report for that one.

If I had to recommend just one New England brevet, it would probably be the Westfield 600K. Don Podolski, the Westfield brevet organizer, has created a beautiful loop itinerary that takes in the best of western New England and upstate New York: rolling farmland, forests, a crossing of the mighty Hudson River at Kingston, a couple major mountain passes, and some wonderful views. This year I rode with Melinda Lyon, Ted Lapinski, Jeff Scornavacca, Bengt Schneider, and Tom Dembinski. It was a memorable adventure, complete with gas-station stalkers in expensive convertibles, the lantern-bearing ghost of Hoosic Tunnel, a beauty queen stumbling on someone else's porch in the middle of the night, and Ted's 8-egg omelette of the apocalypse at the finish. If only I had more time to write about it! It may be cryptic to the rest of you, but for those of us who were there this picture (credit: Ted Lapinski) is worth a thousand words.

I rode BMB in 61:22, about ten hours faster than in 2004. My goal was to finish in under 60 hours, but a couple of riding companions had physical trouble, and most of us chose to ride together rather than split up and seek record times. I finished with Bill O'Mara and Burt Prokop, both New England brevet veterans, and Danny Stevens, Jr., from Florida. They were outstanding company. Twelve hundred kilometers of New England hills in Bill's company only increased my already great respect for his climbing abilities. Somehow near the end I still had enough in me to "put some pain into the boys," as he put it. It was probably my strongest ride so far.

Just after BMB I drove a truck cross-country from Boston to Davis, California in five days. I don't recommend doing both back-to-back like that.

On a trip home to Italy in October, I had the opportunity to ride the Eroica, a "period" 200K ride mostly on gravel roads in the Chianti region of Tuscany. I wore a wool jersey (as always) and rode a late '80s Bridgestone road bike, but felt almost uncomfortably high-tech. Many of the twelve hundred participants rode vintage bikes dating as far back as the 19th century, and few used clipless pedals or lycra shorts. The ride itself is beautiful, less wooded and remote than D2R2 but outstandingly scenic in its own way. I brought a pocket camera along for the day, only to discover that the batteries were dead—one more excuse to do it again.

Late in the year I rode two Santa Cruz permanents to explore local scenery and round out my mileage for the year. The first ran mostly along the coast between Santa Cruz and San Francisco, while the second reached inland to the Salinas Valley south-east of Santa Cruz. Both were stunning rides: ocean cliffs, redwood groves, massive grassy hills bright green after winter rains and punctuated by dark, shaggy oaks. California's natural beauty is not subtle.

2007

Fitting brevets into your schedule when you are a new parent and have a long commute is hard, and as I write this, in late April, I still haven't decided whether I will ride Paris-Brest-Paris. But given that PBP is a once-in-four-years event, I reckon it's better to be safe than sorry, so I've been riding when I can. (My commute, partly by train and partly by bike, adds to my weekly mileage and provides some quiet moments that are conducive to writing ride reports.)

In early March I rode the Davis 200K and the Santa Cruz 200K. The former I rode on a hot, sunny day, mostly in a paceline (except when that paceline broke apart on the long climb up Mt George), and it took me 7:19. The second I rode on a cool, foggy day, mostly alone, and it took me 7:20. Go figure. The common feature of both rides was strong wind. Both were pretty courses (especially the Santa Cruz one, which I was familiar with from a ride last fall) but I didn't know anyone yet and sorely missed my Boston bike peeps.

Despite hot weather and empty water bottles, the Davis 300K on March 24th was the first 300K I finished in under 11 hours. The course was probably easier than those in New England, and maybe the opportunity to go on long rides year-round (without losing extremities to frostbite) is paying off. I wrote a ride report.

I was pre-registered for the Santa Rosa 300K a week later, but skipped it to help Kara take care of Marilisa. Same deal for the San Francisco 600K on April 21. Fortunately there are 3 more 600K events on the San Francisco-area calendar.

One event I did not skip was the Davis 400K. This year's course was wonderful, and the weather, in addition to some mechanical trouble, made it something of an adventure. Here is my ride report.

In late May, having missed both the SF and Davis 600Ks, I rode the Santa Rosa 600K. A month later (better late than never) I finally managed to produce a write-up of that ride.

Now I am qualified for PBP and try to stay in shape by riding whenever family and work allow it. For extra motivation I also rode the Big Basin 200K, a mountainous route that features over 13,000 feet of climbing. You can read my report of a day out of the saddle.

My PBP attempt was a complete bust: British Airways lost my bike on the way to Paris, I bought a replacement that was too small, and I abandoned in Brest due to exhaustion and injury. Two months later, I finally decided to write a ride report. British Airways found my bike after six weeks, and to their credit they wrote me a hefty compensation cheque. But my hands are still partially numb, and I'll be thinking about PBP for the next four years. (Per chi legge in italiano, consiglio questo bel resoconto della Parigi-Brest di Ranieri Casalini.)

2008

After the disappointment of PBP, I took a year mostly off from organized randonneuring. Still, the few brevets I rode were memorable:

• The Santa Cruz Moss Beach 200K was beautiful as always, with sunny skies and a powerful tail-wind heading into the finish. I rode much of the way with David Strong and Ken Holloway, and we finished together with Masa Kobayashi in 7:31.
• The SF 300K introduced me to Russian River and the spectacular Sonoma coastline. I finished in 12:04 in the excellent company of Russ Fairles and the Beato brothers, Greg and Keith.
• On August 17, I participated in the RUSA 10th anniversary ride put on by the SF Randonneurs. The 200K route is one of my favorites, and takes in some of the highlights of the SF 300K. I never found a good pace match, and rode mostly alone to finish in 8:12.

2009

This year the Davis Bike Club is organizing the Gold Rush Randonnée, a 1200Km event that has been held every four years since 2001. It is a sign of randonneuring's growing popularity that I was roughly three-hundredth on the waiting list despite having signed up in January.

In January I rode the hilly SF 200K. The ride to the Point Reyes lighthouse and then up Tomales Bay was spectacular, but I felt pretty weak, stopped for two flat tires, and struggled to finish in 8:13.

By the SF 300K, I had several more long rides under my belt and finished strongly with the lead group in 11:20. I wrote a ride report.

I missed the Santa Cruz 200K due to family commitments, but squeezed in the Davis 300K. It was a hot day with headwinds on the return leg, but Bryan Brock and I worked together to finish in a relatively brisk 11:02. That's fifteen minutes slower than in 2007, but I felt a lot stronger and not as close to the red line.

The SF 400K is a gorgeous ride. Aron Mason and Russ Fairles and I rode together the whole way to finish in 16:29, and I did a write-up.

A few more spring and early summer rides worth writing about:

• Devil Mountain double century: 200 miles, about 19,000 feet of climbing, almost no shade. I went out too fast, bonked on Patterson Pass, overheated in the hinterlands behind Mount Hamilton, and struggled to the finish in 16:02. I'll be back next year to try to do better, though I sort of dread it already. This is one ride that is all about, uh ... self-improvement.
• Terrible Two double century: some of the climbs are steeper than at Devil Mountain, but the aggregate climbing is more moderate (16,000 feet), and the scenery is its own reward: vineyards, fields, redwood forests, coastal cliffs. This is probably my favorite one-day ride in California so far, and I understand why some have been doing it every year for a decade or more. I finished in a relatively peppy 13:01, after time trialing for an hour from Monte Rio to Sebastopol in an attempt to make it sub-thirteen.
• Davis 600K brevet. A lovely ride through the Central Valley and the Gold Country foothills that follows the first and last quarters of the Gold Rush 1200K route. Thunderstorms in the mountains made for a spectacular sunset and a wet but memorable ride up the Feather River Canyon to Taylorsville. A small lead group (Russ Fairles, Gintautas Budvytis, Aron Mason, Wade Baker, John Lauer, and myself) rode together for over a hundred miles, then split apart on the climbs. Russ, Gintautas, and I rode together all the way, but despite our best efforts we never did manage to catch Wade or John. Nonetheless, our time of 25:36 was a personal best for me on the distance. Favorite memories: the Feather River Canyon emerging from darkness under a light drizzle in the morning; bright green rice paddies stretching to the horizon from the levees of the Sacramento River; fries at In-n-Out Burger with Gintautas when it was all over.
• Big Basin 200K brevet. A repeat of 2007's super-hilly jaunt through the redwoods, with some extra heat thrown it: it was 98F on top of China Grade in Big Basin State Park, and 100F in Cupertino. Barley Forsman and I rode together to finish in 8:36, the day's best time and a bit faster than what I managed in '07. Cold soda at the finish tasted good.

Despite my worries about the waiting list, everyone who wanted to got to ride the Gold Rush 1200K. It was an epic adventure, and I wrote a ride report.

2010

A lot of riding (on top of work and family) has left little time for writing. But I've had a good randonneuring season, with a surprising string of personal best times in the 300, 400, and 600Km distances. Frankly, I doubt I could have achieved them without the help and companionship of a small group of fast and similarly motivated riders, especially Russ Fairles and Peter Morrissey. And the bike commute from San Francisco to Mountain View can't hurt either.

Like in 2006, I jotted down a couple sentences by which to remember each ride—see here. The highlight of my season was definitely the Davis 600K, my fastest and in some ways most difficult long-distance ride to date. I wrote a ride report for that one.

For the first time, and with David Strong's help, I have designed a brevet course. It is going through the RUSA approval process as I write this. The Old Caz 300K is scheduled for August 28.