T
Tim McNamara
Guest
The first brevet of the season here in Minnesota was held on
Saturday May 15th. We're probably one of the latest
scheduled 200K brevets in the US, I suspect. Heck, Seattle
did theirs in, what, January or something? Trying to do a
200 K around here in January would probably lead to an
unacceptably high mortality rate and/or civil commitment.
The hosts of the brevet series in Minnesota- for many years-
are the Rochester Active Sports Club in Rochester MN. The
routes meander through southern Minnesota into northeastern
Iowa. The 200K route serves as the base for the 300K, the
300K as the base for the 400K and in turn most of the 400K
serves as the base for the 600K. Martin is the organizer for
the brevet series. He does such a good job of marking the
course that it is possible to complete all of the brevets
without looking at the map or cue sheet once. The terrain is
rolling, fairly similar to much of the terrain between San-Quentin-en-
Yvelines and Loudeac; northeastern Iowa, known as the
"driftless area" is very rolling with practically no flat
riding at all. The 600K has over 18000 feet (over 5600
meters) of climbing.
Start-time temperature was about 40 deg F with an expected
high of 64. The possibility of rain was predicted for late
afternoon, after 4:00 PM. This offered some incentive for
riding reasonably expeditiously. About 15 people turned up
for the ride, which is about half of the number that turned
out last year to try to qualify for PBP. There were some
returning faces and several new ones. The bikes were, as
usual, mainly race bikes with perhaps some racks clamped on
to carry a truck bag. Few had fenders. Since the weather was
predicted to be dry for the time I'd be riding, I opted to
ride my Ritchey road bike (fillet brazed steel, Campy Chorus
9sp with Superbe brake calipers, MA2 rims and 700 x 28 Conti
Ultra 2000s, Brooks Pro, and the most comfortable big-guy
drop bars ever made, the Nitto 175s). If rain had been
likely, I'd have ridden my Katakura Silk Road with a mongrel
mix of parts and fenders. My goal was a sub-eight hour ride.
We rolled out of the WallyWorld parking lot at 8:02 into a
light southeast wind. The ride starts with a bit of a climb,
so right away the groups sorted out. I was with the front
group of 6. Over the rolling terrain I realized these guys
were going faster than I wanted to over the rollers without
a warmup, so I let 'em go. Even though this is the shortest
brevet, it's still a long day on the bike. It was a
beautiful morning with a crisp blue sky showing off the
spring green to good advantage. About 6 miles into the ride,
a wild turkey ran across the road in front of me.
I was enjoying riding with solitude, in between the front
group and the rearguard, for almost all of the first two
hours. I saw a single rider ahead of me and was slowly
catching up to him. I saw no reason to hurry, as it was such
a nice day and I was enjoying the quiet. On the other hand
the wind was slowly picking up, so eventually it would be
nice to have some help. Just after Salem Corners I caught
him, and a few minutes later we were joined from behind by
another rider and then another, making a group of four.
Thomas, who had also decided to drop off the lead group, was
stronger than me up the hills whereas I tended to be a bit
quicker on the flat (such as it was). Mitch, an
ultramarathon runner, had just taken up cycling last year
and found he was lacking in confidence in group riding (no
lack of skills, he rode just fine). Tom was new to brevets
and the idea of PBP, and was along to test the waters.
We rode together into the first controle in Stewartville
MN, at about
10:10. The leaders had been through about 20 minutes
earlier. We didn't rush the controle, and as we were
leaving the organizer rolled up, having been delayed
by some administrative stuff. He hassled us good
naturedly about dawdling. We left and rolled onto
the least interesting stretch of the ride, a long
easterly, pretty flat run to Chatfield. This stretch
goes on for a bit over an hour, I guess. We tried a
paceline that didn't work so well, due to Mitch's
lack of confidence and my tendency to push it along
the flat bits to make up for my slow climbing. In
short, we lost Mitch and then I managed to drop the
other two until I noticed I had rolled away from
them. Oops!
A fast, rough downhill presages Chatfield. The route goes
therough the "Chosen Valley" which is very pretty and
offered a nice view of what appeared to be a sharp-shinned
hawk hovering over a field. We again didn't rush the
controle, and spent some time getting rid of extra layers as
the temperature was now near 60 deg F. Martin rolled in
after us and was out of the controle in about two minutes.
From Chatfield, the next controle is Wykoff which is also
the turnaround. The ride from Chatfield to Wykoff is a
lovely valley on a relatively quiet road, which finishes
with a nice climb up to the plains of southern Minnesota.
Thomas and I caught up with Martin and rode into Wykoff with
him. At the controle, after further adjustment of clothing
for the temperature, Martin, Mitch and I took off. Thomas
and Tom decided to rest a bit at the controle. We lost Mitch
again between Wykoff and Chatfield, and I decided to stick
with Martin. He has done four PBPs and many brevets, so I
figured I could learn a lot from tagging along with him. I
was right- I learned a lot about pacing, efficient
management of controles, etc. Martin, being shorter, much
lighter and a more natural athlete than I am, dropped me on
the larger hills and I'd have to catch up on the flats and
descents. His enthusiasm for riding was infectious. He also
admitted the possibility that he might not stick to his plan
to do no more PBPs...
As the day went on, clouds moved in until the skies were
mostly overcast. The winds picked up, shifting to the
southwest so that we had a quartering headwind much of the
time. Mammatus (sp?) clouds were evident, suggesting the
possibility of real weather. However, this was mostly
ignored as I asked Martin questions and heard some of his
stories about PBP (three times on his regular bike and once
on a tandem). The controle at Stewartville appeared and
Martin showed me a way around a rather inconvenient busy
intersection and road. We were about 45 minutes behind the
leaders at that point, and calculated that the last rider
was about two hours behind us. From there we expected to be
back to Rochester a little after 4:00 PM. A few miles out of
Stewartville our route turned so that we had a tailwind
again, which was quite enjoyable- and much appreciated as
the fact that my longest ride this year before the brevet
had been 65 miles was becoming evident. The next controle
was Byron, at which point it was 12 miles to the end,
including the hill near Oxbow Park, a tough and fairly long
hill that's not so much fun at the end of a brevet (and is
much worse on the 300K and 400K, in particular).
Soon WallyWorld was in sight. We got our cards stamped and
went back to our cars. Clock time was 8:35 to complete the
200K with about 4000 feet total climbing. This compares to
last year's 200K of (I think)
11:32 when I was having a lot of knee pain from riding too-
long cranks. Thanks to tagging along with Martin, my
total time at controles was about 38 minutes- a vast
improvement over last year! We had a bite to eat at a
nearby restaurant before getting in the car to drive the
90 minutes back to St. Paul, a few sprinkles starting to
fall just as I pulled up in front of the house.
My wife's adventure for the day had been her first fly
fishing lesson. She caught four trout on a stream in Wisconsin-
one of which she caught on her second cast-so we both had a
really nice day. Pizzas from Punch Woodfire Pizza in St.
Paul (the best pizza for about 400 miles in any direction)
and a bottle of red to celebrate!
Saturday May 15th. We're probably one of the latest
scheduled 200K brevets in the US, I suspect. Heck, Seattle
did theirs in, what, January or something? Trying to do a
200 K around here in January would probably lead to an
unacceptably high mortality rate and/or civil commitment.
The hosts of the brevet series in Minnesota- for many years-
are the Rochester Active Sports Club in Rochester MN. The
routes meander through southern Minnesota into northeastern
Iowa. The 200K route serves as the base for the 300K, the
300K as the base for the 400K and in turn most of the 400K
serves as the base for the 600K. Martin is the organizer for
the brevet series. He does such a good job of marking the
course that it is possible to complete all of the brevets
without looking at the map or cue sheet once. The terrain is
rolling, fairly similar to much of the terrain between San-Quentin-en-
Yvelines and Loudeac; northeastern Iowa, known as the
"driftless area" is very rolling with practically no flat
riding at all. The 600K has over 18000 feet (over 5600
meters) of climbing.
Start-time temperature was about 40 deg F with an expected
high of 64. The possibility of rain was predicted for late
afternoon, after 4:00 PM. This offered some incentive for
riding reasonably expeditiously. About 15 people turned up
for the ride, which is about half of the number that turned
out last year to try to qualify for PBP. There were some
returning faces and several new ones. The bikes were, as
usual, mainly race bikes with perhaps some racks clamped on
to carry a truck bag. Few had fenders. Since the weather was
predicted to be dry for the time I'd be riding, I opted to
ride my Ritchey road bike (fillet brazed steel, Campy Chorus
9sp with Superbe brake calipers, MA2 rims and 700 x 28 Conti
Ultra 2000s, Brooks Pro, and the most comfortable big-guy
drop bars ever made, the Nitto 175s). If rain had been
likely, I'd have ridden my Katakura Silk Road with a mongrel
mix of parts and fenders. My goal was a sub-eight hour ride.
We rolled out of the WallyWorld parking lot at 8:02 into a
light southeast wind. The ride starts with a bit of a climb,
so right away the groups sorted out. I was with the front
group of 6. Over the rolling terrain I realized these guys
were going faster than I wanted to over the rollers without
a warmup, so I let 'em go. Even though this is the shortest
brevet, it's still a long day on the bike. It was a
beautiful morning with a crisp blue sky showing off the
spring green to good advantage. About 6 miles into the ride,
a wild turkey ran across the road in front of me.
I was enjoying riding with solitude, in between the front
group and the rearguard, for almost all of the first two
hours. I saw a single rider ahead of me and was slowly
catching up to him. I saw no reason to hurry, as it was such
a nice day and I was enjoying the quiet. On the other hand
the wind was slowly picking up, so eventually it would be
nice to have some help. Just after Salem Corners I caught
him, and a few minutes later we were joined from behind by
another rider and then another, making a group of four.
Thomas, who had also decided to drop off the lead group, was
stronger than me up the hills whereas I tended to be a bit
quicker on the flat (such as it was). Mitch, an
ultramarathon runner, had just taken up cycling last year
and found he was lacking in confidence in group riding (no
lack of skills, he rode just fine). Tom was new to brevets
and the idea of PBP, and was along to test the waters.
We rode together into the first controle in Stewartville
MN, at about
10:10. The leaders had been through about 20 minutes
earlier. We didn't rush the controle, and as we were
leaving the organizer rolled up, having been delayed
by some administrative stuff. He hassled us good
naturedly about dawdling. We left and rolled onto
the least interesting stretch of the ride, a long
easterly, pretty flat run to Chatfield. This stretch
goes on for a bit over an hour, I guess. We tried a
paceline that didn't work so well, due to Mitch's
lack of confidence and my tendency to push it along
the flat bits to make up for my slow climbing. In
short, we lost Mitch and then I managed to drop the
other two until I noticed I had rolled away from
them. Oops!
A fast, rough downhill presages Chatfield. The route goes
therough the "Chosen Valley" which is very pretty and
offered a nice view of what appeared to be a sharp-shinned
hawk hovering over a field. We again didn't rush the
controle, and spent some time getting rid of extra layers as
the temperature was now near 60 deg F. Martin rolled in
after us and was out of the controle in about two minutes.
From Chatfield, the next controle is Wykoff which is also
the turnaround. The ride from Chatfield to Wykoff is a
lovely valley on a relatively quiet road, which finishes
with a nice climb up to the plains of southern Minnesota.
Thomas and I caught up with Martin and rode into Wykoff with
him. At the controle, after further adjustment of clothing
for the temperature, Martin, Mitch and I took off. Thomas
and Tom decided to rest a bit at the controle. We lost Mitch
again between Wykoff and Chatfield, and I decided to stick
with Martin. He has done four PBPs and many brevets, so I
figured I could learn a lot from tagging along with him. I
was right- I learned a lot about pacing, efficient
management of controles, etc. Martin, being shorter, much
lighter and a more natural athlete than I am, dropped me on
the larger hills and I'd have to catch up on the flats and
descents. His enthusiasm for riding was infectious. He also
admitted the possibility that he might not stick to his plan
to do no more PBPs...
As the day went on, clouds moved in until the skies were
mostly overcast. The winds picked up, shifting to the
southwest so that we had a quartering headwind much of the
time. Mammatus (sp?) clouds were evident, suggesting the
possibility of real weather. However, this was mostly
ignored as I asked Martin questions and heard some of his
stories about PBP (three times on his regular bike and once
on a tandem). The controle at Stewartville appeared and
Martin showed me a way around a rather inconvenient busy
intersection and road. We were about 45 minutes behind the
leaders at that point, and calculated that the last rider
was about two hours behind us. From there we expected to be
back to Rochester a little after 4:00 PM. A few miles out of
Stewartville our route turned so that we had a tailwind
again, which was quite enjoyable- and much appreciated as
the fact that my longest ride this year before the brevet
had been 65 miles was becoming evident. The next controle
was Byron, at which point it was 12 miles to the end,
including the hill near Oxbow Park, a tough and fairly long
hill that's not so much fun at the end of a brevet (and is
much worse on the 300K and 400K, in particular).
Soon WallyWorld was in sight. We got our cards stamped and
went back to our cars. Clock time was 8:35 to complete the
200K with about 4000 feet total climbing. This compares to
last year's 200K of (I think)
11:32 when I was having a lot of knee pain from riding too-
long cranks. Thanks to tagging along with Martin, my
total time at controles was about 38 minutes- a vast
improvement over last year! We had a bite to eat at a
nearby restaurant before getting in the car to drive the
90 minutes back to St. Paul, a few sprinkles starting to
fall just as I pulled up in front of the house.
My wife's adventure for the day had been her first fly
fishing lesson. She caught four trout on a stream in Wisconsin-
one of which she caught on her second cast-so we both had a
really nice day. Pizzas from Punch Woodfire Pizza in St.
Paul (the best pizza for about 400 miles in any direction)
and a bottle of red to celebrate!