![]() These rando clubs are two of the largest in the nation, and lucky me, I have friends in both groups. I sent out an email to friends in the SF area and up in Seattle. Plus, if I got this done, I would fulfill the requirements for an award I was chasing before I was injured. The British Columbia Lowlands 600k fit the bill. I needed something that was 600k, but not too far away and a ride without a ton of climbing. Most clubs have already run them and what’s left will be done in the Fall. Scouting around for a 600k at this time of year isn’t easy. Ride a successful 600k and you have a spot on the Last Chance roster. I said I’d feel more comfy attempting LC with a 600k under me and he agreed. ![]() I emailed John Lee, the organizer of Last Chance, sheepishly inquiring if he’d bend the rules and let me attempt LC without having done all of the pre-qualifying rides (a set of 200, 300, 400, and 600k brevets). It was the right move to skip it, however, I realized that I wanted to knock out a 1200k ride this season if I could and there are only two left in the US: Taste of Carolina and Last Chance. Many finished, some did not, all had quite the challenge. I sat it out, tracking friends on Facegag and on the website watching them progress through the UK. It is 1400k long and I just wasn’t in shape to take the ride on. This past July, I bailed out of riding London-Edinburgh-London. For me, adventure with friends defines a life well lived. You’ve shared an adventure and that’s the elixir I want in my life. The camaraderie of riding all day and long into the night – and sometimes into the next day and so on – builds deep relationships with people. Riding longer distances also means you watch the sun move across the sky, appreciating the colors of light during the golden hour after you’ve been riding since dawn. I love the wind in my hair, going fast on a downhill carving the hairpin turn, watching the world go by at 15+ mph, talking with friends as the miles pass by. I missed riding my bike, because I love riding bikes. In that light, I spent a bit of time thinking about whether or not I wanted to ride my bike for long inappropriate distances. And if you strive to get back to that person, you’ll be frustrated, so resetting who you want to be, what you want to do, how you want to spend your time and with whom, is perhaps, the only gift as a result of the injury. You can’t go back to being the person you were, that person is gone. Reset the choices before you, reset your goals. One of the upshots of being injured for a long time is that you get to reset. This year has been all about recovery and getting back some semblance of shape and strength. If you’ve read any of my blogs, then you know that I was hit by a car 2+ years ago and spent 2015 and 16 in a wheelchair or on crutches. They require organization and discipline and you can be trained up and as mentally ready for the ride as possible, knowing all along that things don’t go as planned. ![]() No one skates through a 1200k, gliding on pavement as perfect as a fresh sheet of ice. I have always approached longer rides as campaigns because these rides don’t come easily to me. Think for a minute about what that must take to accomplish. ![]() That was pretty big for me, but there are others who knock out six, seven, eight or nine in a year. For a couple of years I was lucky enough to complete more than one or two a year. I used to do these 1200k rides on a yearly basis. It’s tough to wrap your head around the length of time that you are going to ride your bike. That’s a fair description because any time I talk to someone who doesn’t do these type of rides, they shake their heads, asking reiterative questions like, “did you say 1200k…um, how far is that, in …90?, er, um, how many hours?” More head shaking. Among my friends we commonly say that we’re off on a ride of inappropriate distances. Campaigns.Ĭampaigns to ride 1200 kilometers in under 90 hours, aka randonneuring.
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