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Where is Rob?

 Every four years, the Audax Club Parisien (ACP) will hold their Paris-Brest-Paris (or PBP) Randonneur event. There has been an amateur version of PBP since 1931. However, PBP has existed in some form since 1891, though back then it was a race, held about every 10 years until 1931 with a gap for the war, and then for the last time as a race in 1951. The take-away though is that PBP is no longer a race, there is no first and last place and the only metric to assess riders really is one of pass/fail. You either finish in the time limit, or you don't. Currently, PBP offers three start groups: 80 hours, 90 hours and 84 hours, in order of start. Each group will broken up into start waves with somewhere north of 200 (250?) riders in each wave. Under the direction of the ACP, Randonneurs USA (RUSA) sanctions qualifying events for PBP of 200, 300, 400 and 600km, each with a time limit. RUSA administers regions through out the US and there are five of those in Northern California, one in C...
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A history of the SFR Healdsburg (nee Russian River) 300 from 1999 through 2022

There are only two routes that SFR currently uses that stretch back to our first year (1999) as a RUSA region, and of those two (Mendocino Coast (formerly Fort Bragg) 600 and Healdsburg 300) only the Healdsburg 300km has been held every year SFR has held brevets. History First run in 1999, this route and all SFR events, took a break while the region was inactive from 2000 through 2002. Once an active region again in 2003, this 300km route has then been held every year since, now through 2022 and SFR has hosted 21 iterations of the Healdsburg 300km. The name for this early season 300km was once the Russian River 300km. Other SFR routes have been named for the point furthest from the start, for example the Hopland 400km so following that convention, many SFR members, past and present refered to this route as the Healdsburg 300 and that is how it now appears in both the RUSA database and SFR website. Another problem with the old 'Russian River' name is that it wasn't unique...
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The fourth time is a charm? PBP 2019 part 1

"I'm cured!". This was a posting I made within hours of having finished Paris, Brest, Paris 2015, hinting that it would be my last PBP. BS was officially called within seconds of that post hitting the interwebs, and this was not the first time that I was wrong (nor I suspect the last time I will be wrong). It is impossible to separate my experiences of riding PBP 2019 from any of those of past editions and the reader will have to forgive those moments of personal context that will follow below. Chartres Cathedral For the number of roadblocks I faced during the four year run-up to PBP 2019, as things transpired I led a somewhat charmed life once landing in France this past August. On the day before my flight, I received an email from Ed Felker inviting me to join Mary and him on a shake down ride out to Chartres. I had heard Craig Robertson describe the sight of the cathedral up on it's hill as he and Lori Cherry approached by bike from the west on a pre-PBP...
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The fourth time is a charm? PBP 2019 part 2

RUSA #1349 For riders that take PBP in three parts, Loudeac is often the control that cleaves the route into those three parts: Part 1, start to Loudeac: ~275 miles; Part 2, Loudeac-Brest-Loudeac: ~210 miles; Part 3, Loudeac to the finish: ~275 miles. On paper Part 2 looks to be a cake walk with it being a big chunk shorter. Well. No. It isn't a cake walk. One reason is that this section just feels hillier. Way more hilly, and in fact just getting away from Loudeac requires climbing a series of big rollers. Ironically, Roc'h Trevezel, the major climb on the ride, the highest point on the ride, and the location that provides the greatest unobstructed vista is much easier than so many other, shorter climbs. But it is in Part 2 and a focal point of that part. The band (Mary and Ed on the tandem, Jerry, Anson, Roy and Brian K.) are all together as we leave and negotiate those first big rollers. Overnight, fog and appeared and settled in the lower laying areas and the early ...
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The fourth time is a charm?, PBP 2019 part 3

Anson and I leave Loudeac on Day 3 behind the other riders in our group and a little later than the 07:15 projection of the night before. As we depart, the control would be officially closed (07:37 for the last 84 hour wave), but in fact remain open to handle the steady stream of all the late arriving riders. Though the others are ahead, Anson and I each felt no sense of urgency. The experience of the previous two days taught us we'd absolutely reconnect with the others, somewhere up ahead. As on the morning of Day 2, the large breakfast I ate at the hotel was only part one of a Hobbit's Breakfast  and nutritional insurance was purchased later that morning in  Quédillac for 'second breakfast'. Anson and I were clearing the food purchasing area just as the Tandem Team was departing. As in 2015, as I was leaving this food stop I encountered a videographer documenting Paris, Brest, Paris but this time it was the other half of the team  (but not Damon Peacock himself) a...
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The fourth time is a charm?, PBP 2019 part 4

Just one left to fill Unlike the fog that descended on the landscape overnight on Monday, the fog forming on Thursday morning was mental. But the chill was real. One downside to leaving Mortagne is that so much of the early terrain is down hill, and the coldest part of night was taking hold on that terrain for both the 84 hour riders and many if not most of the 90 hour riders. In the dark, it seemed that so few riders had gotten on the road, but as the kilometers clicked off the frequency of passing riders increased and packs were again forming, and as the sky lightened there was again a steady stream of red tail lights ahead. Foggy headed and chilled by early morning air that was nudging 40F, many riders reacted with indecision when navigational decisions were to be made and a simple left turn on the route that wasn't within a village caught 95% of the riders and large groups would have to navigate a u-turn amid the chaotic scene. At long last, the undulating landscape smo...
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The San Francisco Randonneurs' Fort Bragg 600km brevet: A history and stats

The Fort Bragg 600km is not the most frequently run SFR event and it isn't the one with the most participants in a given year, but as there is a notion of progressively longer events within our 'PBP Qualifiers', the Fort Bragg 600km has some luster as a 'signature' brevet. History The route from SF to Fort Bragg and back is attributed to Daryl Skrabak though it is listed on the RUSA site as submitted by Todd Teachout who was the SFR RBA when route numbers were first assigned to existing and new routes. According to RUSA records, this route was first run in 1999 with Daryl Skrabak as RBA. Much like PBP itself, though not for the same reasons, the Fort Bragg 600km was not run every year. Daryl ran the brevet once in 1999, and after that it was next run in 2004 under 2nd year RBA Todd Teachout. Todd listed the event again in 2005 through 2007. After a gap year in 2008, the event was again run, this time by 2nd year RBA Rob Hawks with subsequent versions run from ...
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