449 km

In early 2007, I participated in a number of cycling events, of which the qualifying brevets were only some of those rides. PBP of course was a central discussion topic so many times and at those other rides I met a number of prospective PBP riders. The Grizzly Peak Cyclists , one of the clubs I ride with and an ancestor to the San Francisco Randonneurs, hosts a Tuesday Night Ride series aimed at the faster cyclist wanting to get in a mid-week training ride after work and prepare for the coming California Triple Crown Double Century series . The few times I showed up for those Tuesday Night rides, I had already done my ride for the day (I had plenty of free time from mid-November 2006 to early March 2007 when I was unemployed due to the implosion of my former employer Apelon). It was at one of those Tuesday Night rides that I first met Phil Morris, who had been described to me as a very strong, fast rider. Phil was working himself back into condition after a lengthy cycling layoff, an...

I'm taking a short break from posting segments of my Paris-Brest-Paris report to toss in a ride report from the brevet series that I am riding in 2009. This past Saturday (April 4, 2009), I rode the San Francisco Randonneurs Hopland 400km. This is a route that is relatively new for SFR, having been used only once before in the lead up to PBP in 2007. That year, the brevet started at noon, effectively lengthening (if not doubling) the hours of night-time riding. A small minority of riders preferred the later start, but the majority of riders this year were vocal in their preference for the 6am start. The traditional SFR SR brevet events all start at the Golden Gate Bridge and 41 riders were gathered Saturday morning near the Strauss Statue at the bridge's visitor center, waiting for the start. On different brevets I've made more of an effort to be near the front of the departing pack, but on this day I pretty much let all the riders roll up the ramp ahead of me before I sta...