449 km

RUSA has a distance award that factors in consistency around the calendar called the R12 award. The criteria riders are required to complete is to ride at least one 200km brevet or permanent route each month. Living in Northern California, I can ride year round making only modest changes to address the weather from roughly mid-November through April. That said, the tail end of 2008 was more of a tail-off in terms of riding. Along about mid January I became re-invigorated riding wise, and I even got to ride the SFR Point Reyes Lighthouse 200km I was organizing. With that 200km, I cobbled together a string of months with at least one 200km brevet: January 24: SFR Point Reyes LightHouse 200km February 28: Santa Rosa 200km March 14: Santa Rosa 300km April 4: SFR Hopland 400km April 26: SFR Russian River 200km May 30: SFR Fort Bragg 600km June 13: SFR Nighttime Davis 200km A couple times, I was flirting with the end of the month, just sneaking in the brevet before the calendar page...

Yes, I admit I'm way behind in posting to this page. A run down of what I 'owe' is not a short list: finish the 2007 PBP write-up, add a write up of the SFR 600km and any missing brevets from the SR series, a Davis Double write up, and summarize my experience on the 2009 GRR. I am at work on all of those, but life intrudes upon writing about life, so there you have it. More soon, I promise. rob

Oh for three would be one way to look at it. That isn't as accurate or as descriptive as the experience calls for though. Oh for three suggests I came away empty handed for the third time on a 1200km Randonnée and that just isn't so. I came away from the 2009 Gold Rush Randonnée with quite a lot. July 6th at 6pm on the northern edge of the city of Davis was the date and location for the start of the 2009 Gold Rush Randonnée. By completing the Super Randonneur series this year, I had qualified for the Gold Rush Randonnée, a 1200 km ride in 90 hours or less that traverses the Central Valley and climbs through the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the northeast corner of California at Davis Creek. On July 2nd I left work early, not because I had to go home to prepare for the ride and a week plus away from the office, but instead because I had a full blown cold and felt like crap. I went straight to bed, gulping lots of water and gobbling lots of vitamins, Echinacea , and Sudafed. Fri...