Skip to main content

Progress report

I began this blog first as a place to record my notes on my attempt on PBP 2007 and going forward as a place to note my progress toward preparation for the 2011 version of Paris, Brest et retour. One milestone on the brevet season would be completing the Super Randonneur series of 200, 300, 400 and 600km brevets. I was able to complete that in late May when I finished the SFR Fort Bragg 600km. Not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, it took me completing the June Davis Nighttime Brevet before I realized I had a string going and another marker of progress was underway: one half of the RUSA R12 award.

HAWKS, Rob | San Francisco Randonneurs | 905030

Cert No. Type Km Date Organizing Club / ACP Code Medal
RUSA-P03830 RUSAP 114 10-03-2009 San Francisco Randonneurs / 905030 n/a
278244 ACPB 200 01-24-2009 San Francisco Randonneurs / 905030 N
279233 ACPB 200 02-28-2009 Santa Rosa Cycling Club / 905048 N
285105 ACPB 200 04-26-2009 San Francisco Randonneurs / 905030 N
287506 ACPB 200 06-13-2009 San Francisco Randonneurs / 905030 N
RUSA-T06954 RUSAT 203 07-25-2009 Jittery Jaunt 200km / 249 n/a
pending RUSAT 203 09-30-2009 Jittery Jaunt 200km / 249 n/a
RUSA-T07045 RUSAT 207 08-15-2009 Berkeley to Davis / 555 n/a
101760 ACPB 300 03-14-2009 Santa Rosa Cycling Club / 905048 N
67678 ACPB 400 04-04-2009 San Francisco Randonneurs / 905030 N
51360 ACPB 600 05-30-2009 San Francisco Randonneurs / 905030 N
Award status: Super Randonneur, RUSA 2624 km

The chart above doesn't tally a September permanent (Willy's Jittery Jaunt), finished with 8 spare hours remaining in September. Heck, I could have nearly dashed off another 200km. I'm planning on also repeating the Berkeley to Davis permanent later this month, then I'll ride the San Francisco Randonneurs' Point Reyes Lighthouse 200km in early November, and probably the Del Puerto Loop, which adds an out and back to one of my favorite Grizzly Peak Cyclists fall rides.

The chart above is also a pretty dry rendering of 2009's cycling events. What it doesn't convey of course is the experience of climbing Highway 128 toward Mountain House road north of Cloverdale in the heat of a Saturday afternoon westbound, and 12 hours later climbing it eastbound into the fog in the early morning, or chasing the taillights of the lead pack in the dark where the Central Valley flatlands transition from the undulations of the Vaca Mountains north of Vacaville. It also can't convey the experience of climbing out of the fog settled in the chilly Nicasio Valley in early April, or the return to the 100F heat on the 2009 version of the Davis Double in May. A chart can't warm you in the same way that sitting around a roaring camp fire in Paul Dimmick park on the return leg of the Fort Bragg 600km, chatting with a handful of your fellow brevet riders can, nor can a tally of miles demonstrate the dual beauty of riding with your son in the Sierra surrounded by granite themed beauty can. We use these charts and photos as triggers for those memories though, and it is a good start.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

2007 PBP, Part 1: Arrival and departure

On the Sunday before the start of the 2007 Paris-Brest-Paris (PBP) Randonnee, a large number of Northern California riders gathered after the mandatory, but this year much abbreviated, bike inspection. We sat at a cafe, indoors alas, and tried to ignore the falling rain outside. My friend Reid made a waggish remark about the experience we were about to have. He said that doing Paris-Brest-Paris in the rain could be quite easily simulated at home by standing in a cold shower in bicycling clothing while ripping up $100 bills. I thought about this remark and in the the long, dark hours of the first night's ride through the French countryside, and with the rain beginning to pelt us once more, I came to the conclusion that the analogy was inadequate. What was missing in the comment was that it failed to include any mention of first having to stand in line to get into the cold shower. Having now commented on the inadequacies of the analogy (and pausing briefly to state that I completed...
3 comments
Read more

SFRs' Mendocino Coast (née Fort Bragg) 600km brevet: A history and stats (updated March, 2025)

The Mendocino Coast 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 Mendocino Coast 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 Mendocino Coast 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 ver...
1 comment
Read more